Skip to content

Homelab

Preview on HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 for ESXi

Hewlett-Packard has just released a Generation 8 Microserver which is going to replace the well known N36L/N40L/N54L Microservers. The new server has the same trendy design as the entire Gen8 series. The AMD Turion CPU has been replaced by an Intel Ivy Bride CPU which is way more powerful and the memory limit has been raised to 16GB. With that, the new server brings much more power to your VMware vSphere Homelab and allows you to run more virtual machines. In this post i am going to compare both specs to point out what's new and better.

Read More »Preview on HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 for ESXi

Building a VSA with Open-E DSS V7 inside ESXi

When you run a VMware platform there is usually no way around a shared storage system. A SAN is very expensive and you throw away the opportunity of using local storage. Common usage of ESXi hosts and storage Systems on x86 hardware also leads to a dilemma: Standard Servers usually have plenty of CPU, Memory and local Disks. With ESXi Hosts you waste the local storage and with storage systems you waste CPU and Memory. Combining both on the same hardware leads to an efficient usage that has the option to scale automatically. Today there are already some vendors in the market that provide SAN-free solutions with high available replicated local storage. This howto shows you how to share local storage by installing Open-E DSS V7 as a VSA inside an ESXi host using local storage with RDM.

Read More »Building a VSA with Open-E DSS V7 inside ESXi

Homelab Upgrade – 16GB Memory with HP N40L Microserver

There have been many rumors about the N40L supporting 8GB modules which enables the server to use up to 16GB of memory. This would be a great enhancement, especially with the new vSphere 5.1 where the many appliances requiring more physical memory.  First of all, the 8GB modules are not supported by HP so upgrade at your own risk.

I picked together all the modules which have been successfully tested with the HP N40L MicroServer:Read More »Homelab Upgrade – 16GB Memory with HP N40L Microserver

vSphere 5 Homelab - ESX on HP ProLiant N36L/N40L/N54L Microserver

Hewlett Packard has launched an extremely affordable server for SMB and home users. Not only due to its price of approximately 200 euros, but also because of its low power consumption it is an great candidate for a virtualization home lab. An optional Remote Access Card (RAC) can extend ILO similar functions to the server.

hp-proliant-n40l-box

The HP N40L has 2 CPU cores and supports up to 8GB of RAM. Although this is quite low for a hypervisor, it should be sufficient for a pure test environment. The server does only have a software-based RAID controller which will not work with the ESX. If you want to use the local disks as an array, you have to buy an additional RAID controller. The P410 for example is supported. I decided not to buy a RAID controller, because I want to store my VMs on an shared Storage. The good news is that the server is shipped with 4 hard drive trays, which allows the installation of any SATA hard drive.

hp-proliant-n40l-front

Features

The Server is shipped with the following configuration:

  • Prozessor: AMD Turion™ II Neo N40L (2x 1,50GHz)
  • Memory: 2GB PC3-10600E UDIMMs DDR3
  • Hard Disk: 1x Seagate Barracude (250GB, 7200RPM, SATA)
  • LAN: 1x 10/100/1000 MBit (NC107i)
  • PSU: 150 Watt, non-redundant
  • Ports: VGA, eSATA, 7x USB 2.0 (4x Front, 2x Back, 1x On-Board)

Read More »vSphere 5 Homelab - ESX on HP ProLiant N36L/N40L/N54L Microserver