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[SOLVED] HP Proliant N40L MicroServer native support


jnus

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Hello,

 

i`m planing to purchase a N54L Microserver and want to install ESXI.

I want to run one VM with windows 2012 Server (AD) and on a second VM i want to install the DSM.

Does anyone have experience with the performance of the DSM in this config on a N54L?

Or what would be expectable ?

For windows 2012 i just want to run AD, and this will only handle 5-8 accounts for testing issues.

Additionally i could also install an LSI 9260-8i as raidcontroller, so DSM would not have to care about the raid 5,

could this improve systemperformance ?

 

I hope someone could give some input about the setup i want to run.

 

Thanx a lot!

Realistically you can expect performance in this configuration similar to DS2xx series units. Close to 100MBps transfer. Basically almost saturating 1Gb link. Make sure that you have enough physical RAM installed for both Virtual Machines. For XPEnology 1-2GB is good and for Windows 2012 4GB should be enough. So total 6-8GB of RAM should get you started. I would install ESXi on the USB 2GB drive instead of internal hard drive. Will give you more flexibility while playing with storage options.

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Trantor 1.2 as it also supports the IDE mode for the other two ports. Without that, you'll only be able to use the 4 main bays if you flash the custom BIOS, and even then you'll need to alter the settings after each reboot due to the BIOS reset issue.

 

Kudos Trantor. I'll try his work then.

 

Thanks.

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I have the same problem as what was posed by dtovee (see below). and also psikonetik later...

 

I tracked it down to the image writing process is not writing the complete image. I tried 4 different images, 3 different USB sticks, 2 computers, and both win32DiskImager and HDD RawCopyTool. I also tried to create a 35MB partition first on my 16G USB stick, and also tried formatting to ext2 and FAT. None of these helped. I am still getting only a 16M partition even tho the img file is 32M. I tried googling for the DiskImager problem but no joy so far. What am I missing??? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

ym

 

Help! & first post to this forum so I hop it ends up in the right place.

 

I can't seem to see what I am doing wrong but I can't seem to get the installer on the USB stick to run without errors and then stopping.

 

I have tried XPEnology_DS3612xs_2668_4.1++ and the one in this forum synoboot_microserver.img

(https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5tpWhE ... BkN3c/edit).

I used the Win32 Disk Imager to install it on three different USB sticks.

The microserver seems to boot from the memory stick OK but then gets stuck. It seems to see the network card OK but then:

"...

[ 13.552788] sde: sde1 sde2

[ 13.559352] sd 4 :0 :0 :0 [sde] No Caching mode page present

[ 13.559418] sd 4 :0 :0 :0 [sde] Assuming drive cache : write through

[ 13.559476] sd 4 :0 :0 :0 [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk"

 

My HP N40L microserver is standard except it has 8GB of ram, a DVD drive and a Seagate 3TB (it still has the original 250GB installed). I have disconnected the Seagate & DVD ROM.

 

Can anybody give me a hint to where I am going wrong as I would really like to have a go at running this system?

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I've bought a hp n54l with no extras installed. I'm running trantor v1.2 of 3211 and everything seems to work fine. I saw how at one point people had USB device issues with the microservers but I don't. Is there any reason I should be using the x64-microsever-20130612 build instead of trantor v1.2?

 

Originally I had wanted to set this up with vSphere(esxi) but it seems like DSM won't give me the nice SHR functionality as it will only see the disks when I create VMDKs rather than direct hardware access. Oh, well. Still not a bad little device as a standalone DSM machine. I honestly don't see why I need to go above the stock 2GB of RAM when running DSM on bare metal.

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I'm trying it right now, but it doesn't work.... Assistant doesn't detect it.

 

I have modified the USB with your zImage file.

zImage md5: 22191386e059d1ef731cf6c00fecacb4

 

This is my current set:

 

Target: N40L with 8GB Ram ECC with modified BIOS to enable all SATA ports.

Synology Assistant Client: iMac running bootcamp for this, Windows firewall disabled, AV uninstalled.

 

DHCP Server enabled

All connected to a gigabit switch.

 

:sad:

Hi XoN,

Thank you for your advise for me in another subject.

But I'm still confused by the below questions. If anyone can help me on this. thanks.

1. How did you modify your USB flash with Nighthawk's zimage file. I got a format notice when I was trying to open my USB flash with XPEnology boot image in Windows.

2. Where I can find the Vender file, I extracted XPEnology image, but didn't find that file.

:???:

 

Easy way: Connect to your server by WinSCP, download your file to computer, edit it then upload back to server. Normally Vender file place in /shareusb1/boot/

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I've bought a hp n54l with no extras installed. I'm running trantor v1.2 of 3211 and everything seems to work fine. I saw how at one point people had USB device issues with the microservers but I don't. Is there any reason I should be using the x64-microsever-20130612 build instead of trantor v1.2? No reasons. trantor's 1.2 release is later date, working image.

 

Originally I had wanted to set this up with vSphere(esxi) but it seems like DSM won't give me the nice SHR functionality as it will only see the disks when I create VMDKs rather than direct hardware access. You could use all the drives with direct access via RDM. Oh, well. Still not a bad little device as a standalone DSM machine. I honestly don't see why I need to go above the stock 2GB of RAM when running DSM on bare metal. Not for bare metal DSM install. You may want to add RAM if go with ESXi and run multiple VMs.

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Originally I had wanted to set this up with vSphere(esxi) but it seems like DSM won't give me the nice SHR functionality as it will only see the disks when I create VMDKs rather than direct hardware access. You could use all the drives with direct access via RDM.

