IBM X3550 1U server

[Alfred Melvin]

Was recently given three 1U servers to play with just as my old mother board failed. Two are IBM X3550 systems and one Sun Microsystems Sunfire X2200 M2.
Three units with twin quad processors, ram, and drives for free is hard not to try to use.
Has anyone used these system and if so any advise is welcomed.

 

[bricol]

I got no problem to install last week Freenas 8.3.1 on IBM x3550 server with 4 SAS 6Gbs 900 Go 2.5 HDD in raid 5 with IBM M5014 raid card. (in fact a LSI raid card renanmed)

I previously tried to install others linux distro and have disabled UEFI.
So, if you can't boot your Freenas CD you'll probably have to desable UEFI in bios.

 

[Alfred Melvin]

I have already installed FreeNAS 8.3.1 on a 146GB Raid1 SAS 2.5" drive set and reset the GUI login for the Broadcom Netxtreme II setup.
Also installed the LSI SAS9201-16I card and will soon hook up the 17 Sata drives as listed in my signature.
Great machine, looking forward to working with it!