I like the format of this channel. You showed something that has been on my mind for a while - an inexpensive NAS for light usage. If you have the time for this, you will have an audience! Thank you!
Thank you for your kind works! With 5 bays, this enclosure is amazing. 4+ bays NAS are expensive nowadays! When my main NAS started crashing every couple of days I suspected an HW fault which I could not identify and when I went looking for a 6-bays replacement it was a bloodbath! Thankfully it wasn't a HW problem but instead Netgear's OS6 not compatible anymore (but nobody has those old boxes anymore so nobody noticed I guess!). OMV rescued it, it's been working flawlessly for months.
This server only supports "usual" desktop and Unbuffered ECC memory modules. You tried to fit Registered ECC memory modules - these will not work in this server. Main visual difference between Unbuffered ECC and Registered ECC modules that Unbuffered ECC module usually has 9(18) identical memory chips on it (comparing to 8(16) chips on "usual" desktop modules). The Registered ECC one has 9(18) identical memory chips PLUS one extra, different, oblong chip in the middle of the module. I like the video, thank you.
Those modules would be great for maxing out like a HP or Dell workstation from about the same era. Those are dirt cheap to buy especially if you go untested for repair.
😆 I've installes an open media vault on the same type of HP server for a friend of mine. Since I was using a RAID adapter card, I've installed Debian first and then OMV on top (I don't remember exactly, why I had to install this way but probably OMV could not handle the RAID adapter). Had to add a VPN connection to my location, so I can acces the server remote and do system checks and updates. Nice modest little machine 👍🏼
Yes I read that too - OMV doesn't support those cards. I thought about getting a RAID card and decided not to. My needs are basic, the sata ports are enough. I've got an extra sata adaptor though for the 6th drive :) I love it so far! :)
hello, Tony, i'm here too :) since you're talking about NAS, do you think it's possible to have a NAS that can be accessed by all OSes like DOS, W95 98 ME, 2K, XP, all at once? Of course i enjoyed your video!
NAS are OS-agnostic. I access mine via Samba. You can use NFS as well - I don't know how to do that on DOS but I'm sure the protocol can be set. In short: yes, absolutely :) And welcome!
Don't run the operating system on a USB stick, it's known to be less durable and unreliable. Surely you don't want to have to replace a new USB stick and reinstall the operating system every few months ? I have a router running OS firmware on USB and every few months it dies.
The Flashdrive plugin should take care of that - I hope. My main NAS has been running 24/7 for 8 months now. It saves a backup of the whole system disk every now and then, it's not really a big deal to replace it. The HP though would probably have space for a small SSD - but I'd need a web of molex splitters :D I'll keep this in mind though thanks!
Hey Tony! I'm glad you have this Full Slight cut Channel as well. Saw the video It's awesome. I noticed you had the same issue what I had years back with the Write protected USB drive. If I remember correctly, it happens because the Drive is "active". You can make inactive with DISKPART in cmd, or if it not works you can always try HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool *Irony not intended* to format the USB drive, it solved the problem for me back then. *I keep up the chance it still not works for you, maybe the alignment of the stars is not in good position.* Anyway keep up the good work sir, Can't wait to see what you gonna Tinker next ;)
you are probably right. By removing the partition I made it "inactive" I guess. If that hadn't worked, I would have tried with Diskpart indeed. Thanks for watching!
Anyone fitted the N40L with 16GB ram ? It works, but some reboots it just recognizes 8GB. (and just reboot again until i get the full 16GB). Ive tried all bios settings - no luck. Some guy yeears ago, figured if you put a slow usb disk in the front usb, it helps the system recognize the full ram. Other than that, i have my N40L filled with disks as a backup server. Its compact and cute 🙃
Very interesting! Very long shot, I found the original 150W PSU to be borderline for 5 big HDDs, just wondering whether that might have something to do with that? You know, when you reboot things are initialising and might get a little extra power? Mine is... in pieces right now. I'll upload a follow up soon :D
@@Tony359_2 its just 2"5 and SSD drives. PSU is doing fine (so far 🤐) The guy determined it might have to be with some tight timings on the ramsticks, messing with the probe at start. So, i completely agree, because of confirmation bias, of course 🙃
The thing is pretty inefficient for what it can do by today's standards; it consumes 20~25W on its own and having the CPU slower even than RPi3 (of course RPi3 doesn't have 5 SATA ports and a full 1Gbps network). Though it's reliable; I've been running it since 2012 and replaced only the PSU after its fan started to rattle.
