I bought a very cheap server yesterday - an HP ProLiant micro server for 160 euro (280 euro with 120 cashback, for some reason).
But I was surprised when I opened the box to find it didn't come with keyboard or mouse, and doesn't have the old keyboard/mouse sockets, but requires USB versions. Is that the norm nowadays? Is it possible to convert the old keyboard/mouse plugs?
Also there is no CD drive. But there are extensive instructions (on a CD!) about how to instal RHEL-5.5.
I'm not complaining, just surprised. I got it as a fall-back for my aging server. The ProLiant is incredibly quiet, at least by comparison.
One last thing - there is only one ethernet socket. This surprised me a little, as I can't see how it can be used as a server, without adding a second ethernet input?
On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 2:39 PM, Timothy Murphy gayleard@eircom.net wrote:
I bought a very cheap server yesterday - an HP ProLiant micro server for 160 euro (280 euro with 120 cashback, for some reason).
But I was surprised when I opened the box to find it didn't come with keyboard or mouse, and doesn't have the old keyboard/mouse sockets, but requires USB versions. Is that the norm nowadays? Is it possible to convert the old keyboard/mouse plugs?
Also there is no CD drive. But there are extensive instructions (on a CD!) about how to instal RHEL-5.5.
I'm not complaining, just surprised. I got it as a fall-back for my aging server. The ProLiant is incredibly quiet, at least by comparison.
One last thing - there is only one ethernet socket. This surprised me a little, as I can't see how it can be used as a server, without adding a second ethernet input?
-- Timothy Murphy e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
Many servers, big or small (cheap or expensive) only come with USB ports, for quite some time now. Probably since you often don't leave the keyboard/mouse plugged into it.
USB keyboard / mice are very cheap and USB KVM's are also very common nowdays.
One NIC doesn't mean it's not a server. In fact, two NIC's doesn't make a server either. But, if you want a router / gateway / firewall, then you can simply add another NIC if you need to.
For 160 euros it's not a bad price, but you can't expect the same features as a more expensive one either.
Rudi Ahlers wrote:
I bought a very cheap server yesterday - an HP ProLiant micro server for 160 euro
But I was surprised when I opened the box to find it didn't come with keyboard or mouse, and doesn't have the old keyboard/mouse sockets, but requires USB versions.
Many servers, big or small (cheap or expensive) only come with USB ports, for quite some time now. Probably since you often don't leave the keyboard/mouse plugged into it.
You are quite right of course, I was being stupid. I see that in fact my old server (Dell PowerEdge T105) has USB keyboard and mouse, so I can use those temporarily.
Am 26.03.2011 um 13:39 schrieb Timothy Murphy:
Also there is no CD drive. But there are extensive instructions (on a CD!) about how to instal RHEL-5.5.
Best to use cobbler for that anyway.
One last thing - there is only one ethernet socket. This surprised me a little, as I can't see how it can be used as a server, without adding a second ethernet input?
Use VLAN-trunks.
Rainer
Am 26.03.2011 um 20:55 schrieb John R Pierce:
On 03/26/11 12:51 PM, Rainer Duffner wrote:
Use VLAN-trunks.
someone using a $350 micro server as his ADSL gateway is highly unlikely to have layer 2 managed switches capable of handling VLANs.
E.g. the HP Procurve 1800-8G is quite cheap. I think I paid <200 USD for it.
It's no longer sold, but you can pick it up at ebay. Fanless.
I took a look at the NL36 server the OP mentioned - and it actually does look quite decent. Maybe not for number-crunching. But for low-end stuff, it looks OK. You might even be able to run e.g. Zimbra on it (with RAM maxed out).
Of course, regular backups are highly recommended - but given that, and the 3year on-site warranty also available, it looks to be a good for home-use.
On 3/26/11 2:55 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 03/26/11 12:51 PM, Rainer Duffner wrote:
Use VLAN-trunks.
someone using a $350 micro server as his ADSL gateway is highly unlikely to have layer 2 managed switches capable of handling VLANs.
I think unmanaged switches will pass vlan trunk traffic and one vlan can be untagged/native. So if the server and one of the routers can add a tagged vlan interface they should be able to have what appears as a private connection on a different subnet. But probably not much better than just overlaying subnets unless you want to do something like nat based on postrouting to an interface.
On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 3:55 PM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
On 03/26/11 12:51 PM, Rainer Duffner wrote:
Use VLAN-trunks.
someone using a $350 micro server as his ADSL gateway is highly unlikely to have layer 2 managed switches capable of handling VLANs.
I'm not sure this is an accurate statement. I purchased a 16-port linksys managed 10/100/1000 switch a year ago for $200, and it looks like there are managed switches for < $100 now:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww...
I've been seeing VLANs, jumbo frames, trunking, CLIs, SNMP monitoring, etc. getting added to a lot of the cheap entry level switches. I'm assuming they are adding these features to stand out in the consumer space, even though your "average" consumer has no idea how to use these features.
- Ryan -- http://prefetch.net
On Sat, 2011-03-26 at 19:14 -0400, Matty wrote:
On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 3:55 PM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
On 03/26/11 12:51 PM, Rainer Duffner wrote:
Use VLAN-trunks.
someone using a $350 micro server as his ADSL gateway is highly unlikely to have layer 2 managed switches capable of handling VLANs.
I'm not sure this is an accurate statement. I purchased a 16-port linksys managed 10/100/1000 switch a year ago for $200, and it looks like there are managed switches for < $100 now:
+1, and that is new.
My employer purchases used HP Procurve managed switches for sub-$100 a piece. For the great majority of deployments they are more than adequate and the feature set is pretty good.
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Adam Tauno Williams -
John R Pierce -
Les Mikesell -
Matty -
Rainer Duffner -
Rudi Ahlers -
Timothy Murphy