October 24th, 2010 
Simon Seagrave 
I’ve been running VMware ESXi 4.1 on an HP MicroServer for a few weeks now and the following post is to summarise my findings and to answer a question many people have been asking - Does the HP MicroServer make for a decent VMware vSphere lab server and is it a true replacement to the HP ML115 G5?
If you want to read my conclusion on running vSphere on the MicroServer then skip to the end of the post, though if you want more detail around what is presented through to ESX/ESXi then read on. Also if you want more hands on information on the MicroServer check out my previous posts here and here.
Installation: Installing VMware vSphere 4.1 onto the HP MicroServer didn’t raise any issues. The entire installation process went through without a hitch, none of the CD/DVD not recognised issues that were originally seen with the ML110 G6’s. But then I did have to provide my own CD/DVD as the MicroServer doesn’t come with one as standard.
Let’s take a look at what ESX/ESXi see’s of the underlying hardware once it has been installed. The following images shows some of the key areas from the vSphere Client.
From within the ‘Summary’ tab it is clear that the AMD Athlon II Neo N36L (dual core) laptop grade CPU is detected without issue along with the other core components of the HP MicroServer such as the memory, local storage and of course the network card,
Processor Information: The AMD Athlon N36L CPU has the AMD64 extensions which are necessary for VMware vSphere and 64bit only OS’s such as Windows Server 2008 R2. It also has AMD-V virtualization enhancement extensions. 
Memory Information: The full 8GB (2 x 4GB DIMMs) of memory was detected by ESX/ESXi 4.1
Datastores – Local & NAS/SAN Storage: The local 160GB SATA disk was detected and presented through as a vmfs3 partition.
Network Adapter: The integrated Broadcom NC107i Gigabit network card was detected without issue.
Storage Adapters: The disk controller (SB700) is based on the on-board AMD chipset of the MicroServer. As this isn’t strictly a hardware based array controller and requires drivers to run an array on the server you will find that trying to RAID run under VMware ESX/ESXi won’t work. So if you require RAID functionality then you’d need to look at adding a PCIe based array controller or using shared SAN/NAS storage. However if you are not worried about disk resilience in your vSphere lab you could install ESX/ESXi off of a single local disk along with the VMs on the same or another added disk attached to the on-board controller.
VMDirectPath: Unsurprisingly the MicroServer’s chipset does not support VMDirect Path pass-through.
Power Management: The AMD N36L CPU of the MicroServer has the AMD PowerNow! instructions on-board meaning that ESX/ESXi host will be able to throttle the frequency of the CPU at times of varying utilization which can lead to power savings.
vMotion and Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC): One area that I was interested to test was around vMotion. As the MicroServer is running a low powered non-AMD Opteron processor how would it work along side an AMD Opteron processor as found in the ML115 G5?
A vMotion between the HP MicroServer and a ML115 G5 as you’d expect fails due to the incompatibility between the CPU models of the AMD Athlon N36L and AMD Opteron.
But what if you apply Enhanced vMotion Compatiblity (EVC) to a cluster containing the HP MicroServer and ML115 G5? The good news is that if you set the EVC mode of the cluster to AMD Opteron Generation 1 then vMotion and subsequently DRS will work between the Athlon and Opteron based CPUs.
Performance: Over the duration of the two weeks I ran on average 5 VMs on the MicroServer. Although the AMD N36L Dual Core 1.297GHz processor in the MicroServer is of quite a low specification I rarely saw it hit 80-90% of total CPU utilisation. In fact most of the time my VMs only used 300-400MHz, which isn’t really surprising since they weren’t doing too much. This of course could likely change when heavier CPU workloads are applied to the VMs. If you think you’re going to be running moderately CPU intensive applications or utilities on your VMs running on the MicroServer then you should take the speed and architecture of the N36L into consideration. With regard to memory there is nothing unusual here, ESX/ESXi and the guest OS’s will consume most of the memory you will give them.
