[Discuss] N40L on sale for $179.99 at PC Connection Express

[tmetro-blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

markw at mohawksoft.com wrote:
> ...the link no longer works...

There is an eBay vendor with 4 units for sale at $190:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/350537963128

(Though with somewhat rip-off shipping of $20.)

These are described as "Hp Demo Unit", so presumably not factory sealed.
30-day warranty. No mention of what, if any, OS is included. Importantly
these also lack the 2 TB drive and only include the 250 GB drive.


I guess the stock model doesn't include an OS. I see the Amazon product
page shows WHS as a separate item frequently bought with it.


I see an Amazon review:
http://www.amazon.com/HP-658553-001-ProLiant-Server-System/product-reviews/B005KKJPCO/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R2NNXYLGZ2L9J0

describes using one of these boxes to boot VMWare ESXi off a USB Flash
drive, then run NexentaStor (commercial NAS OS based on Solaris) w/ZFS,
including remote replication. Not sure why VMWare is necessary. Nexenta
isn't directly compatible with this hardware?

He also says, "Solaris 11 was the fastest, but requires a $1000/year
support contract for non-personal/development use and OpenIndiana was
the second fastest but hasn't officially released a stable version yet.
NexentaStor (free up to 18TB) is used in production by many enterprises
so I opted to use it instead even though it was slower. But if I weren't
storing some business data on it I would go with Solaris 11..."

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/