HP N40L Microserver Overview

Overview

In my effort to find components to build a low powered home server, I came across a cashback offer on the HP N40L which was not bad value to begin with as the case is perfect for a small home server. I bought mine off Ebuyer (I paid £210 + postage, although at time of writing the price has gone up to £260!). I used Parcel Motel as Ebuyer will not deliver to Ireland. (Use Google wallet to pay).

It is has a pretty decent spec for the job:

Processor:

• AMD Turion™ II Neo N40L (1.5GHz) 
• AMD RS785E/SB820M chipset

Memory:

• Two (2) DIMM slots 
• 2GB (1x2GB) Standard or 4GB (1x4GB)/8GB Maximum, using PC3-10600E DDR3 Unbuffered (UDIMM) ECC memory, operating at max. 800MHz 

Storage Controller:

• Embedded AMD SATA controller with RAID 0, 1 
• Embedded AMD eSATA controller for connecting external storage devices via the eSATA connector in the rear of the server 

Internal Drive Support:

• 4 Internal HDD Support 
• Maximum internal SATA storage capacity of up to 8.0TB (4 x 2TB 3.5" SATA drives) 

Network Controller:

• Embedded NC107i PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Server Adapter 

Expansion Slots:

• Slot 1: PCI-Express Gen 2 x16 connector with x16 link 
• Slot 2: PCI-Express Gen 2 x1 connector with x1 Link 
• Slot 2-2: PCI-Express x4 slot for optional management card 
• USB 2.0 Ports: 
• Seven (7) USB 2.0 ports: 4 front , 2 rear, 1 internal (for tape) 

Power Supply:

• 150 Watts Non-Hot Plug, Non Redundant Power Supply 

I received it today and it looks great, a really solid looking machine. I have not bought any extra hard drives for it at the moment (I'm banking that the prices are going to keep falling :) )

I have thrown Ubuntu LTS 12.04.2 64-bit Server edition onto it. I installed it using a USB disc drive. In future blog posts I am, mainly for my own records!, going to document the set up steps I run on this machine to get it working as a home server.