Ebay Server

[Stuartbe]

Hi All.

I fount this on ebay.

It seems to meet all the criteria, can someone confirm compatibility please. I want to be 100% sure its ok.

Thanks loads.

Stu.

 

[carlos juan]

That looks great! Sadly I can't confirm it would work as I don't have any experience with it. Hope someone could shine a little light confirming it works, would be a hell of a server for freenas! Good luck!

Sent from my XT1095 using Tapatalk

 

[BigDave]

This unit appears to have a RAID card (Perc H310) which possibly will need to be
cross flashed before using with FreeNAS. Also the backplane may be too old to
recognize drives over 2TB in capacity. My guess is the cost is low due to the
fact that it has an older backplane.

http://downloads.dell.com/manuals/a...redge/poweredge-r520_owner's manual_en-us.pdf

 

[IceBoosteR]

If the PERC H310 is in the server, you can flash it to IT mode. On the other hand, check out if they is a newer firmware available for the backplane as BigDave mentioned. If you find out that 2+TB is supported, you can go with the system.
But keep in mind that the powe consuumption in idle may be high.

 

[Chris Moore]

The eBay listing does not give enough detail about what the hardware is.

 

[ChriZ]

From one of the pictures I see it is an H310 mini card.
From what I read you might not be able to flash it to IT.

 

[Chris Moore]

From one of the pictures I see it is an H310 mini card.
From what I read you might not be able to flash it to IT.

I agree, I don't think you can flash that card, but you might be able to put a regular h310 that you can flash into one of the other card slots.
I have heard of other people using this model server. You might want to do a google search for it because I have actually found better answers that way even looking for results on this message board.

 

[Stuartbe]

Thanks for the info all.

I don't think I will take the chance and stick with Supermicro based system.
I have 8 x 4TB WD red drives ready to rock and roll for data and 2 X Seagate 500MB hybrid drives for the os.

Its planned to be a file server for 20-30 clients and a Plex server for 10 clients. Aside from the backplane
issue that I was not aware of am I in the right ballpark hardware wise ?

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[Chris Moore]

Thanks for the info all.

I don't think I will take the chance and stick with Supermicro based system.
I have 8 x 4TB WD red drives ready to rock and roll for data and 2 X Seagate 500MB hybrid drives for the os.

Its planned to be a file server for 20-30 clients and a Plex server for 10 clients. Aside from the backplane
issue that I was not aware of am I in the right ballpark hardware wise ?

Thanks again for all your help.

That is a lot of simultaneous connections for a home system. Is it for a business?

How many simultaneous streams do you expect to feed with Plex? The CPU required will depend on that and the amount of "on the fly" transcoding that Plex will need to do.

You can look at my configuration in my signature, and I have run two simultaneous streams with no trouble and I could probably do more, I just don't have enough clients to need to.

Had you thought about how you would arrange the disks, one RAID-Z2 set or two vdevs in one pool? Is more disks an option for your budget?

 

[Stuartbe]

To be honest I have decided to go for higher spec hardware than will be needed to try and future proof myself as much as possible. I have 4 devices that will be local Plex clients and I think all of them will be able to direct play.

The rest of the clients are family around the world both Plex and data.

Its a home server but will be kept at work for the bandwidth needs.

I was planning to use the two hybrid drives for the OS and the WD reds for the media. I only have 8 WD RED drives at the moment but I will be able to upgrade later this year.

I am not familiar with the way pools and jails work but I am reading up as we speak. I have 20+ years IT experience with domestic and server hardware so I think I will be able to get my head around it.

I am still looking about for barebone systems and prebuilt I dont mind second hand parts but I dont risk second hand hard drives. It it good forum etiquette to post links to systems or is it better to post the specs.

My current budget is around £1500 but could stretch a little is absolutely needed.

My thanks to all in advance :)

Stuart.

 

[Chris Moore]

I was planning to use the two hybrid drives for the OS

Totally not needed for FreeNAS. A 32GB drive is more than enough for data and the only time it reads it is during boot or on the infrequent occasion that it needs to read or write something to the boot drive. Most of what is on the boot media is loaded to RAM during boot and lives there while the server is running. You can easily (as I do) use a 40GB laptop style hard drive for the boot drive and the system works great. Slow and small just don't matter. You could use a 16GB USB 2.0 memory stick and it would work just the same.

The more you can tell us about what you want, the better we can target recommendations and if you have specific things you want to do, like you already have some hard drives purchased, let us know that so we can take it into account. I will be happy to make some suggestions to point you in a direction that will save you from making some of the mistakes I made when I first started doing this.

 

[Stuartbe]

I didn't realise that logging was not kept on the boot drive. I have a 120GB SSD 2.5" drive, from what you say its a little overkill but I may as well use it. A few questions if you would be so kind.....

1 Does Freenas have a facility to email a backup of its configuration on a timed basis or the facility to email it via a cron job.

2 I have found this case for use if I go for self build. Do Supermicro produce any dual CPU motherboards and if so what sort of price range am I looking at.

3 I want to aim for 128GB of ram. Do the dual CPU Supermicro boards (if they sell them) have a separate ram bank for each cpu or is it combined. If you have any model numbers for there boards I could look up that would be great.

4 What hdd controller ( I know I need non raid ) would you recommend for a self-build with 12 ports / SAS link.

Thanks for the help.. Supermicro is one make of motherboard I have never come across.

