HP N36L/N40L/N54L Microserver Updated AHCI BIOS Support.

RustySpoons

Yes, I will have a look in to that, the option is there.
But would have to come with a warning. As the main caveat with the Microserver is a lack of cooling for the main board.

jerrymac

I installed on my two microservers and both working fine one with ESXi 5.0 and the other with Win2008 R2.

RustySpoons

Just had a play around with Solaris 11 (text install, no gui) on the Microserver.
Can confirm Solaris 11 Express supports AHCI on the Microserver out of the box, with ALL 6 ports (using this BIOS)

~$ prtconf -D
                                        Code:                                  pci103c,1609, instance #0 (driver name: ahci)
            disk, instance #1 (driver name: sd)
            disk, instance #2 (driver name: sd)
            disk, instance #3 (driver name: sd)
            disk, instance #4 (driver name: sd)        That's with 1 disk in the ODD bay (OS Drive) and 3 Disks in the Hot swap bay, i'm getting over 220mb per sec sequential reads using 2x2TB and 1x1TB in Raidz and not even set up properly yet, but it's works and is saturating my gigabit network!.

Solaris 11 seems to work well.

MikeK

One slight caveat that anyone considering Solaris11 should be aware of, is that the latest ZFS pool versions are Oracle only (at least for the moment), so if you build your pools with the default pool version, then you'll be stuck on Solaris11, as nothing else which supports ZFS will support pool versions above 28 AFAIK (sol11express 11-2010 uses pool version 31 by default, and the latest Early Adopter release (EA) uses pool version 33)

Probably best to create your pools using something like pool version 22 (perhaps lower, depending on what pool version your potential target OS supports - FreeNAS8 for instance only supports up to version 15 AFAIK), at least then you could switch to another OS if you want without having to destroy and recreate your pools. You can always upgrade the pool version later if you feel you need any of the features the latest pool versions provide.
However there is no reverse option, you cannot downgrade the pool version - once it's at version 31 or 33 there's no going back to an earlier version (not without destroying and recreating the pool that is)

Benoe

I also made the update, it is working ok. I didn't need to update any settings.

Benoe

Let me copy my microserver bios wishlist here:

1. S3 suspend
2. shorter bios boot, if the previous one is not possible
3. adjustable fan speed

RustySpoons

Let me copy my microserver bios wishlist here:

1. S3 suspend
This doesn't seem possible yet, will keep looking in to it though

2. shorter bios boot, if the previous one is not possible
Might be possible, can disable optional prompts/option bioses

3. adjustable fan speed
To speed up or slow down?

Benoe

Could be both. I also read, that you cannot install some noiseless but powerful fans, because there is a limit in fan speed, the microserver doesn't start below: link

"This is a PWM version of the popular SlipStream series, with a rated maximum speed of 1300 RPM. After the initial full speed burst at turnon, the fan slowed to an extremely slow speed, which caused a fan error message to display and the system to power down immediately. The system wants to see a faster fan."

RustySpoons

Thanks for that info MikeK,

Though will probably stay with Solaris 11 but not on the Microserver, in the process of pricing up a SandyBridge Xeon system to do VT-d, will run it on ESXi. Really surprised how well the Microserver copes with ZFS though

It is possible to disable fan control through the BIOS,I  will have a play around with that and see if the server will ignore fan speeds?

Benoe

To tell the truth, currently I'm not planning to replace the fan. But I know that others want to or already had problems with it.
But if there would be an option for the fan to slow it down to become more quiet, and consume less power, I would use it.

I would be happy to have any option that makes the microserver faster to boot (or wake up from sleep), consume less power, make more quiet. Others may have other preferences. (like cpu overclock, running games, etc.)