January 13th, 2009 
Kiwi Si 
Here’s a video clip I put together to give you an idea of the startup/boot and subsequent running noise of an HP Proliant ML115 G5 server.
The noise levels heard in this video are also reflective of other HP ML110 and ML115 G4/G5 servers – though it should be noted that the duration at which the server runs the fan at full speed are less (by a few seconds) on non ML115 G5 Quad Core models.
Once the hardware based environmental control starts doing its thing and throttles the fan speeds back then I find the noise levels more than acceptable for having the server running 24×7 in my office/’man cave’ next to our bedroom – for those of you considering running an ML110/ML115 in a home lab type environment.
Hope this helps…
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My name is Simon Seagrave and I am a London (UK) based Technical Architect. 
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Perfect timing as I just came across this machine to be my new storage server – I can’t believe how cheap they come! Dual core @ ~£70 (http://www.ukitonline.com/pgProduct.cfm?cx=7E77839DD37678338BD84CC6D2B8C3520B93E03B5A1ECA061D7DBF0EA8B2EBD3F8D79DDAD8) and quad-core @ ~£150 (http://www.officemagic.co.uk/products/hp-proliant-ml115-g5-special-tower-server-opteron-quad-core-1352-2-1ghz-512mb-250gb-non-hot-plug-sata-dvd-rw-3-year-next-business-day-warranty.html?utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=comparison&utm_campaign=froogle2008)… I am planning on sticking in 4 x 1.5TB drives since there is on-board SATA RAID 5, isn’t there?
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Kiwi Si Reply:
January 14th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Hi Andrew,
They do seem rather good prices – though unfortunately I notice they are currently showing 0 stock at the moment. I’ve seen this quite a bit when Googling for latest ML110/ML115 pricing to see if there are any deals around. Prices at the moment for these servers have be fluctuating a little over the last 3-4 months with the trend being a slight increase, ie: £199 –> £249 approx.
Let me know if they manage to get stock of these servers at the prices quoted on their website.
Cheers,
Si
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I went with here in the end (quad-core): http://store.cbccomputers.com/products.asp?partno=480570-035 @ £165 inc VAT. Also decided on 4 x 1TB drives with an offer from Scan.co.uk Today Only… The cheaper dual-core deal I found was a mis-price.
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[...] recently posting a video to YouTube for my ML115 startup/running noise video I came across a couple of videos that I thought others may find [...]
Did you get this working?
It says Internal mass storage Maximum 2 TB (4 x 500 GB) SATA
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Yep, no problems – the specs normally are written based on the largest currently available drives at the time. I installed Openfiler without any issues, but went with software RAID instead of the onboard NVidia based hardware RAID.
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Ah excellent, thanks.
I see there are 1.5TB drives on the market now… although that’s probably tempting fate !
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Hi Rick,
If you do end up getting one (or more
) – let us know how you get on. Would be interested to know.
Cheers,
Si
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I chickened out in the end ! Too many reports of the 1.5TB not working brilliantly just yet. Now running the 250GB as the system drive with 2.72TB via the onboard nvidia raid5, working very nicely.
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Hi Rick,
How are you finding the performance using the onboard disk controller? I find it fine but someone on the site recently was commenting that they were getting slow performance.
Cheers,
Si
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Well obviously i wouldn’t say its as good as a P600 controller but its perfect for what we are using it for. Sustained network transfers of large files run at pretty much line speed (100mbit/s) and i had a disk to disk transfer in the server run at about 240MByte/s.
A transfer of lots of small files seemed to slow it down a bit but that could well have been the wireless connection the user was on – not investigated too much as thats only ever done once in a while.
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Excellent idea to include the video.
My similar ML115 G5 Quad doesn’t quieten like this. It only moderates a little.
Is anything configurable? I can’t find anything in the BIOS.
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I just ran up a ML110 G5 server, and once you apply the two correct firmware updates the fan noise goes away completely (aside from the expected 15 seconds during startup/shutdown).
The two updates were:
* Firmware Upgrade for HP ProLiant ML115 G5\ML150 G5\ML110 G5\DL180 G5\DL120 G5 Lights-Out 100 Remote Management (For USB Key-Media) v3.11 (A)
29 Jun 2009
* Systems ROMPaq Firmware Upgrade for HP ProLiant ML110 G5 Servers (For USB Key-Media) v2009.10.09 (A) 26 Oct 2009
Also – the server does work with 1.5TB hard drives, but in RAID modes it cannot address more than 1TB per drive (meaning for 2x 1.5TB drives you get 1TB in RAID-1 or 2TB in RAID-0).
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