HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 as home lab storage

I recently outgrew the local storage on my gaming PC. Rather than just get some bigger drives, I decided that I wanted a separate box for just storage and Plex so that it was easier to tinker on my gaming PC without impact to my family. I thought about buying a Synology or QNAP device, but the cost seemed relatively high for what you get. If I build my own device I have a bit more flexibility on hardware selection, operating system, and disk layout.

I ended up getting an HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10. This system seems to get a lot of hate because it is lacking in features compared to the Gen8. Specifically, the fact that it doesn’t have an iLO and it has a soldered on processor. The new Gen10 Plus reinstates these features with added cost. I decided that for my purposes this wasn’t a deal breaker. Another benefit was the price of the Gen10 dropped significantly. A few weeks ago, you could get new low-end Gen10 box around $325. HPE seems to have sold through their inventory at this point though. In any case, I ended up picking up a refurbished one on Amazon. It is the model with the fastest processor option available (Opteron X3421) and 8 GB of RAM. I was able to snag one for $344.50 after tax with free shipping!

The system has a USB port on the motherboard and ships with an 8 GB USB drive that can be used to install an operating system. I removed it and installed a 16 GB USB drive I had laying around. This is my boot drive for FreeNAS.

As far as drives, I went with (4) 4 TB White Label drives from goharddrive through their eBay page. I snagged them for $253.76 after tax with free shipping, though they seem to be a little cheaper at the moment. These drives have a bit of a reputation being shady as it appears they are not actually new but old drives tested/”refurbished” with their SMART data wiped. I have backups of any of the data that is really important to me so I’m not too concerned. I wouldn’t use them for anything production. 1 of the 4 drives was louder and slower than the rest and I was able to send it back and get a replacement without issue. These are a bit louder that I’d like though so I’m not sure I’d do that again.

I picked up an Intel DC S3700 100 GB SATA SSD to use for the SLOG. This drive is recommended by ServeTheHome. The 100 GB model is slower than other drives in the series, but still has enough write performance that the onboard gigabit ethernet is still the bottleneck. I was able to score one for $29.68 after tax and free shipping off eBay. The MicroServer supports the installation of an SSD in the optical drive bay.

I didn’t have any luck getting the official enablement kit to put an SSD in the optical drive bay. It seems to be perpetually backordered. I ended up ordering this cable off eBay for $7.37 after tax with free shipping. Right now I just have the SSD loose inside the case. I thought about trying to put in an optical bay to SSD converter, but most of those have slimline SATA connectors which mean adding in yet another adapter. You’ll need a SATA cable too, but I had one lying around.

I’ve been happy with the machine so far. iSCSI performance to a machine running ESXi has been acceptable and my Plex server is humming along just fine as a jail on FreeNAS.

HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10	$344.50
16 GB USB flash drive	$0.00
(4) 4 TB White Label 7200 RPM SATA drives	$253.76
Intel DC S3700 100 GB SATA SSD	$29.68
Optical bay power cable	$7.37
SATA cable	$0.00
Total	$635.31

In the end, I think it was worth it. Something like a Synology DS420+ retails for $499.99 without any hard drives or cache drives. It also has 2 less cores and 6 GB less RAM.