Interesting, thanks. I originally got a 4 drive QNAP but it's way too limited in terms of CPU, it couldn't keep up with rsync+ssh transfers. I ended up replacing it with a HP microserver and am very happy with it. So far 4 drives in RAID6 have been enough but it would be nice to have versions with more drives. I guess I could fit a 5th drive in the optical drive slot.

Edit: I see that these Pro QNAP versions are actually high-specced and high-priced Intel machines. The HP microservers still hit a sweet spot of low price and ECC ram though. QNAP must be making a bundle by effectively differentiating themselves in their software. Nothing in the hardware seems to justify the pricing.

I'm on a N40L and found that FDE taxed the CPU too much underneath a RAID 6 array to be useful. I've heard that the more recent models are CPU upgradable to CPUs with AES-NI. What sort of FDE R/W speeds are you seeing?

I don't use encryption. I just checked my munin graphs and the CPU sits ~90% idle, and this is on a N36L, I guess the newer N56L would be better.

It seems the newer generation has moved to Intel but still without AES-NI:

https://ssl.www8.hp.com/us/en/products/proliant-servers/prod...

It's not clear from what I've read if you can swap the processor out.

Why do you run FDE? How do you boot it?

I don't run FDE, because it's too slow to do so (by around 1 order of magnitude IIRC).

See http://b3n.org/installed-xeon-e3-1230v2-in-gen8-hp-microserv... for info on how to do the chip upgrades in the current model.

Looks straightforward. Why would you want FDE in this context?