Conclusion – Running VMware vSphere on an HP MicroServer
What attracted me to the HP MicroServer initially was the form factor. For those of us running home labs this small form factor is highly beneficial especially when combined with the low power consumption and noise generated by the server. When I first opened the box of the server I was a little surprised with the height of it as I was expecting a smaller form factor, something the size of a Shuttle PC. Check out my video in my earlier post here for a comparison in size of the MicroServer, ML115 and Shuttle. The build quality of the MicroServer is good with the plastic components not feeling cheap and brittle as is the case in some entry level servers.
Here’s a breakdown of my thoughts on the varying core components that make up the MicroServer in the context of running VMware vSphere on it:
CPU: Sufficient if you want to run relatively low CPU workloads on your VMs. What it does lack however is more GHz and a larger L2 cache to accommodate a larger number of VMs or CPU intensive workloads. In my opinion the CPU is the main area which is lacking in this ‘server’ offering from HP. The low power of the CPU does mean that it only needs to be passively cooled via a heat sink with the large extraction fan at the rear drawing air over it.
Memory: The 8GB memory maximum is fine for a small vSphere lab. The downside to the memory on the MicroServer however is all around cost. The two DIMM sockets in the MicroServer is rather limiting in my opinion even for a non-virtualised environment. It means that if you want to take the server up to the maximum 8GB, which is quite common these days, then you’ll need to look at purchasing 2 x 4GB DIMMs which unfortunately aren’t the cheapest and will add considerable cost to the overall purchase price of the server. In a vSphere lab server you ideally need to be running 8GB especially if running Windows Server 2008 VMs which tend to consume more memory than other OS’s.
Network: No complaints with the single embedded Broadcom NC107i Gigabit network card, this is detected ok by ESX/ESXi and is sufficient for most small lab environments. Of course additional network ports can be added via a PCIe network card(s) if required – which is often preferable when you start running storage and vMotion based network traffic.
Storage: The on-board SB700 storage is pretty basic stuff. Don’t expect to run RAID under ESX/ESXi on the server and the performance of running VMs off a single disk won’t be blazingly fast – though may likely prove to be fine for many small vSphere lab environments. There are 4 drives bays within the MicroServer so you could easily distribute your VMs onto separate spindles.
Overall: I fully acknowledge that it was never HP’s intention for the MicroServer to be used as a vSphere virtualization server though with its attractive form factor and with the HP ML115 G5 going end of life many people including myself are looking for an entry level AMD alternative. For those people wanting a small basic vSphere lab server then definitely take a look at the Microserver, though in my opinion if you haven’t already committed to using AMD based CPU servers in your vSphere lab then the Intel i3-530/540 based HP ML110 G6 offers much better bang for Buck/Pound/Euro/Yen. It is comparable in price, has greater memory expansion options (ie: 4 x DIMM sockets), comes standard with a CD/DVD drive and has a higher specification CPU. Though if you want a small factor, super-uber quiet vSphere lab server to run 4-6 VMs with low/moderate CPU workloads then the HP MicroServer is definitely worth a look.
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My name is Simon Seagrave and I am a London (UK) based Senior Technology Consultant and vSpecialist working for EMC. 
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This is the best article that i read about this HP Server, you know i`m a Dell user but i`m starting to like to the HP side!
Keep going!
[...] http://www.techhead.co.uk/running-vmware-vsphere-on-an-hp-microserver Ads! Sobre: Ariel:Soy un adicto a la informática…. que mas puedo decir? Actualmente soy el Encargado de Seguridad en una Universidad en República Dominicana, tengo funciones que van desde Administrar Windows Servers y Linux Server… hasta hacer intento de programar en PHP para Moodle. [...]
Hi Ariel,
Thanks for the feedback, I’m glad you liked the post.
I’ve been a big HP Proliant fan for years so when the HP ML115 went end of life and the HP MicroServer was announced I was keen to get my hands on one to try out.