Yes, I guess one could put together a RPi with extra bits and make a similar machine - but this comes ready in a box and it works ok! Though... I'm making a follow up, I had a few surprises! Watch this space! :)
I always go smiling when I see something like 8Tb = 7.28Tb it's just like to write on someting "1 dozen = 10 units" they're officially mixing bytes and gramms!
About a second channel. A lot of RU-vidrs recommend having a second one as a back up. If ever you decide to not use it, keep it as a security option. My two cents.
I just had the PSU on my N40L go 'bang' after many years ... had to replace it with a cheap alternative because the dead FET is unobtanium, and the price for a genuine replacement PSU is nuts!
it's a very low power machine, it depends what you use is of course. My 15 years old Netgear NAS works great for me - but clearly a more modern machine would give me more options! Thanks for watching!
recently modded a NAS with extremely noisy PSU fans (no speed control to be seen) with ones that have almost the same airflow and static pressure but sound basically silent compared to the original ones. The PSUs have temperature probes readable in software and they basically haven't changed, maybe like half a degree. So you definitely can mod noisy PSUs, you just have to pick something with similar specs.
Low melt solder is great stuff. Helped a ton changing a HDMI port with my crappy 858D station. Wow that fan is awful... I always try to solder in a 3pin fan header on the end of a lead. Then tape it, easier to change in the future. Also sometimes you need to change USB drives from GPT to MBR or vise versa. I like booting into a linux live environment like mint and using gparted which comes with mint xfce. I have a gutless 6th gen i5 6400 system I want to setup as a NAS/Proxmox system. Run pfsense, nas and some vm's for specific game servers etc. Also yeah second channel is great. Doesn't have to be long form stuff either. Long as its worth your time.
I only recently started using low melt solder - it's amazing! I don't aim to make long videos - I'll just won't spend too much time trying to make them shorter so they might end up being longer than I'd like! :) Thanks for watching and for all the pointers!
I think it's a bug. I went in the BIOS and changed options but it always says DMA off - it also lists the size incorrectly so hope it's a bug! But I am making a follow up and I'm going to bypass that port entirely :)
This is the reason I don't use OMV. It is just too easy to mess it up. One minute it is happy, then it's a struggle to get working. Ubuntu server with copilot is better.
@@Tony359_2 OMV is built on Debian or Raspian. OMV is a web GUI that manages the server. Ubuntu server is built on Debian with some additional testing. Copilot is a web interface for controlling the server in a simple GUI. Its all Linux. TrueNAS Scale is pretty lightweight and UNRAID is another good platform for homelab. All built on Debian. There are other distros, but Debian or Ubuntu is the one to learn/use.
Thanks. When I was selecting a NAS software I enquired on the TrueNAS community and I was told that 16GB was the minimum to run it. So I moved on to something smaller :) They probably meant that for ZFS or whatever that fancy file system is called but I just don't have such a powerful system so it was not an option. Besides all the quirkiness, OMV has been rock-solid on my main NAS for months - saving me from the Netgear own OS (based onto a 2018 LTS release) which was freezing the box every few days...
@@Tony359_2 Nice. I'd be interested to see any ideas you have about 2.5GBe PCIe cards that may be fitted. I bought one today lol after seeing your video. Found one on ebay for admittedly more than you paid but looking forward to upgrading my old Synology unit which only has 512MB of RAM and a pretty rubbish Marvel Kirkwood ARM CPU. Pretty sure it'll be an upgrade, but 5 disks is also a nice option over 4.
Then watch this space as a 6-drive upgrade is coming :) But it's not going to be plug and play! I don't use 2.5G network so I do not know. On the online community there are links to cards which work for sure, take a look if they list a 2.5Gb network there.
