Following hypervisor.fr‘s post Les HP Proliant ML110 G6 supportent 32Go de RAM, we just confirm this time that HP N40L servers support the non-ECC RAM up to 16GB (in 2x8GB configuration).
Although the server was supposed to only support up to 8GB ECC RAM, we found a post related to some tests about supported memory for the N40L server.
Finally, HP N40L (found brand new for ~170€ on eBay) seems to be a really nice choice for homemade NAS. With four 3.5″ bays and a 5.25″ slot (which is a perfect spot for docks like IcyDock MB994SP-4S in order to plug four 2.5″ disks, or soon the IcyDock MB996SP-6SB one in order to plug 6), and the possibility of upgrading to 16GB RAM, all in a 26.7 x 21.0 x 26.0 cm box, it quickly becomes handy to do what you want with it (for instance Nexenta ^^) :
So we took a shot, mainly because the Patriot 2x8GB G2 non-ECC is less than 100€, which make the whole NAS really cheap !
Did you try to combine some Disks and add SSD devices ?
(Small, Silent, Cheap)
Would be so cool to be able to put everything in this small server
Actually, I just have 4 SSD in the 5.25″ bay, but the plan is to add 4×3.5″ sata disks in the regular bays for some nice RAID-Z in order to have space and throughput ^^