I have to say that I still prefer the HP ML110/ML115 range of servers as they aren’t that much bigger and have better expansion options for a similar price. That said, I can see where the MicroServer would appeal to some.
I quite like the look of the Dell PowerEdge T110 as well though it is priced that little bit too high to make it a viable option for my vSphere lab.
All the best,
Simon
I have the HP Microserver for about 4 weeks now. Running ESXi 4.1 also. Running Windows 2000 SP4 and Windows SBS 2008. Runs good for a home server.
For ones the are “Green”, It is using about 30-40 watts with 2 drives, 8GB ram and 2nd NIC.
I do have the missing/no CD/DVD when installing. Had to install from USB CD/DVD. I am using an HP OEM drive from an ML115 G6 server.
What model drive did you use??
Thanks for the comment.
It definitely sounds like a lack of driver issue during the install process for the CD/DVD drives used with the ML115 & ML110 G5′s. For the MicroServer I installed and used a Samsung/Toshiba drive, model: SH-S223
Cheers,
Simon
Nice write up Simon, I love the box but am tempted to make mine into a backup device instead rather than a vSphere host.
Hi Si
Another good write up.
Did you install ESXi to a USB key on the internal USB slot as you mentioned in your previous post? Do you think they might make the box with hot swappable drives and a choice of processors further down the line?
With you getting a DVD drive working, I tried another one from a Dell desktop. Worked!!!!!!
What RAID cards does one use? Looking at an Adaptec 2405 SGL Controller Card. Looks like the 4 lane SATA breakout cable plugs are the same.
[...] replaced it). The ML115 G5 has been superseded by the Proliant MicroServer. Although this works perfectly fine with vSphere, it is a little underpowered. If I had to buy a pre-built server, I would choose an [...]
Hi,
many thanks! Sounds for a decent christmas project
Just wondering. You write that “Intel i3-530/540 based HP ML110 G6″ isn’t it based on Xeon/ Pentium http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/de/de/sm/WF25a/15351-15351-241434-3328424-3328424-3984625.html ?
Or is there a series with i-CPUs?
Cheers,
christian
Hi,
thanks for the heads up! I am now running threee XP Sp3 machines and a reasonably lightweight Linux instance on this baby (using 5 GB of RAM and the factory installed HDD). Performance is very far from optimal, the CPU being the most freuqent bottleneck as expected. But for a small home lab, seeing how darned quiet (and cheap) the Micro Server is, it could well become a host platform of choice.
I also sense some sluggishness in the SATA controller (may be not the controller itself but rather ESXi driver for it, of course – will have to investigate further) so I am tempted to try an Adaptec 2405 or some such and compare – might turn out to be lack of CPU cycles after all.
The next project, however, will be running OpenFiler or FreeNAS on this baby. And then, finally, Win 2008.
The combination of PCIe x1 and x16 doesn’t make it easy to populate both slots with something making sense.
Anyway: Keep up the good work!
If you try the Adaptec 2405, watch the card temps! Some say it runs on the hot side.
Thanks for the warning. Wouldn’t surprise me if it did, given the restricted air circulation in the Micro.
But I think, whatever use you might want to put this box to – beyound a home lab, that is – a decent hardware RAID will have to go in first thing after unpacking, along with some RAM.
Added the Adaptec 2405 RAID card. Temps where right at max of 50 C. So glued a very small fan to the heat sink and powered it off the internal USB port. Now temps are around 40 C.
Now a question, if one drive fails in a two disk RAID 1 array, what if any events will ESXi show. Have not tested this as the array is still building/verifying at this time.
>> Now a question, if one drive fails in a two disk RAID 1 array, what if any events will ESXi show.
I don’t think you’re going to see any events there.
Anyone tried to use a HP SmartArray P410 with this little box?
The cable that comes with the Micro Server is not long enough to reach the connector on the RAID card.
What type of cable is used in the MicroServer? Any chance to replace with a longer one?
Nope, it is part of the drive cage. That is one reason I tried the Adaptec 2405 card. It has the connector at the end.
