Well the one I'm referring to is from HP. The one you are referring to is the WD Sentinel which only uses the WD enterprise class RE drives which are bloody expensive. Performance is so so only. You are better off with a Synology for the same price.

The HP Microserver does not come with an OS. You can put anything inside it. Run Unix or Windows OSes and have your 4 hardisk (more than 4 hardisk have to do a little hacking) run in different RAID modes. Some people even run Synology's DSM on these HP Microservers and find them faster than using them on Synology's own hardware.
If you can find the Microserver N36L or N40L (difference is only in the AMD processor clock) which should not be more than RM 600 or so (somebody can update on this nd their availability?)

I'm currently running 2 N36Ls. One at 8GB memory with 4 x 3TB WD Red running WHS 2011 and the other one at 16GB memory with 4 x 2TB Samsung F4E running Windows Server 2008 R2.

I stream full bluray iso across the Gigabit network with no problems. Both do not have problems hitting 100 to 120 MB/s transfer rates across the network.

IMO, NAS don't last long even for branded ones.

I have a Drobo 1st Gen and within 2 years, unit decided to kaput and destroyed all my data. Can't even recover them. So, I did the best thing. Wipe all drives clean and start over. Luckily, my old Buffalo NAS still have some old data so I don't have to start from scratch.

Since then, I bought a cheap PC, 2 pieces of USB 3.0 PCI-E cards (total 4 ports) and some external USB 3.0 cases. I have 4 USB 3.0 hard drive cases each with 2TB. I used 4TB for data and another 4TB for software mirroring from Windows 7.

Oh... good info, didn't know Android uses UPNP to stream, kinda stupid to force the NAS to work harder, read directly using SMB is a better choice I think, just like using the ES File Explorer.
Can you now seek the movie without pause too much? (Jump chapters, forward)
You using Gbps LAN right? 
DNS-327L uses some very low-end embedded CPU (Marvell Armada 300: http://www.marvell.com/embedded-processors/armada-300/)

How much you bought your N36L? Within RM600?
What's the PSU size? Is it the non-standard size that's used in some shuttle chassis? 

I am planning for future (if board still available) on DIY Mini-ITX 4~6 HDDs NAS with below specs:
ASROCK E35LM1 Mini-ITX [RM 190]
Bitfenix Phenom Mini-ITX [RM 279]
1x 4GB RAM [RM 120]
FSP 500W PSU [RM 150]
Total [RM 739]

If the HP N36L is RM600 and below then DIY project is not value any more, what do you all say?
In my case, I'll probably break the RM 800 barrier as I'm living in the East so postage fees is another issue to be considered.
But I do think the above performance will beat the HP N36L, but lack the ease of installing HDD and the size of the chassis will probably turn off some.

I bought it around the first batch of microserver so RM900 incl. keyboard/dvd-rom/mouse, It's using the non-standard PSU size and it's costly!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-150W-Microserve...=item20dd34d7de

I will DIY if my PSU mati...

for the next question, it really depends on what you are looking for... I'm looking for something more towards power effecientcy which Microserver helps alot! for torrent/file server it's more than enough...
I wanted to get the card, but come to think of it, I don't know when the server will die since it has been running for 3 years +...

the addon is good to manage the server remotely since my box is not connect to any LCD/Keyboard. It is hard to troubleshoot if I couldn't reach the microserver on OS level.

Gen8 microserver built in HP iLO which has been management than this card. Still thinking about upgrading the box 

Hmmm... There is none. Unless you install something like Synology's DSM in your Microserver.

Anyway, since it's just file sharing / streaming, what do you consider complicated in the management? Treat it just like another PC.

I think some sifus here tried Freenas before. I have not. But from what I've read, it's slow. Windows is faster.

You can also try Synology DSM. Very polished interface. I've used the DSM interface in a real Synology DS2413+ and I like ti a lot but not installed it in a Microserver. Apparently the DSM performance in the Microserver is comparable to Synology's own high end hardware.
Of course that one expensive. Gen8 runs on Intel.

Where you bought your N40L from?
How much it cost?
What media you used to boot the DSM? USB pendrive?

Wah, congrats ! 

Never knew you would take the Microserver and Xpenology advise seriously.

Anyway, for NAS, go for WD Red. Avoid WD Green if you can.
I think he mentioned it earlier? 800 from Lelong?

With the Xpenology, I believe you need to boot from Pendrive.

Yup, bought from lelong. Double from my original budget. . But it really worth it if compare to other 4-5 bay NAS out there.
I just followed guide from Xpenology forum.
You need Usb thumdrive to boot and of course a hard drive. Another thing, you also need another pc installed with synology assistant (get it from their website) connect to the same LAN with the microserver.

Don't kill the messenger ! 
Actually I would not consider it as hacking since it's open source. There's no support directly from Synology (as expected) but the software is the same one used by them. So if it's not safe on Xpenology, it would not be safe on Synology DSM also.

I'm assuming you're on a Windows PC?

Since the file format from the Synology is EXT4 linux system, you need to download something like this.

I plan only to switch on my microserver when ever I'm available at home, 6pm-7am and don't plan for 24/7. So, will Green do the job or still better go for RED? Red is non existent here, even for Green AV is hard to get here.

Hi,
The perception that cheaper NAS can't handle the processing requirement of DLNA server is not true at all.  The Dlink DNS-320L has a 1Ghz processor which is more than enough to stream 1080p movies without any problem.  I'm using a earlier model DNS-320 (800Mhz processor), it also can handle 1080p streaming without any issue at all.  However, I don't quite like the stock software that comes with it, hence I loaded extra software from http://nas-tweaks.net/, and I'm using minidlna to become the DLNA server.  I've about 1 TB of movies served out by minidlna to my Samsung 40" DLNA client/renderer.  Read more and backup before you do anything with your stock NAS, please don't come and look for me if you screwed up your NAS after tweaking stuffs.  I screwed up many times before getting it right.

Yes, you are correct.  You will need some fundamental linux skills to understand the steps but it is not difficult.

No, not true at all as I've mentioned above.

can those cheap switches actually sustain a 1gbps speed? something tells me no
Ok, maybe I guess if it just one connection it should be ok, but have never tried before.