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HP Microserver N36l, N40L, N54L SSD in the optical drive bay

Offline TerryF

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HP Microserver N36l, N40L, N54L SSD in the optical drive bay
« on: October 27, 2015, 11:41:52 PM »
Just some musings relating to use of a SSD in a N54L microservers OOD using the free sata 5 connector and installing a modified bios to enable AHCI and full speed on that port.

I have had a N40L and a N54L for about three years now, installed the modded bios to the 54L approx two years ago, and have been using ESXi on a ssd along with extra HDs for storage in the 54L as my test box etc.

Have recently been playing with proxmox 4 on a new SSD and a 1tb Hd as extra storage.

Revisited modded bios for the microserver and found there had been some updates, all good, BUT, it was that I reread the details for the original mod that I noticed I had NOT been making full use of the potential on offer..bugger..

After setting the  SB SATA Configuration correctly this time as per modded bios instructions the improvement in speed out of the SSD drive on sata 5 was bloody amazing :-), absolutely chalk and cheese :-).

So for those who use the 36L, 40L or 54L and are looking for a performance boost and are not into ssds yet, a SSD on sata 5 with a correctly setup modded bios is a more than welcome boost.

Links:
Original Modded Bios: https://www.avforums.com/threads/hp-n36l-n40l-n54l-microserver-updated-ahci-bios-support.1521657/

Instructions: http://homeservershow.com/hp-proliant-n40l-microserver-build-and-bios-modification-revisited.html

New Modded Bios Thread: http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3397-modified-bios-for-microserver-n40l-enables-hidden-features/page-22#entry72904

Vantec 2.5 Caddy for OOD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817986003

Added: the 54L has 16gb of RAM as well and an extra intel nic
« Last Edit: October 27, 2015, 11:45:42 PM by TerryF »
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Offline k_graham

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Re: HP Microserver N36l, N40L, N54L SSD in the optical drive bay
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2021, 07:26:11 AM »
Wow, is the 2015 post the newest post on SSD's and here we are in 2021 ?

I was contemplating the upgrade to 10 and wondering if any sort of caching system was in place using SSD' or SSD's and a Raid 1 system. Alternative could be 2 of 2 Terabyte SSD's  as I imagine running a RAID 1 of  a SATA SSD and a Mechanical drive might limit to the speed of the slowest drive?.

Or did everyone switch their servers to SSD's and don't even think about it anymore, just as it seems to be the standard for desktop or laptops these days?

Thanks,
Ken
« Last Edit: October 19, 2021, 07:28:30 AM by k_graham »

Offline TerryF

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Re: HP Microserver N36l, N40L, N54L SSD in the optical drive bay
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2021, 08:02:22 AM »
I seem only one who bothered :-), home server with SME10 and proxmox box both with SSD, still have multi iron drives with both as data stores, HGST and WD blacks.

There are some other musinsgs in the forums re setting up fstab for extra HDs and creating Raid1/5 for 3 or more data drives.

I choose to run only one SSD with the home server with SME10, with prox also choose just one SSD, my choice.
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Offline sages

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Re: HP Microserver N36l, N40L, N54L SSD in the optical drive bay
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2021, 10:52:34 AM »
SME10, boot drive single ssd, data /home/e-smith/files raid 1 WD red 3TB rust
Proxmox, 4 zfs raid raid1 mirrored WD red 1TB rust (leftovers from previous sme incarnations) for play  :lol:
OMV, 16gB boot, 2 x 3TB wd green in mergerFS with 1 x 4TB snapraid for backups and bulk storage
...