Cheers :)

Stuart.

 

[Redcoat]

For Supermicro - go here and take a look to get a feel for who they are and what they produce. Do your availability and pricing investigation in the UK - USA will be different.

Yes, FreeNAS will email configuration via a cron job one example here. Forum search is your friend...

 

[Stuartbe]

Hmmm...

I think I am going about this the wrong way. I see Supermicro have readybuilt servers. If I spec out what I am after could someone recommend a prebuilt system from super micro. I want to be as futereproof as possible and have a budget of £1500-£1800

Rackmount front bay enclosure with at least 12 bays.

Redundant PSU (not vital)

At least 1 10GBE ethernet port & 2 1GBS ports

Single or dual CPU with at least 8 cores (4 with hyperthreading) Prefer 8 physical cores (16 with hyperthreading)

128GB ECC ram

6GBS backplane

All drives will be 4TB WD Red's

IPMI would be nice but not vital

Is this easier information to work with? I have never built or used a Supermicro server.

Feeling like I have drifted into the deep end of the pool as all my experience is with HP and DELL servers. Im MCP MCSE and Security+ (CCNA years ago). I deal with a lot of Astaro hardware. 90% of my knowledge is PEN testing and network hardening / testing ect.

Thanks tons for all your help guys.

Stuart.

 

[danb35]

I didn't realise that logging was not kept on the boot drive.

Not ordinarily; by default it goes on the data pool once you create one. You can put it on the boot pool, but that isn't generally recommended.

Does Freenas have a facility to email a backup of its configuration

Not built in, but it can be scripted easily enough, and there are a number of examples around here. But if that email would pass through anyone else's mail servers, I wouldn't--the config file contains passwords, encryption keys, etc. Edit: The system also stores nightly backups of the config file in the .system dataset, which is by default on the data pool (another reason you don't really want it on your boot device).

I want to aim for 128GB of ram. Do the dual CPU Supermicro boards (if they sell them) have a separate ram bank for each cpu or is it combined.

It's separate RAM for each CPU. See my sig for one dual-socket Supermicro board. It works well, but it's not the current generation.

What hdd controller ( I know I need non raid ) would you recommend for a self-build with 12 ports / SAS link.

An LSI/Broadcom/Avago SAS HBA, and a SAS2 or SAS3 expander backplane.

 

[Stuartbe]

Thanks everyone for your help.

We have just moved house so have had to strip my comms racks.

I will come back to this when I am not completely surrounded by cardboard boxes.

Thanks all.

 

[Stuartbe]

Hello again all

We still haven't fully unpacked :D but I spotted this.
If this is not suitable there is this server but as I am in the UK I am a bit worried about the customs charges.

According to the data sheet it will take ECC memory.
If the controller can be flashed that would be perfect but if not would I be able to replace the controller card?

Any thoughts ?

Thanks all.

Stuartbe

:)

 

[BigDave]

Any thoughts ?

Supermicro chassis are easily obtainable in the UK. Try starting here...

 

[Chris Moore]

Does Freenas have a facility to email a backup of its configuration on a timed basis or the facility to email it via a cron job.

Sorry that I didn't respond sooner. Yes, by way of some scripting, look here:
Github repository for FreeNAS scripts, including disk burnin
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...for-freenas-scripts-including-disk-burnin.28/

I have found this case for use if I go for self build. Do Supermicro produce any dual CPU motherboards and if so what sort of price range am I looking at.

Yes. Cost depends on if you want new or used. I would go with used for the cost savings. Something like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO...9DRI-F-BPN-SAS2-846EL1-24x-TRAYS/382231880992
If you can't find one like that over there, several of the forum users have employed this service to get hard to source items:
https://www.shipito.com/en/

I want to aim for 128GB of ram. Do the dual CPU Supermicro boards (if they sell them) have a separate ram bank for each cpu or is it combined.

They certainly do sell them and it is a separate bank for each CPU, but they need to match one another.

What hdd controller ( I know I need non raid ) would you recommend for a self-build with 12 ports / SAS link

This is my current favorite because it is PCIe 3.0. It is HP branded but under the covers it is an LSI / Avago / Broadcom card. It gives you 8 SAS lanes but with an expander backplane like the chassis I linked to above has, it can control all the drives (up to 256 drives if I recall correctly) :
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-H220-6G...0-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162862201664

IPMI would be nice but not vital

Once you use it, you will never want to not have it.

We still haven't fully unpacked :D but I spotted this.

Not a good one, too old and slow.

If this is not suitable there is this server but as I am in the UK I am a bit worried about the customs charges.

You should stay away from any used AMD processors because they are probably very old (this one is) and they burn way more power and put out so much heat.

I think I am going about this the wrong way. I see Supermicro have readybuilt servers. If I spec out what I am after could someone recommend a prebuilt system from super micro. I want to be as futereproof as possible and have a budget of £1500-£1800

I looked that up, $2100 to $2400 US and you should be able to get a nice used server, even with shipping from the US, for that price. Don't jump on the first thing you see though.
Would you prefer a list of parts to assemble or do you want if fully built?

 

[Chris Moore]

Any thoughts ?

This system is already fully configured with compatible components:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2U-Supermi...80-V2-10-Core-128GB-JBOD-FREENAS/142732157820