 

And SHR will work with RDM?

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Originally I had wanted to set this up with vSphere(esxi) but it seems like DSM won't give me the nice SHR functionality as it will only see the disks when I create VMDKs rather than direct hardware access. You could use all the drives with direct access via RDM.

 

And SHR will work with RDM?

It will see them directly as correct model hard drives. You can configure any supported RAID. Temperature will show, but SMART information will not. Performance on this hardware is comparable between VM or bare metal.

Drives most likely will be migratable back to direct hardware installation should you choose to boot from USB with DSM Synoboot instead of USB with ESXi.

Before you put any valuable data to this server there is room for experiments.

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It will see them directly as correct model hard drives. You can configure any supported RAID. Temperature will show, but SMART information will not. Performance on this hardware is comparable between VM or bare metal.

Drives most likely will be migratable back to direct hardware installation should you choose to boot from USB with DSM Synoboot instead of USB with ESXi.

 

Thanks for your advice. Got it working in ESXi 5.5. Data migrated over fine. Now I'm just having the internal debate of trusting my data without SMART. It's a little bit scarey. There are lots of non DSM posts about people losing their data using RDM. I have crashplan for backups, but a 6TB crashplan restore would not be fun. Think I'm going to go back to bare metal DSM. Really shouldn't play with ESX without VT-D.

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I found eject USB script on synology forum

 

http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic ... 39&t=35668

sync; /usr/syno/bin/synousbdisk -umount sdq; >/tmp/usbtab

 

Where it can be placed ? For auto-start after full boot.

 

 

p.s. right answer is:

 

1. create new script S99ZZZ_USB_eject.sh

with

sync; /usr/syno/bin/synousbdisk -umount sdk1; >/tmp/usbtab

2. copy it in the /usr/syno/etc/rc.d directory

3. give it the execute permission via ssh

chmod +x S99ZZZ_USB_eject.sh

4. reboot

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USB eject is necessary for spinning down hdds.

 

My USB stick is always plugged in and mounted:

 

Oct  5 00:19:09 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 00:19:22 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 00:19:22 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 02:19:26 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 02:19:26 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 02:19:26 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 03:31:17 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 03:31:21 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 03:31:29 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 04:19:26 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 04:19:26 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 04:19:26 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 06:19:10 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 06:19:22 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 06:19:26 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 07:47:44 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 07:47:44 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 07:47:53 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation

 

looks like my HDDs spin down

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  • 3 weeks later...
USB eject is necessary for spinning down hdds.

 

My USB stick is always plugged in and mounted:

 

Oct  5 00:19:09 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 00:19:22 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 00:19:22 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 02:19:26 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 02:19:26 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 02:19:26 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 03:31:17 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 03:31:21 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 03:31:29 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 04:19:26 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 04:19:26 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 04:19:26 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 06:19:10 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 06:19:22 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 06:19:26 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 07:47:44 scemd: write to uart2 error, error=(5)Input/output error
Oct  5 07:47:44 scemd: SCEMD: disk 3 wake up from hibernation
Oct  5 07:47:53 scemd: SCEMD: disk 1 wake up from hibernation

 

looks like my HDDs spin down

 

Do all your HDDs spin down or just the one where DSM is installed???

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I didn't do anything special, I just noticed the power consumption went down from 40W to 30W, checked the log file and posted a part of it here because I read hibernation wouldn't work. I have two HDDs installed, and USB stick always plugged in containing DSM. I'm a NOOB so could be I'm wrong, but it looks like the HDD spin down.

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Apparently in newer versions the spindown issue is fixed. dsm is installed onto all hard drives, each drive has a couple of small partitions before the data partition that has the dsm etc so if the first drive fails the os can be loaded from one of the others, I use a .sh script to un mount my internal usb driver after boot I just put it in the rc.d folder.

 

this is all the script is and it seems to work great...

 

sync; /usr/syno/bin/synousbdisk -umount sdk1; >/tmp/usbtab

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Apparently in newer versions the spindown issue is fixed. dsm is installed onto all hard drives, each drive has a couple of small partitions before the data partition that has the dsm etc so if the first drive fails the os can be loaded from one of the others, I use a .sh script to un mount my internal usb driver after boot I just put it in the rc.d folder.

 

this is all the script is and it seems to work great...

 

sync; /usr/syno/bin/synousbdisk -umount sdk1; >/tmp/usbtab

 

Read four posts above :wink:

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Hi guys,

 

 

first of all: Thanks for all this work! DSM is great and the microserver seems to be the ideal platform for this. I am looking formward to use S3 in future :grin:

 

What happens, if I use the eSATA-port for an external drive? Will DSM try to format it and gain storage on it? Or can I use it as external drive (e.g. for initial transfer or regular backups)? Or is it better to plug in an USB 3.0-card for this purposes?

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Hi guys,

 

 

first of all: Thanks for all this work! DSM is great and the microserver seems to be the ideal platform for this. I am looking formward to use S3 in future :grin:

 

What happens, if I use the eSATA-port for an external drive? Will DSM try to format it and gain storage on it? Or can I use it as external drive (e.g. for initial transfer or regular backups)? Or is it better to plug in an USB 3.0-card for this purposes?

 

Depends on your config. You have to modify the ports so that eSATA is detected as eSATA, and not as internal port (I believe Trantor's release already has this fix). In this case, the device's partitions are mounted just as a USB drive gets mounted, and you can access the data, but I was unable to create shares on removable storage so far.

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