Hi Simon,
Great article on the MicroServer, although it has thrown me into a bit of a muddle. I’m looking at creating a home lab, not just for vSphere but for playing around with XenServer (am I allowed to mention this here?) and for general Windows / Linux stuff. Anyway I was going along the lines of a couple of ML110 G6′s with a NAS etc. I’m not going to be running VM’s in any anger, more a case of using the lab for study and learning. I just don’t know which way to go. Although the cost difference between a Microserver and ML110 G6 is about £100 having two tower servers under my desk is probably going to annoy the wife. But spending that little extra gives me a a better server / lab.
If my lab is just going to be used for training purposes would you reccomend the Microserver?
Thanks
I am running SBS2003 SP2 and Server 2003 VM’s. At times it does seam underpowered. But then, at those times, I just get up and get a cup of coffee. A plus is the Microserver includes 3 empty drive caddies. Some days they are priceless, as I swap out many drives during testing.
I have one ML110 G6 at work. This is our production workhorse and the Microserver is at home as our test lab.
Both units are great for their intended use.
Hi n3gik,
Does the ML110 G6 that you are using for production use internal storage for your datastore? If so are you using a raid controller?
Thanks
I used the internal SATA controller to get things up and running. Then installed a RAID controller, Adaptec 2405. I am using ESXi free so have limited hardware feedback about drive/RAID. Looking at setting up SNMP to see what this can do for us.
I’m looking to get a raid controller for my ML110 G6 running ESXi 4.1 (free). Any particular reason why you chose the Adaptec 2405 over HP’s SmartArray P212? Have you tried SSDs with the Adaptec?
The Adaptec was the cheapest with the plug in a location that the OEM cable on the Microserver would fit. I think the P212 has the same limited support as the 2405 does.
SSDs are nice. I am on my 4th warranty replacement one in the Mac Book Pro. So, just a little uneasy with them right now.
…but since Jonathan is looking to use the RAID Ctrl. in a 110 *G6*, thus having iLO already in place, he might indeed benefit from that if he went with a P212 in terms of error reporting over iLO. I have no possibility to test it right now, though.
SSDs on a stock RAID controller are not amongst the things I would advise anybody to do. Apart from having a performance profile very different from that of HDDs, the cheaper ones just *do break*… but, as always in IT, YMMV
[...] Simon Seagrave’s (http://www.techhead.co.uk) updates on the HP Microserver with interest (http://www.techhead.co.uk/running-vmware-vsphere-on-an-hp-microserver) as I would like to have a second host in my environment, for two reasons, the first and obvious [...]
[...] it can run esxi: Running VMware vSphere on an HP MicroServer | TechHead.co.uk Reply With Quote [...]
I want to buy this server. I think as mini hosting and media server would be super
2405′s seems to be thin on the ground (from a very quick look round!), is there a current Adaptec card that I could use?
I assume, in terms of cabling, I just yank the connector off the motherboard and attach it to the card?
Thx
- Andy
I’m thinking of one of these to run at home using ESXi with the following virtual machines. (I currently have a far beastier setup of a Lenovo TS200 but have been having loads of ESXi issues with it so may replace that).
- pfsense (firewall/router) : For my crappy/slow 1Mbps broadband
- untangle (web filter/cache)
- Trixbox (Asterisk PBX) : 3-5 phones
- WHS (Windows Home Server) : just for its PC backup functionality & also running iTunes (I have a separate NAS for my files etc).
I’d make sure I have the full 8Gb RAM installed but am wondering whether it’d cope even with that?
I assume the 1st 3 VMs would be OK but aren’t sure about the WHS usage for PC backups and also supporting my house-wide iTunes/media library.
Cheers Ian
Futher to my earlier post, another query.
Does the on-board Ethernet interface support VLANs?
Could you let me know it this card is the one you are talking about? Thx – Andrew
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147231#
That is the one.
I’ve installed a 2405 card. It’s not recognising any drives, there are two in there which worked OK with the on board RAID controller.
