MicroServer Gen8 and Unraid

[mrkwkns]

Today i was offered a HP MicroServer Gen8 with a  G1610T cpu and 8 gigs of memory for 300 euros.

I think this is a good deal but i'm not entirely sure since i'm not very familiar with server hardware.

Also this MicroServer only has a VGA output (just like most server hardware) can i just use any converter so i can use it on my monitor (hdmi, dvi, dp)?

 

I would like to install Unraid on this server and i was wondering if Unraid supports the following:

 

Webserver (so i can host my personal website)

Plex (with Docker?)

PlexPy

A shared network folder (password protected, so i can share files with family)

Sonarr, Radarr

NZBget

 

and is it possible to access Unraid outside of my local network with DDNS?

 

Like i said i'm totally new to this server world and Unraid so any help is appreciated.

 

[samcool55]

Unraid itself won't do most of that afaik.

 

HOWEVER unraid is great for multiple vm's. You can basically set up a VM for every function you want. If 1 VM decides to die or whatever not everything goes down. It's more initial work but i'll save you a lot of time later on and will give you much more flexibility later. Don't like an OS that you use for a specific function and want to replace it? No problem

[mrkwkns]

6 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

Unraid itself won't do most of that afaik.

 

HOWEVER unraid is great for multiple vm's. You can basically set up a VM for every function you want. If 1 VM decides to die or whatever not everything goes down. It's more initial work but i'll save you a lot of time later on and will give you much more flexibility later. Don't like an OS that you use for a specific function and want to replace it? No problem

I don't mind the extra work. I just want to do it right

But that's why ask for advice..

[porina]

That price sounds a bit high to me unless it comes with other stuff not listed. In the UK right now, after cashback, it is £125 e.g. http://www.ebuyer.com/722189-hpe-proliant-gen8-4gb-ram-microserver-ebuyer-com-819185-421

It only comes with 4GB but it wont double the price to add another 4GB ECC. No disks.

 

If used as an Unraid server, you wont need a monitor on it after you set to boot from USB. Everything is browser interface managed. I have stopped using mine for Unraid as I wanted more drives than it takes, and now have it set up as a random desktop. I added a low profile low cost nvidia GPU to it (ebay). Note the in built GPU is rather bad even just for desktop use.

 

Beyond a Windows visible file share, I've not tried to do more with mine. It does support Docker plugins, so you can check what's available for it.

[mrkwkns]

7 minutes ago, porina said:

That price sounds a bit high to me unless it comes with other stuff not listed. In the UK right now, after cashback, it is £125 e.g. http://www.ebuyer.com/722189-hpe-proliant-gen8-4gb-ram-microserver-ebuyer-com-819185-421

It only comes with 4GB but it wont double the price to add another 4GB ECC. No disks.

 

If used as an Unraid server, you wont need a monitor on it after you set to boot from USB. Everything is browser interface managed. I have stopped using mine for Unraid as I wanted more drives than it takes, and now have it set up as a random desktop. I added a low profile low cost nvidia GPU to it (ebay). Note the in built GPU is rather bad even just for desktop use.

 

Beyond a Windows visible file share, I've not tried to do more with mine. It does support Docker plugins, so you can check what's available for it.

That's cheap! A new one here in the Netherlands costs about 215 euros.

https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/463569/hp-proliant-microserver-gen8-g1610t.html

 

The one i was offerd also contains four 1tb harddisks.

I have a Geforce 210 lying around so it's good news if i can use that.

 

I looked up the dockers containers for Sonarr, Radarr and NZBget and they seem to be available.

[dalekphalm]

25 minutes ago, mrkwkns said:

That's cheap! A new one here in the Netherlands costs about 215 euros.

https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/463569/hp-proliant-microserver-gen8-g1610t.html

 

The one i was offerd also contains four 1tb harddisks.

I have a Geforce 210 lying around so it's good news if i can use that.

 

I looked up the dockers containers for Sonarr, Radarr and NZBget and they seem to be available.

Please keep in mind that the CPU this server has installed is a dual core CPU with no hyperthreading.

 

That means it'll do alright for a VM that might require one or two vCPU's (virtual CPU cores) - or two or three VM's that can get away with a single vCPU each. Anything more than that, and you are seriously pushing the multithreading capabilities of the server.

