Hello,
I am looking for hardware to run a NAS with 3 SATA HDDs of 12 TB, with reasonable power consumption, to set up an NFS network share for a download VM.
During my research, I came across the HP G10 mini servers, which I found second-hand for €250.
I’m therefore looking for opinions from people who have experience with this kind of hardware.
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Being HP the build quality will be excellent, no question. But being used to real server gear I don’t like some of the specifications.
- 4x 3.5" slots, easily accessible. Sounds good. But no hotswap? WHY?
- I don’t see any space for a boot drive so all 4 slots are free for data drives.
- 4x 1G LAN. Ok. But no way to add 2.5G LAN. 2.5G LAN has become cheap, both cards as well as switches, and it uses the same cables. Seems like a no-brainer, right.
- HP offers hardware-based remote management, but usually charges extra for activation keys etc. On Supermicro and ASRockRack hardware it’s free. (at least for the base feature set).
You see I’m not that happy with these machines.
I understand. If I eject the drives in TrueNAS, I don’t need hot-swap functionality, right? As for the boot drive, I believe I’ve seen people using an internal SATA SSD, and if that’s not possible, I noticed the server has two PCIe slots: one 4x and one 8x, if I’m not mistaken. So I just need to use the 4x slot for a PCIe to NVMe card and the 8x slot for a 10Gb Ethernet card.
I would have liked to send you some photos, but it doesn’t seem possible, apparently.
There seem to be different models. Does this manual match your system? Have you already bought it?
https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a00008701enw.pdf
This manual says HP uses a Marvell SATA controller chip. These are not recommended hardware. You may try, but buy may loose data fast. Intel SATA ports are the only ones actively recommended.
Read a view different topics, give a few likes, there also is a tutorial you can do.
Is that a Gen10 oder Gen10 v2?
I have an older (better: very old) Gen8, which has the same cube-like case as the Gen10 (if product pictures I found are correct).
It is based on an intel CPU/chipset, has been working nicely as an additional backup location.
It has space for 1 PCI low profile card. Somebody here successfully put a HBA in it. You probably could also add a NIC, but generally you are pretty limited with what you can do.
The iLO allows basic functions like firmware updates and starting/stopping etc, but not remote control, I think (That’s why I still keep one VGA cable for emergencies). Maybe thats different with newer models.
Yes, the system seems to be the same as the one in the manual, and no, I still haven’t bought it; I’m gathering information first. I want to apologize in advance—I’m French, and I have a bit of trouble understanding you. But if I understood correctly, only the internal SATA port is managed by a MARVEL controller, which is not recommended, while the 4 front bays use a different controller? Is that correct?
I think it’s the Gen10, and I’ve indeed seen the Gen8 with Celeron processors, but they have higher power consumption and are less efficient than the Gen10 for the same price in my country.
But I thank you for sharing your experience with this kind of hardware.
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It’s the other way round: The Marvell 88SE9230 drives the 4 storage bays and can do RAID0/1/10 internally, while the optional CDROM connects to a SATA port of the chipset.
Okay, and I just noticed that the maximum internal storage is 16 TB, so it’s not suitable for what I want to do unless I add the HPE Smart Array E208i-p SR Gen10 RAID controller card. Now I need to find other hardware to run my NAS.
You could add a low profile HBA in IT mode to it, that would solve all hardware incompatibilities with the onboard controllers, and generally is a good choice with truenas.
Used, they cost between €40 and €80, but you would also have to find a way to add a small fan to it, as the case is pretty crammed.
But that would only make sense if you already owned the Microserver or are dead set on the small size.
I am not tied to this specific model, but I would like to keep a low-power NAS server in a low-profile format so it fits into my rack, on the shelf where my box is located. And what about the processor? Will the 2 cores of the CPU be enough to run the NAS? Personally, I think so, but I’d rather have confirmation.
I found a review about the Gen10, written when it was launched in 2017.
“Compared to the Gen8 version…There is no “iLO” remote maintenance with separate network port…”
No iLo, which is a pity.
“…and only the more expensive quad-cores Opteron X3418 or X3421 promise more power compared to the Celeron G1610T.”
So the CPU is as powerful as a G1610T in the Gen8 from 2013. The latter works for me, but is not doing much, no apps or anything, and it is powered off most of the time.
“The fact that the new RAID firmware is no longer good for VMware ESXi…”
Not quite sure why, might be driver related. There are a few threads in the old forum with people using or thinking about buying it.
Suggestion:
This box is sold with its own software, but it’s just a PC, and they let you also install TrueNAS Scale. 2.5G Ethernet. Compact. Current technology.
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It seems like a good model with a decent processor, unlike the AMD Opteron X3216, but it’s still a bit expensive for me.
I’ve found motherboards on AliExpress with an N100 and 6 SATA ports for €160, and an empty NAS case for €160 on Amazon. I had found one on AliExpress for €100, but the case uses a power supply format that is expensive. And the motherboard already has a 10G Ethernet port.
The name of the case: Jonsbo N2 Mini
I have never used one, but they look nice. I think someone here built a nice nas with a N3.
I found a video of someone on YouTube building a NAS with this case.
Lets sum up:
Mainboard with 16G RAM and 128G NVME boot drive: 210€
N100 is a bit selective with its ram. I strongly recommend ordering board/cpu/ram from such sources.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807101308919.html
Case: 100€
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804843186860.html
PSU 400 chinese watts (expect 250 real watts): 40€
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805328141254.html
→ total 350€ without taxes
→ 420€ incl french VAT for a system with unknown quality and no hope of ever getting any BIOS updates.
And it doesn’t get much cheaper.
What would the UGreen cost you?
The problem with the Ugreen NAS is that it only has 2.5 G Ethernet ports and no option to add a PCIe card, leaving no possibility to upgrade the hardware or increase the number of drive bays.
Considering the price of the Ugreen NAS, that bothers me a bit, especially since I already have a power supply, an NVMe drive, and a motherboard with an i3‑10300T. What interested me about the HPE Microserver was its price and its low CPU power consumption.
If I have to spend €500 without drives, I’d rather buy a NAS case and a used m‑ATX motherboard that fits the Jonsbo N4 case so I can reuse the components I already have. And even later on, I can still reuse the case and power supply.