Some Red LED’s on the card are doing a Knigh Rider impression, that mean anything?
Are there any other settings I need to change, like in the BIOS, for things to happen?
Thx
- Andrew
Don’t you just hate it when 30 secs after posting something you’ve been looking at for a while you realise what was wrong…..would have helped if I’d actually engaged the drives all the way into their respectives sockets…doh!!
Sorry about that:(
- Andrew
Hi n3gik,
as I can see on this picture, the connector on P410 is at the end too. Have you tried to use this controller? Just bought this thing a few months ago for my ML110 G5.
http://www.cnet.com.au/story_media/339300139/smartarray.jpg
No, I have not. The P410 is not listed on the ESXi hardware list.
Evening All!
I’m looking at buying VMWare vSphere Essentials (to run on my two Microservers), had a look on Grey Matter and it says I need SnS too.
How much should I be paying for this lot?
Are there better places to source the product from? Like the VMWare site?!
Thx
- Andy
Hi Andy,
I’m not sure what country you’re based but there is a link to buy or contact a reseller from the VMware site, which is primarily US focused:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/overview.html
That said however there is a link to find a local partner reseller from here:
http://partnerlocator.vmware.com/
I know that VMware were doing a special in MAy/June last year with a discount on the vSphere Essentials package (keep in mind that this won’t give you some of the ‘cool’ functionality such as HA. vMotion or DRS) though they don’t appear to have done anything else since.
In my opinion there is a real requirement for VMware to provide a lab/non-commercial license plan for those wanting to install the VMware products in their lab without having to re-install it every 30-60 days. Something along the Microsoft Technet subscription would be good.
All the best,
Simon
Hi,
i’m novice with vmware.
I tried ESXi 4.1 and it works great.
But HDD controler speed is very slow.
Downloading from VM is 17MB/s but uploading is only 3-5MB/s.
I tried VM WinXp, FreeNas, Linux but still same speeds.
If i run originaly win2008 essentials, speed are great.
RAM 6GB.
Thanks
Hi,
I haven’t tested the speed as yet to be honest as I run my VMs off of my iomega IX4 NAS device, though I will have a looking into it as that does seem a little strange. It may be a few weeks before I get around to this as things are a little busy at the moment.
Has anyone else experienced the disk speed performance that Marena has mentioned?
Thanks,
Simon
Well, in my case, the performance wasn’t quite as poor as in Marena’s but I did notice two things:
- in ESXi, if you put any load worth mentioning on the disks, the host CPU maxed out immediately
- when run as a simple file server (on metal, not virtualised), Windows 2008 beats the hell out of anything else. I tried openFiler, freeNAS, open-E and a plain vanilla Ubuntu live USB. I promised you the data, still have to make a post out of it. Just to give an idea of what we saw:
— reading a contiguous 15 GB file over SMB from RAID1 Win2k8 = 104 MB/s, FreeNAS = 50 MB/s, openFiler = 60 MB/s.
— writing 10,000 files 4 KN each over SMB to RAID1 Win2k8 = 0.56 MB/s, openFiler/XFS = 0.33 MB/s, openFiler/ext3 = 0.18 MB/s
Wow, that is quite a difference indeed even against the other bare metal SAN/NAS installs. More efficient/performant W2K8 drivers or is W2K8 just all round quicker reading and writing down data even on other hardware I wonder? Very interesting indeed.
Thanks for letting us know,
Simon
Has anyone ever tried sing a RAID card not listed on the ESXi hardware list?
The Adaptec 2405 is a littel pricey for me and I would like to give an EXSYS EX-3336-L a go.
Hmm. The WhiteBox HCL doesn’t list this card (or any other Sil 3114 based one, for that matter):
http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/esx40_whitebox_HCL.php#Storage
Besides, the 3336 is a PCI card and there ain’t a PCI slot in the Micro.
I have had VERY mixed results with Sil-based controllers and try to avoid them if possible, even for a small lab.
