The system is the way it is delivered, not optimally designed. In one of the 4 Bays a 250GB disk is installed, which is good only as a system disk by today's standards, but not for extensive media collections. Above there is a shaft which is intended for a Bluray or DVD drive. Also, the need now unable, since you can also boot from USB.
Here's what I have therefore changed:
In the DVD bay the "Sharkoon SATA QuickPort internal multi docking station black" installed. In its 3.5 "250GB drive comes the Bay for the operating system. The 2.5" Bay remains only once empty.
In addition to the existing 2GB Ram bars I have installed an HP KINGSTON 4GB 1333MHZ DDR3 ECC bars, bringing the total available to 6GB Ram. This is for open media vault (based on Debian Linux) and a RAID5 sufficient.
In Internet circulates a patched firmware that unlocks the withheld from HP features again. (Caution warranty loss!) A. Thus, it is u. Possible to use the port for the ODD (Optical Disk Drive) for another SATA hard disk. This port I have used for the 250GB disk, the frame is sitting in Sharkoon. The firmware also allows hot swapping of drives, but I would still advise against it.
In the 4 Bays hiked 4 "3TB WD Red SATA disks". These can be easily summed up to a RAID5 via the web frontend of Open Media Vault.
This is the first expansion stage. In a second step, the 250GB HD thrown out and a 2.5 "HD moves into the appropriate slot on the
Sharkoon. This plate is then new operating system disk. Thus, even a 3.5 "Bay free for another 3TB WD Red, which can be integrated into the RAID5 The 6th plate is integrated via the eSATA connector around the cable..: Lead (eSata respect to L-shaped plug) inwards can it is sufficient to carefully turn 90 degrees to the left edge of the small flap on the two slot brackets with pliers to the front.
The Sharkoon offers even 2 USB3 sockets, but the N54L only supports USB2. But since 2 PCI Express connectors are present on the board, you can buy a corresponding plug-in card is there. This still remains a free PCI Express slot for your own ideas.
Important: For the power supply of panels in the ODD Bay is just an old 4-pin connector available Swimming. Here has to be bought for SATA drives even an adapter. 1: 1 is sufficient, since the Sharkoon supplies both plates with a connection. But I have a 1: 2 bought adapter so that a future USB3 card can be supplied with additional power per panel connector.
Just a note to volume: The N54L is definitely too loud for operation in the living room! (In my case it is in the storage room, so the noise I do not care.) Otherwise, the 120mm fan must be replaced!
The N54L has only one normal VGA output, no HDMI interface. Since I use the NAS as a server, is administered either on the shell or the web front end. If the N54L more can, you have to stop installing an additional graphics card.
Overall, a compelling product that acts as wertig the 19 "HP servers in the data center field. Hard, stable, reliable and mature The delivery speed of Amazon, as always, excellent.
