Dell Poweredge T20 questions

[tyronebiggums]

Hello all,

After lurking and doing my research, I'm leaning towards going the Dell Poweredge T20 vs. building something from 100% scratch since it appears I can go the Dell route for sub $500 and since it's been 7+ years since I've built a computer of any kind so I'm a bit out of date when it comes to current standards and capabilities. Here is my proposed setup and below are my questions

• OS: 2 x SanDisk Cruzer Fit 16 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive
• Chassis: 1 x Dell Poweredge T20
• Power Supply: stock 290W that comes with server
• Motherboard: stock that comes with server
• CPU: 1 x Pentium G3220 3 GHz
• RAM: 2 x Crucial
  8GB DDR3 PC3-14900 Unbuffered ECC 1.5V
• HDD: 2 x WD Red, size TBD

1. How is the onboard NIC? Does work well or is it worth the $30 or so for an Intel NIC and then disable the unboard NIC? Also, if I do buy an aftermarket NIC, which PCI standard would be most advantageous for this board? In case I do need to add more than four drives down the line, I don't want to occupy a slot with a NIC card that I'd need for SATA expansion.

2. I noticed that there are 2 x SATA 6gb and 2 x SATA 3gb ports on the board. I plan on buying two drives to start with and plan to mirror them, unless otherwise recommended. Should I put one drive on SATA 6gb and one on SATA 3gb or should both of them occupy both the 6gb ports and if I add a second vdev down the road, have the two new drives occupy the 3gb ports?

3. The server comes with 4gb of RAM, does this type of ram have to be installed in pairs? If I buy 2 x 8gb sticks and install them on top of the 4gb, I'd have 20gb of RAM or should I just remove the stock RAM and only go with the 16gb?

4. Is the Pentium G3220 3 GHz that comes with the base model sufficient or do I need the upgraded Xeon? This is going to be a basic home NAS storing your typical movies, photos, documents, etc. with one, perhaps two users. I plan on installing Plex and perhaps down the road Owncloud and to be able to backup my stuff to the server from a remote location. I'm not a FreeBSD/Linux/Unix guru so I don't plan on doing any crazy stuff with this.

Thanks for looking and helping out this noob!

 

[gpsguy]

I believe the onboard NIC is an Intel i217. It should be fine.

Don't worry about the difference between the 2 types of SATA ports. The 3GB ports will fine for spinning rust.

I *don't* think the memory has to be installed in pairs.

You'll probably be okay with the G3220 CPU. You could probably replace it (yourself) down the road, if it proves to be insufficient.

Just this week someone was considering a T20. I noticed that Provantage has the G3220 version for $156.92 USD - http://www.provantage.com/dell-snp96mctc-8g~7DELL33Y.htm

For that price, you could pick one up and use it for a backup replication target, if you outgrew it in the future.

 

[tyronebiggums]

I saw that price which I why I plan on buying one when I get paid again, if there are any left. I just check Crucial's website and this is what it says about the memory so I guess it does have to be installed in pairs.

• Maximum memory: 32768MB
• Slots:4 (2 banks of 2)

*Not to exceed manufacturer supported memory.

 

[gpsguy]

I went by the Dell documentation: http://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/poweredge-t20_Owner's Manual_en-us.pdf

One example they used was a single DIMM in socket 1 & 2. Channel A is comprised of sockets 1 & 3, B is 2 & 4.

 

[tyronebiggums]

Thanks for the all input, everyone. Another point brought up to me today is hard drive size. I know a lot of BIOS's only support up to 2tb drives. Has anyone had any problems with using 3tb+ hard drives in the T20?

 

[gpsguy]

Please try the search feature - either on the forum or Google.

If you searched the forum, you'd find that some users that have 4TB drives in them.

 

[tyronebiggums]

Thanks for the input, everyone. I just received my T20 earlier today; I took advantage of that $164 deal. It came with Hynix hmt451u7bfr8a RAM which according to what I read on their website (https://www.skhynix.com/products/computing/view.jsp?info.ramKind=20&info.serialNo=HMT451U7BFR8A) isn't ECC memory but according to third-party retailers selling this model number is ECC and according to Provantange's site, it's supposed to come with ECC memory.

I plan on buying a 16gb kit from Crucial, CT2KIT102472BD160B. Has anyone used the 4gb DIMM that ships with this unit with 2x8gb set, especially from a manufacturer or should I just Ebay it and try to get a few bucks back to offset the cost? I'm curious what other T20 owners ended up doing with the stock memory...

 

[rogerh]

Thanks for the input, everyone. I just received my T20 earlier today; I took advantage of that $164 deal. It came with Hynix hmt451u7bfr8a RAM which according to what I read on their website (https://www.skhynix.com/products/computing/view.jsp?info.ramKind=20&info.serialNo=HMT451U7BFR8A) isn't ECC memory but according to third-party retailers selling this model number is ECC and according to Provantange's site, it's supposed to come with ECC memory.

I plan on buying a 16gb kit from Crucial, CT2KIT102472BD160B. Has anyone used the 4gb DIMM that ships with this unit with 2x8gb set, especially from a manufacturer or should I just Ebay it and try to get a few bucks back to offset the cost? I'm curious what other T20 owners ended up doing with the stock memory...

The Hynix page you link to, although it does not say ECC in the headline, lower down in the small print says:

• Supports ECC error correction and detection

You used to be able to tell by counting the chips, don't know if this is still true. Edit: the table at the bottom of the page confirms the part you have is the 9 chip, ECC version.

The ideal recommendation is never to mix different makes or types of memory, but it might well work together with Crucial memory installed as well.

 

[tyronebiggums]

Wow, I can't believe that I overlooked that. None the less, I won't plan on using it.

Ok, another question has popped up for T20 users: With (4) 3.5" bays and (2) 2.5" bays and with (4) SATA ports on the motherboards, what kind of mirror or Raidz setup have you all found to be most optimal? I was thinking of starting with (2) WD Red's, probably 3tb and setting them up in a mirror. I've also thought of getting (3) drives and set them up in a RaidZ1. If I need more space down the road, getting the largest 2.5" WD Red's that are on the market at the time in conjunction with a 3.5" WD Red with the same size and get some sort of SATA PCI card. Are either ideas good or am I crazy?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Are either ideas good or am I crazy?

If you start with a two-drive mirror, adding another two-drive mirrored later will be a simple way to expand your pool, but your pool will only be able to survive the failure of one drive from each mirror.

If you start with 3x3TB in RAIDZ1, the ZFS police will give you a stern talking-to, because drives that large are quite likely to experience read errors during resilvering when you start to fill them up.

If you start with 4 drives in RAIDZ2, your pool will be able to survive the failure of any 2 drives without data loss, and the ZFS police will give you a pony.

Only you can determine which layout makes sense for you, based on the cost vs risk tolerance tradeoff.

 

[BigDave]

If you start with 4 drives in RAIDZ2, your pool will be able to survive the failure of any 2 drives without data loss, and the ZFS police will give you a pony.

>>>fotflmao<<<