Good call. I think I need some sleep
Thanks for the link. Decided to go for the Adaptec 2405 – should be in by thursday.
Received my Microserver today – a whole week early! – so I’ll set it up this weekend.
Hi,
wanted to run nexenta on it. Community edition http://www.nexenta.com/corp/nexentastor-overview/nexentastor-versions. The reason is that it supports ZFS and RAIDZ so as I understand you get very high datasecurity on a software Raid and avoid all problems you might have with hardware Raids.
What I have not understood yet (maybe due to the fact that I am Political Scientist by profession
– I have Esxi on USB Stick, the VMs on a single HDD, three more 2TB HDDs for data. Is it possible to “attach” these three HDDs directly to the nexenta VM so it combines them to RaidZ and formats it with ZFS? Or works VMWare always the way that it formats and attached HDD with its own file system and then supplies it as virtual disc? My problem is that I do not understand who that works: VmWare formats the disk in its file format, provides a virtual disk and then the VM you install converts it in its file format? So you have on top of the VM file format another file format as eg NTFS?
Some words would be appreciated – did not find the answer via Google and in the documentation of VmWare. Also had a look at Google but did not find books that would explain Esxi. Seems all for building Clusters etc but not for “homeuse” with a single CPU. If there is a good book title would also be highly appreciated.
Thanks,
Christian
Hi Christian,
what you’re looking for is called DirectPath and is, as Simon has discovered in his initial review above, not supported by the Micro.
I am not quite sure what problems you are referring to concerning hardware RAID – it’s definitely best practice to have one in place if you can afford it.
Please be aware that the performance of the Micro’s onboard SATA controller is far from optimal with OSes not officially supported by HP (which would be Windows 2008 and, IIRC, RHEL). Nexenta is Linux based so would also fall in this category.
As to how it works: ESXi places an VMFS datastore on a physical volume. You can then create a VMDK in this datastore (which, from the datastore’s point of view, is a file) and assign it as a HDD to your VM. It then sees a disk device with which it can do whatever it needs – partition, format in whatever file system it chooses, etc.
HTH
Evgenij
Hi Christian,
If you were prepared to dedicate your HP MicroServer to a Nexenstor install then you should check out the following posts:
http://vinf.net/2011/01/11/building-a-fast-and-cheap-nas-for-your-vsphere-home-lab-with-nexentastor/
http://vinf.net/2011/01/19/nexentastor-ce-performance-not-as-good-as-expected-with-ssd-cache-check-its-working/
Cheers,
Simon
Many thanks Simon. Can work on it on the next weekend.
Cheers with a beer from currently Cologne!
Christian
I have a P410 in a MicroServer running WHS11, it’s a nice solution and the cable reaches nicely.
The SFF-8087 ports on the end of the P410 are just adjacent to the motherboard’s SFF-8087 port. I’m running 5x2TB from the P410 for storage, then 1x500GB 2.5″ from the motherboard for the OS.
There’s enough room in the case (using the 3.5″ bay under the 5.25″ bay, space down the side of the ODD, and rearranging the cables a little) for all the disks plus the BBWC battery module for the P410.
Managed to get a new P410 for £150 and the BBWC for £31 on eBay. I haven’t yet saved up the pennies for the SmartArray Advanced Park to enable RAID6 on the P410, so it’s just RAID5 + hotspare for now.
Performance whilst the volume was being initialised was ~260MB/s read and write, using 128K strips. These are 5,400rpm Samsung disks, so compared with WHSv1 with no RAID the performance is most pleasing
Hi All
I’m looking to get one of these servers for my Lab. I’m planning to run ESXi 4.1 and 2x win2008 r2 servers with XenApp 6 installed on both so I can have a 2 server farm. It’ll only be a test lab so I can practice for my CCA so will only be running test apps like notepad, calc etc
Has anyone tried this sort of config on this server, or any ideas if it would run ok?
Cheers
Yes it will run. Whether the performance is going to be OK for you, depends on the load you will be putting on the VMs.
