HP N54L Questions

[Banyon]

Hello all,

 

I've been lurking around here for a while, and decided to register. First off, good work on what you've been able to accomplish so far. I have done a test install on and OLD HP workstation I had laying around. I was able to get it installed (Considering I didn't even check what hardware it was, and it was a early Pentium 4 model, impressive), it had a fair amount of problems, but that was expected.

 

I have a few questions, some pertaining to the N54L itself, some to Xpenology.

 

Lets start with what I have, and what I want.

 

Have:

 

1. Zyxel NSA320 with 2x2TB WD Red drives

2. Older Dell Dimension desktop with i7 and 12GB RAM acting as a Windows server. (This thing sucks WAY too much power for a 24/7 machine, only real complaint)

 

What I want:

 

1. 4 bay Synology with 4x2TB WD Red (maybe 3TB, who knows, lets start with what I have some parts for already)

2. Low power consumption server capable of running Windows Server 2012 Essentials

3. If these both could be in the same box to lower power consumption even more (and lower cost), that would be amazing.

 

So now with the questions:

 

1. Does the N54L support Vsphere properly or does it have to be "hacked" to get it to work?

 

2. If not using Vsphere, does the N54L run Xpenology without any issues? The only attempts to install this software ran into a few serious ones.

 

3a. Would you recommend the N54L as the best bang for the buck? Is there anything similar that is supported as well, has similar specs and price range?

 

3b. If you don't recommend, what low power parts would you suggest for a white label box? I have looked around a bit, but it almost seems cheaper to just go with the pre-made box. All my configurations lacked something, or cost as much as the actual synology box. I have looked at some Mini-ITX boards and small cases that could fit and IcyDock... but something with the build always had a problem.

 

4. If I we to install two identical Intel GBE cards into this machine, would VSphere/Xpenology be able to using ethernet bonding?

 

It's pretty late and I can't remember all the questions I had, so i guess this will have to do for now.

 

Thanks for your time in advance.

[anthonyuk]

This is an Xpenology forum

So I don't know about vsphere or WS2012 but I think it is certified.

2. It work 100% for me.

3a There is nothing in the price range (£80 UK after cashback) that come near.

[andyd358]

Hi

 

I cant recommend the NL54 enough I have both the NL40 and NL54, NL40 is running my DSM 5.beta and has been running well for nearly a year.

The NL54 I have had DSM on it but decided I wanted Server 2012 R2. it has 16gb ram installed and runns very well. I did have hyper V runing fine, but later opted for VMware as I could not get Elastix to work under Hyper-v.

 

I think these microservers are very good for the money and would recomend them to anyone.

[blinky]

I got my N54lL on Wednesday only cost £115 uk pounds new.

I could not build a machine cheaper myself.

 

It's running gnoboot and DSM 5 auto startup causes my bios to reset, haven't tried WOL. As my server remains on.

Running the latest HP BIOS. dunno if I will try the modded bios.

[fonix232]

I can only recommend the N54L. Thought about replacing it a few times (not powerful enough for my taste ), but nothing comes close in question of design, usability, size, and power usage. Maybe the Gen8 microservers, but meh, they look ugly (also, why slim ODD? I wanna have 4x SSDs there!!).

 

All the software you listed will run, but you will have to buff the RAM up. VSphere doesn't even want to install itself on 2GB!