I'm still running my hp proliant server since 2012-2013. I started with openelec, the went to libreelec. Minimal problems. Samba shared. Directly hard-lined into my network.
Back when I ran OMV, there wasn't a flash plug-in. I thought I had manually configured it right... Nope. 😅 Had a rude awakening when the thumbstick wore out.
I really appreciated this video. I'm a truenas guy these days, but I've been wanting to set up a small nas for my brother. Definitely leaning towards OMV, now.
oh no about the flash plugin! I wanted to try TruNAS but on the community they told me I needed 16 (or was even 32)GB of RAM as a minimum?? It didn't make sense but that's what they told me. So I went for OMV. Is TrueNAS less glitchy? :)
@@Tony359_2 the rule of thumb for ZFS is 1 GB of RAM per TB of disk (up to a few TB). I'm sure you could get by with 8 for a small NAS. _But_, they strongly recommend ECC ram. ZFS does a lot of caching, so there's a higher chance of a ram issue turning into a corrupt disk.
New viewer brought here by the algorithm. I like this type of videos, so kudos! Bought my N40L in 2011 I think. Great little unit that ran problem free for 8-9 years. Then I upgraded to a more modern platform but I've kept it as an offsite backup. Wanted to try out OMV as I've always been running unraid, so the other week I did this same install more or less. It works really well still! I've had the modded BIOS for years and I've also got a PCIe SATA card in it to get more ports and better speed for SSDs. I've had up to as big as 16 TB drives in it before, but now it's more modest in capacity. I do use a Nexus DoubleTwin in the ODD bay for 2 extra 3.5" drives and I've rerouted some of the backplane molex connectors to give room for 2 more 2.5" SSD underneath the ODD bay. They're just crammed in there, but it work really well. Having effectively 8 drive capacity in such a small unit is amazing, and the fact it still works so well this many years later speaks volumes. Too bad HP don't make them this good and affordable any more. Now I'm moving my unit to a different offsite location, so it needs to be able to turn on and off at specific times to not bother anyone. I do backups with Borg over Tailscale and my plan is to have a script that runs the backup, then when operations have finished shuts down the server. With a Tasmota smart plug I can control when it should be powered on again (during nights and weekends). I've set the BIOS to power the server on when power returns. Test driving it at home just now and thanks to Tailscale I can just plug it in with no extra config needed on the new location. 👍
Hello and welcome! Super glad you enjoyed the video and... TWO drives! I thought about that! Nexus Double Twin! OMG! I just checked online! I'll get one now, I have more 2TB HDDs!!! Thank you for that! Yes, OMV had been working flawlessly on my main NAS, running at full speed and no issues. The GUI is... glitchy. But once you get where you need to be, it works. Thank you so much!
Can I ask what SATA card you're using? I'm thinking of adding the 6th drive - those "DoubleTwin" are amazing but I cannot find one but that's not a big deal. I see some SATA cards as "compatible", just curious to hear what you use? Would that be seen as additional ports by Linux? No drivers or special config needed? Thanks!
@@Tony359_2 sorry for a late reply! Yes those DoubleTwins aren’t that easy to get ahold of anymore, though I think I’ve seen some on eBay. I use a generic SATA card from Amazon. What’s important for me though is that it uses the JMB585 controller and not one of those ASM ones. I’ve had bad experience with ASM in Linux systems before, at least SATA wise. Mine is a PCIe 2.0 4x to 5x SATA3, so it needs the x16 slot.
I got one which was listed on the community an works wonders. It just works with no need for configuration or anything. And I think it does RAID as well as it has a BIOS screen which I can enter to configure stuff - but I don't care and OMV just sees the extra drive! BUT... well, you'll see on the next episode! :)
This is a really good video, I have one of those boxes with a single drive, I may now follow your example and use the device to store some VM's using Hyper-V or VMWare!!
I see that every now and then. I wonder whether it was some extra QC (after all this is a server) or maybe some problematic run which needed some extra checks. Thank you!
I love long mostly uncut videos that show more of the entire process i also watch some channels that do this stuff live maybe that could be something for u too it would give u direct feedback in live chat and afterwards u can have it available as a video without ever needing to edit anything