Introducing my HP Microserver N36L using WHS2011 + XBMC

yea just saw that, prematurely posted... though i think eskro's sff build is more logical as it is only marginally bigger than the HP N40L

hi, would like to bump for my question please:

does anyone know if it's possible to boot the Microserver into XBMC Live using a 2.5" drive connected via eSata?

I have a choice of boot/download drive now between an old 100GB 2.5" HDD I have (I'd need to buy an eSata caddy) vs buying a bigger USB stick, maybe 16GB or so.

i will give it a try when i'm back home today...


edit: hmm sry i am afraid unetbootin doesn't recognize my 2,5" usb hdd although it's formatted with FAT32. so it's not possible for me to install xbmc live on it

so i can't test it if you can boot from on it on the microserver ...

cable_guy Wrote:does anyone know if it's possible to boot XBMC Live using the Microserver from a 2.5" drive connected via eSata?

Yes it is entirely possible. I'm booting from a 2.5" eSATA 500GB drive, in an Icy Box, no issues at all. Running the modded bios and Windows 7 but don't see why Live would make any difference.

Windows won't let you boot from USB drives as it loads the USB drivers partway through boot, but eSATA is just like normal SATA, as long as the BIOS supports it.

QLink Wrote:i will give it a try when i'm back home today...


edit: hmm sry i am afraid unetbootin doesn't recognize my 2,5" usb hdd although it's formatted with FAT32. so it's not possible for me to install xbmc live on it

so i can't test it if you can boot from on it on the microserver ...

Thanks for testing for me QLink, I got a bit optimistic last night and ordered an eSata 2.5" caddy and an eSata - eSata cable, sounds like that plan has gone up in smoke then!

Are you using uNetbootin on a Windows machine? I will still give it a go, I know of people on another forum I frequent have managed to boot it from eSata, although that was for a different OS entirely (ESXi IIRC)

thanks again for trying

baldmosher Wrote:Yes it is entirely possible. I'm booting from a 2.5" eSATA 500GB drive, no issues at all. Running the modded bios and Windows 7 but don't see why Live would make any difference.

oh! Wow, that sounds positive. Do you mind me asking why you boot from eSata rather than an internal drive?

Cos I have an Icy Box but I don't have a spare SATA cable.

fair enough, can't imagine there is a difference in speed. I am doing it because I use my Microserver for 2 purposes, an ESXi test box (boot from USB), and XBMCLive (boot from USB but hoping to soon boot from eSata)

There's no difference in speed. eSATA is the same as SATA2. It's a lot slower than SATA3 but there's no SATA3 controller in the N40L and besides, the chipset can't handle it anyway - data throughput ceiling is approx 180MB/s in the N40L.

Once I build my HTPC I'll be moving the SSD direct to that machine to keep my current setup, and installing ESXi on USB with Windows 7 VM on one of the internal drives in the Microserver. Or I might just get an old 2.5" HDD from a laptop for the Icy Box and use that to keep OS off the data drives.

baldmosher, do you know if the modded BIOS is necessary to boot from eSata?

I have all the equipment now but see no mention in the BIOS of eSata at all