May I suggest (and invite others to comment!!!) you look at this baby:
http://ts.fujitsu.com/products/standard_servers/micro_server/primergy_mx130s1.html
It even claims to be more silent (21 vs. 22 dB) than the Micro
but it will take up to 16 GB of RAM and the price is similar. AND there’s a halfway decent CPU inside.
I haven’t yet had the possibility to test ESXi on this one, though.
Anyone else getting Purple Screen of Death shortly after starting up the microserver (using HP’s Feb 2011 release of the USB vmware image)? I’m looking into the fixes that worked on the ML115 G5, but surprised that no one else has seen this.
My only difference from stock was to use an LSI RAID card (MegaRAID 9240-4i). And for the record, it fits fine, but you do have re-route the SFF8087 cable. It’s a little fiddly, but it didn’t change the heat profile or require anything other than snipping a few cable ties.
Thanks,
Josh
I also tried the HP VMware image, some time ago, so not sure what version it was. But it als ended in the PSD. Stuck with the image from VMware, it works just fine for me.
I came up with these instructions to avoid a PSOD (Purple Screen of Death) using the HP image (which is customised for USB/SD booting):
1 Immediately ESXi has loaded, hit F2, login, and then enable console access (under Troubleshooting). Quickly hit Alt-F1 to get to the console, login and type *services.sh stop* (this will prevent the PSOD, so this needs to be done immediately the server comes up)
2 Then execute these commands
1 cp /bootbank/oem.tgz /tmp
2 cd /tmp
3 gzip -d oem.tgz
4 mkdir oem
5 cd oem
6 tar xvf ../oem.tar
7 cd /tmp/oem/var/lib/sfcb/registration
3 Now you need to us vi to edit oem-hp-smx-provider-providerRegister to comment out two entries so that they look like this:
#[SMX_AutoStartGenesisInterop]
# provider: SMXExecutive
# location: SMXExecutiveProvider
# type: instance
# group: smx-interop
# namespace: interop
#[SMX_ExecutiveStatus]
# provider: SMXExecutive
# location: SMXExecutiveProvider
# type: instance
# group: smx-interop
# namespace: root/hpq
4 Then you need to execute the following commands to package things back up
1 cd /tmp/oem
2 rm ../oem.tar
3 tar cvf ../oem.tar *
4 cd ..
5 gzip -9 oem.tar
6 mv oem.tar.gz oem.tgz
7 cp oem.tgz /bootbank
8 reboot
Everything is working well now.
Josh
What does the HP image give you over the VMWare image ???
Hello all,
I did combine the n36l microserver with a HP Smart Array p410 raid controller with 512MB cache (with battery)(controller price in the Netherlands is in or about 270 Euro (now already down to 250 euro)).
The setup is combined with 2 x 4Gb Kingston memory and 2 x 300GB WD Velociraptors.
I made 2 blog entries on installation and VMware ESXi installation.
They can be found here:
http://deludi.nl/blog/vbscript/various/various-how-to-build-a-decent-low-power-vmware-esxi-server-based-on-the-hp-n36l-microserver-and-the-hp-p410-raid-controller/
http://deludi.nl/blog/vbscript/various/various-how-to-build-a-decent-low-power-vmware-esxi-server-based-on-the-hp-proliant-n36l-microserver-and-the-hp-p410-raid-controller-part-2/
I will write a third entry on actually running the VM’s.
If all works well the server will be a production server for one of my customers.
Best regards,
dirk adamsky
Hi there, wonderful article.
I was wondering if you had to install the hp nmi driver update for this server? I wasn’t sure if it needed it or not. I plan to also use esxi on mine and put whs 2003 on it and have it setup for direct disk access to 3 2tb drives. Hope that will work
Great Article. Can the processor be upgraded for the Micro Server?
I didn’t end up needing the NMI drivers. But I did install the CIM extensions and got the PSOD. Found this site which explained how to fix it.
http://forum.lettronics.com/forums/thread/1273.aspx
Read the piece I wrote which references the fix.
