Two old microservers are being split into NAS and backup roles
Two HP Gen8 microservers are being prepared for separate jobs: one as a NAS and the other as a backup machine. Both have been upgraded to their maximum 16GB ECC memory, had their internal batteries replaced, and received fresh on their Xeon processors. The processors are still capable and fairly low-power for their age, but the may cause to drop quickly when they get hot.
The NAS is expected to run only s and possibly Syncthing, not a large stack of extra services. is being installed temporarily on a hard drive so the BIOS, iLO, Smart Array, and networking firmware can be updated first. The machines include several features, but most of those may be avoided for security reasons.
The intended final setup is FreeBSD or XigmaNAS, which is based on FreeBSD, mainly to learn ZFS and BSD systems. The storage idea is to use two 500GB drives in a mirror for personal data and two 4TB drives in striping for media.
Key points
- Two small servers are being assigned separate NAS and backup roles.
- Both machines were upgraded to 16GB ECC memory and physically serviced.
- is only a temporary tool for firmware updates.
- FreeBSD or XigmaNAS is the planned long-term system for learning ZFS.
- A mirror is planned for personal data, while striping is being considered for media.