Topic: HP Microserver N40LE for SME7.x and SME8.x (compatibility and resourses)

[TerryF]

A heads up, I went to purchase an HP N40L, only to be told that they were discontinued 5 months ago. I'll have to jump on ebay to see what I can get.

Still available HERE although the discounting has ended.

[chris burnat]

Still available HERE at around $250 + GST

[Smitro]

Thanks all, I ordered one from Mega Buy in Brisbane. I've never used them before, so hopefully they're good.

[Smitro]

Hey, while on the N40L. Has anyone else had trouble with the speed of the drives?

I've put 2 Seagate 2TB SATA3 (ST2000DM001) drives and the formatting is taking hours. I've looked at other posts, and have not been any help. Will there be a speed problem after the format or should I just sit through it? Is there settings in the BIOS I should change? (followed others instructions but didn't help)

[Jáder]

Did you turned off the hardware  RAID in BIOS ?
OR did you turned off the SOFTWARE RAID on boot screen ?

If you do not turned off ONE of those... you're trying to do wrong thing: TWO RAID (one by SW on SME, other by HW on N40L)

Please verify and return here with status.

[Smitro]

Ok, so maybe I'm half there.

In Bios the AHCI option is selected (not IDE or RAID). Sorry can't remember the exact name of the option and the box is finally up to 70% so not sure if I should restart it.

Software RAID? I presume this is on. I didn't see an option for it, but from what I read it's on by default. How do I disable this?

Documentation on this site says I should use Software Raid, But I'm happy to use the one that works. Let me know the correct settings and I'll set them. (after wasting most of the day I'll try anything).

[cactus]

Software RAID? I presume this is on. I didn't see an option for it, but from what I read it's on by default. How do I disable this?

Only at install time by using the boot parameter noraid IIRC.

[Jáder]

Software RAID is default install for SME.
If you do not choose nothing else, you have a RAID install.

About your BIOS, I'm not sure, but if it's nor IDE neither is RAID, SHOULD be the correct option.
But I think even 1 hour to format a 2TB HDD is too much!

Something is not right, please do not put this server on production till you find out what is causing this slowing down of HDD.
If you have finished formating and installing SME, you can test HDD speed using hdparm:

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hdparm -tT /dev/sdaSee my numbers below as reference, this is a 1TB HDD running on Dell GX280 (old P4 CPU):

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[root@guepardo ~]# hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   2912 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1455.74 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  242 MB in  3.01 seconds =  80.53 MB/sec
[root@guepardo ~]#


[Smitro]

Finally the install finished this morning. I tried the hdparm and there doesn't seem to be any problems there.

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[root@box2]# hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   4272 MB in  2.00 seconds = 2135.69 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  388 MB in  3.01 seconds =  128.74 MB/sec
[root@box2]# hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   4136 MB in  2.00 seconds = 2067.96 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  388 MB in  3.01 seconds =  128.72 MB/sec

Both are identical drives.

[chris burnat]

Same here, taken an inordinate amount of time to format 1Tb drive. 3-4 hours, cannot remember.  Formatting 250GB was fast.
Setup in Bios left as default, I thin it was AHCI , cannot check, box in up and running...

HDD test OK:
[root@gateway0 ~]# hdparm -tT /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   4852 MB in  2.00 seconds = 2426.04 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  344 MB in  3.01 seconds = 114.24 MB/sec


[root@gateway0 ~]# hdparm -tT /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
 Timing cached reads:   4616 MB in  2.00 seconds = 2308.60 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  308 MB in  3.02 seconds = 102.08 MB/sec

Three boxes in production now, no drama so far.

[Smitro]

I tired a number of things.
Tried the IDE setting - No difference.
Onboard "fakeraid" - Formatted fast, but on first reboot ended with a kernal panic.
Single Drive AHCI - Formatted within an hour and booted fine. I then added the second drive. It took 10 hours (+/-1 hour) to rebuild the raid. Now the system has been sitting idle for a day and I notice that the Hard Drive light is still flickering every 2 seconds, and you can hear activity. I have not configured anything other than the questions durring the install. Is this normal for a Raid? Are my drives going to wear out a lot faster if they never get a chance to stop and smell the roses?

I ran 'top' and I can't see anything out of the ordinary using resources. It looks pretty idle. Maybe the occasional dnscache process. The machine has 6GB of ram, you would think that would be enough to leave the hard drive alone.

I'm about to bring data across to this server and go live, but want to hold off till it's right. Opinions? Do you think it's good to go? Is this normal?
(sorry for getting the original post off topic)

[Smitro]

I could see I was getting off topic, so I've started another post regarding constant hard drive usage.
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,48728.0.html

[chris burnat]

Just found this:
http://homeservershow.com/hp-microserver-n40l-build-and-bios-modification.html
A lot of information!