Hi Steve Geordie,
I don’t think it’s possible (without a lot of soldering) to replace the cpu.
Hi Steve,
I haven’t has to install the HP NMI driver for my VMware ESXi installs onto it. Have fun with the server.
Cheers,
Simon
Hi Steve,
Not to my knowledge.. It may be possible though I’m not game enough to try it as I suspect it’d be hard wired onto the system board (or similar)
Cheers,
Simon
Does ESXi support eSATA, so I could add to it my external HDD box (which has 2xHDD’s in RAID1)?
Have you tried to install some linux or BSD? Do they see HDD’s in RAID ?
lots of great info here, thanks. but as i was scrolling through the article and comments, i didn’t see anyone mention of the stock RAID with esxi. is it supported? or will it see the drives individually in esxi?
oops, nevermind i found where it mentions it in the article
I bought two microservers, both with an extra intel nic and 8GB memory, when I tried to install ESXi 4.X I had problems regarding corrupter sector messages on the hard disk or a hanging install (USB module). After searching and trying I changed the C1E to disable in the bios and it looks that that fixed it all.
correction,
after i disabled the C1E i can install ESXi 4.0 (it fixed the USB maesage) but the the bad sector message is still there during the install off 4.1 and therefore the install failed, i will try en upgrade from 4.0 to 4.1 and let you all know.
@Marena
Check you network card and switch speeds in yoru vmware environment, Mine defaulted to 10MB on auto. Forcing it to 100 Full duplex made mine run a bit faster. Even then mine only runs about 10Mb/s. Tried Veem backup (vs download a folder) and it was no better
At some time I will look at how to improve it (if i can..)
[...] I have read a lot about the N36L microserver and it’s VMware ESXi capabilities. Other people have combined the server with various RAID cards (Adaptec, etc.). [...]
upgrade went well. i am running 4.1 now.
Hi,
Thank you very much for this review. You saved me a ton of time.
Regards,
piccolo
Good post! As someone who is embarking on the VCP path building a lab will be critical as will choosing the correct equipment.
I setup esxi 4.1.0 on my microserver a few months ago with 2 x 250GB disks in raid using the builtin controller (RAID 1). All seemed to work fine and ESXi saw the single logical disk and created it as a datastore.
I’ve just added 2x1TB disks and used the raid controller to make another logical disk but this time vSphere is not seeing them as one logical disk but 2 separate ones !?
I’m not sure if i did something magic with the original raid but certainly havent done it with the new one – do you have any thoughts on how to get the 1TB disks raided.
If not, should i chance swapping them into the existing raid to upgrade it to 1TB ?
Have included screenshot of my devices page.
[img]http://www.techhead.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/StorageDevices.png[/img]
Many thanks.
Shaun
[img]http://www.techhead.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/StorageDevices.png[/img]
sorry, brain failure in previous post.
just looking again at my own screenshot, i can see that I had 4 separate disks and I didnt actually achieve a raid installation, the datastore maps directly to a single one of my 250GB disks
Looks like I need a hardware raid
S.
Thanks !)
Iam running ESXi with 1 VM which is WHS. It’s running on the default 250gb drive with another 500gb RDM added to the VM.
Problem is drive performance. Copying a single large file over to the WHS share starts off about 35MB/sec and drops down to 5.7MB/sec very quickly.
CPU’s never hit past 50%, it’s got 8GB of ram so no problem there. Both the HP N36L and the other PC are on the same network connected via Gigabit switch. Both NIC’s show GB ethernet connetivity. Any ideas?
Hi Johnny,
simple solution: buy yourself a HP P410 raid controller and some extra disks (the faster the better like the WD Velociraptors).
Best regards,
dirk adamsky
ESXI5 install OK also.
I did get an error with only 2GB in, It says it as 2GB but needs 2GB to install (shared VGA Memory ??)
I had another 1 GB lying around and used that and it installed fine.