 

IF you were gonna use that server, I would ditch unRAID, and see if you can accomplish everything through FreeNAS directly, using Jails (not dockers). A Jail uses less resources than a VM because it shares some of the system resources and isolates user/application files.

 

I know FreeNAS has direct Plex plugin support. It can do some of the other things, but you'll have to check the plugin list to see if all the services you want are there.

 

You can host VM's in FreeNAS 11, so that gives you the added flexibility of using whatever OS you want in a VM (I'd suggest a super lightweight headless Linux distro).

 

But basically, if you want to run VM's, I'd suggest ditching this server completely and going with something that has at least 4 cores (ideally w/ hyperthreading).

 

If you want to stick to this server, I'd suggest trying to find a NAS-friendly OS that will run everything you need without having to use VM's.

[mrkwkns]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Please keep in mind that the CPU this server has installed is a dual core CPU with no hyperthreading.

 

That means it'll do alright for a VM that might require one or two vCPU's (virtual CPU cores) - or two or three VM's that can get away with a single vCPU each. Anything more than that, and you are seriously pushing the multithreading capabilities of the server.

 

IF you were gonna use that server, I would ditch unRAID, and see if you can accomplish everything through FreeNAS directly, using Jails (not dockers). A Jail uses less resources than a VM because it shares some of the system resources and isolates user/application files.

 

I know FreeNAS has direct Plex plugin support. It can do some of the other things, but you'll have to check the plugin list to see if all the services you want are there.

 

You can host VM's in FreeNAS 11, so that gives you the added flexibility of using whatever OS you want in a VM (I'd suggest a super lightweight headless Linux distro).

 

But basically, if you want to run VM's, I'd suggest ditching this server completely and going with something that has at least 4 cores (ideally w/ hyperthreading).

 

If you want to stick to this server, I'd suggest trying to find a NAS-friendly OS that will run everything you need without having to use VM's.

Well at the moment i have a Qnap NAS (ts-251) which runs all the apps just fine but it can't handle the Plex transcoding so i'm running Plex server on a spare laptop (HP Probook 6550b). I'm not tied to an specific OS. Whether i use Unraid or FreeNAS doesn't really mather to me. Same goes for the server. If you have a better alternative for me i'd like to hear it

 

I just want to get rid of the laptop / NAS combo and just use one machine to handle everything. 

[porina]

I don't know what the CPU requirements are for those use cases, but as @dalekphalm mentioned the included CPU isn't exactly powerful. As a simple file server it is plenty, but I don't know how it'll do if pushed. The server is also pretty old so it was not easy to find a matching replacement CPU, in part also due to power limits. Without looking it up again, I think it took Ivy Bridge era CPUs. I think those i3s supported ECC ram, and Xeons are also a possibility. The problem with both are you need to find the low power versions as the cooling isn't exactly great in that server.

[Mikensan]

I'd agree with Dalek, that CPU isn't the best choice for virtualization but would be great if everything is ran under dockers. I would achieve this with Linux + ZFS + Docker. No real need to split all those roles into VMs, docker will run natively in linux whereas in FreeNAS it would run under a VM.

 

FreeNAS jails work great if you use ports/packages and not their plugins. Their plugins are always greatly out of date (because they were anticipating FreeNAS Corral, plugins were mostly left to die imo). Just keep in mind that any settings you want to persist through jails needs to be on an independent dataset outside of the jail and mounted to the jail. There are times when you need to rebuild the jail and losing settings suck.

 

Edit** Just wanted to mention I had an older G series pentium processor and it transcoded 2x 1080p streams. I had Plex on its default transcode settings.

[mrkwkns]

Ok, I'll compare FreeNAS and Unraid. But i think FreeNAS is the better choice.

Instead of buying a prebuild server i could build one myself. Ryzen cpu's seem to tick all the boxes.

[unijab]

Just now, mrkwkns said:

Ok, I'll compare FreeNAS and Unraid. But i think FreeNAS is the better choice.

Instead of buying a prebuild server i could build one myself. Ryzen cpu's seem to tick all the boxes.

What about ovirt?... or proxmox?

[mrkwkns]

9 minutes ago, unijab said:

What about ovirt?... or proxmox?

Never heard of it. 

*Google here i come! 

[BlueCrazii]

Just create a Vm port forward that Vm and use remote desktop to login and done you can access the webgui  ~ A way a BlueCrazii would do it