HP N54L w/ Intel XL710 10GbE

[fworm]

Just trying to see if anyone has this build, or has issues with this build:

HP N54L (Hopefully familiar to most of you folks)
Amd Turion Dual Core 2.2 Ghtz
Intel XL710 10GbE Quad Port
8gb RAM
Will be testing with two 120gb Intel SSDs in Raid 0.

(Probably going for a 6 drive Raid 10, or 4 drive Raid 10 w/ SSD cache, or 4 drive Raid 10 w/ SSD Raid 1.)

I'm coming from a XPenology where I could not get the 10GbE card to work correctly with direct connect TwinAx cables (though I tested the cards between two windows boxes and got 9Gb via iPerf).

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

Hi @fworm. I noticed no one has replied to you yet. Regarding your specs from above would you mind editing your post to adhere to the Required Reading for [Will it FreeNAS?]. Specifically I mean elaborating on your complete part names such as for the ram etc. Also, what do you plan to use the NAS for?

I'd also encourage you to go through some of the FreeNAS hardware recommendation guides, User Guide, and terminology intros if you haven't already. Lots of great information.

If you're considering 10GbE you may find the 10GIG Network Primer useful.

Amd Turion Dual Core 2.2 Ghtz

There are a handful of folks who go with AMD builds but it appears as though the general advice around here is to stick with Intel as it is better supported by the os.

8gb RAM

This is the bare minimum to run FreeNAS. If you're not using the system in load-intensive applications or just experimenting this would be fine.

HP N54L (Hopefully familiar to most of you folks)

If I've found the correct specs it looks like this system only supports 2TB drives. That might be a limitation you can live with, it might not be.

 

[Stevie_1der]

If I've found the correct specs it looks like this system only supports 2TB drives. That might be a limitation you can live with, it might not be.

It seems the N54L does support larger drives, @Seymour Butt uses 4TB (I think) drives in his builds, I just saw that by chance.
I think this is because the N54 does not have UEFI and so cannot boot from GPT drives, but GPT is mandatory for drives >2TB.
So the boot drive has to be smaller than 2TB and MBR, but data drives can be bigger and GPT.

 

[jgreco]

If I've found the correct specs it looks like this system only supports 2TB drives. That might be a limitation you can live with, it might not be.

Larger drives should work fine as data disks.

 

[Basil Hendroff]

It seems the N54L does support larger drives

According to the HP MicroServer Wiki, 8TB disks have been used successfully. However, I seem to recall reading somewhere, that there was an overall limitation of 4TB per disk if you engaged the ODD tray. Avoid placing a disk in that tray and you should be okay with larger disks. With a modded BIOS, this limitation might not exist, but I haven't tried. Other forum members who have experience with this may be able to advise further.

 

[JaimieV]

I have tried, using the TheBay modded BIOS in my N54L (and N36L), and it does support >4TB drives in the ODD port (and the eSATA port). I don't think there's a size limit even on the original BIOS, the problem was that the ODD port was nailed down at SATA1 speeds.

Both models also natively support 16gig RAM, despite specs saying 8gig max.

I've tried X540 10gigE cards in mine, but there's no benefit as the SATA subsystem seems too slow to capitalise on it by any significant amount - I can get 107megabytes/sec from 5 disk RAIDZ1 over the builtin Broadcom 1gigE and only boost to 120meg/sec on 10gigE.

The N36L and N54L are both fast enough to support a Plex server no problem, though you wouldn't want to do any transcoding on those CPU. They are very reliable little beasts, I've been running mine for six and four years now at a new purchase price of £79 each. Great value.