Gen8 Microserver upgrades

[ScottR]

I'm currently using a HP N54L running unRaid as my home NAS.  I have several programs installed to manage my media; Sickrage, Coach Potato, SABnzbd, etc. however have to use my desktop as the Plex sever as the processor can only just process 720p streams and has no chance streaming 1080p content.

 

I'm thinking of selling my N54L(or turning in-to a PFSense Box) and upgrading to a Gen 8 Microserver, however realise the processor is still fairly weak, therefore I was wondering what my upgrade options are?

 

I'm looking at the Gen 8 as I still require a small form factor and 4 easily accessible drive bays are more than enough and can't be bothered with the hassle of building a full system.

 

I'm fairly sure I can fit any LGA1155 processor?  Would a Xeon E3-1245 need an upgraded heat sink or would it work fine?  Also would you upgrade the RAM from 4GB if downloading / transcoding is the units main purpose?

[samiscool51]

2 hours ago, ScottR said:

I'm fairly sure I can fit any LGA1155 processor?

check what socket the MB has and what processors it officially supports

that will nail down the choices for you

2 hours ago, ScottR said:

Would a Xeon E3-1245 need an upgraded heat sink or would it work fine?

check the TDP of the heat sink and CPU, if the heat sink is higher the processor will have easier time dissipating the heat

if not the the processes can overheat and damage the system

also consumer grade heat sinks won't fix in a server

2 hours ago, ScottR said:

 Also would you upgrade the RAM from 4GB if downloading / transcoding is the units main purpose?

i had a old server with a Q6600 and 4GB DDR3 RAM it was able to transode 1080P fine, but if you are going to have multiple streams going at once then more RAM is recermended

[Blake]

4 hours ago, ScottR said:

I'm currently using a HP N54L running unRaid as my home NAS.  I have several programs installed to manage my media; Sickrage, Coach Potato, SABnzbd, etc. however have to use my desktop as the Plex sever as the processor can only just process 720p streams and has no chance streaming 1080p content.

 

I'm thinking of selling my N54L(or turning in-to a PFSense Box) and upgrading to a Gen 8 Microserver, however realise the processor is still fairly weak, therefore I was wondering what my upgrade options are?

 

I'm looking at the Gen 8 as I still require a small form factor and 4 easily accessible drive bays are more than enough and can't be bothered with the hassle of building a full system.

 

I'm fairly sure I can fit any LGA1155 processor?  Would a Xeon E3-1245 need an upgraded heat sink or would it work fine?  Also would you upgrade the RAM from 4GB if downloading / transcoding is the units main purpose?

Anything under 35W tdp is fine, if you do go over that, it will just throttle (which could lead to worse performance the the n54L).

 

Homeservershow.com has done exactly what your looking for.

http://homeservershow.com/hp-proliant-gen8-microserver-xeon-e3-1265lv2-cpu-upgrade.html