Recycling an old supermicro

[Letiteuf55]

Hello,

I recently "found" an old Supermicro NAS and here are the specs :

Supermicro X7DVL-3
2*Xeon 5110@1.6Ghz
4Gb of RAM
16*700Gb HDD
2*AMCC 9550SX-4/8LP

Is it possible to install FreeNAS on it ?
Because, I try... but when the installation is running, the server reboot and freeze on boot (bios log screen)
Although, i think about changing the motherboard but keeping the chassis and the 2 AMCC cards.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Spearfoot]

Hello,

I recently "found" an old Supermicro NAS and here are the specs :

Supermicro X7DVL-3
2*Xeon 5110@1.6Ghz
4Gb of RAM
16*700Gb HDD
2*AMCC 9550SX-4/8LP

Is it possible to install FreeNAS on it ?
Because, I try... but when the installation is running, the server reboot and freeze on boot (bios log screen)
Although, i think about changing the motherboard but keeping the chassis and the 2 AMCC cards.

Thanks for your help.

4GB of RAM is only half of the minimum hardware requirements.

 

[Letiteuf55]

4GB of RAM is only half of the minimum hardware requirements.

Yeah i see that, but before buying new one, is it possible to run FreeNas without the full recommended RAM in order to test all of the hardware ?

 

[Spearfoot]

Yeah i see that, but before buying new one, is it possible to run FreeNas without the full recommended RAM in order to test all of the hardware ?

Well... you don't need FreeNAS to test hardware: FreeBSD or Linux will work very well for that purpose.

You can also use the Ultimate Boot CD or similar to test your hardware.

 

[Letiteuf55]

Well... you don't need FreeNAS to test hardware: FreeBSD or Linux will work very well for that purpose.

You can also use the Ultimate Boot CD or similar to test your hardware.

ok, thanks, i guess...
I use FreeNas because, i hope install FreeNas on this server in the future...
For now it doesn't work and i don't know why...
I'm going to try with a random linux distrib, let you know what's going on.

 

[Spearfoot]

ok, thanks, i guess...
I use FreeNas because, i hope install FreeNas on this server in the future...
For now it doesn't work and i don't know why...
I'm going to try with a random linux distrib, let you know what's going on.

I recommend you acquire newer hardware for your FreeNAS system. I don't believe you'll be happy with the old X7-based system you're considering. It will be very slow. It will burn a great deal of energy. It's so old that the RAM you need for it may be prohibitively expensive. The 9550 RAID card is a horrible choice for use with FreeNAS and the on-board SAS subsystem is limited to older, very small-capacity hard drives.

And so forth and so on...

 

[gpsguy]

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the previous owner unloaded it for reasons like spearfoot mentioned.

 

[joeschmuck]

For now it doesn't work and i don't know why...

Assuming you don't have any hardware issues/errors, you at least need 6GB RAM to make it run FreeNAS 11, and I'd use FreeNAS 9.2.x if you really feel like testing it this way on 4GB RAM, however I agree with my buds, you will likely be unhappy with the old hardware especially if you have some grand plans for it. Now if it's only $20 for the entire thing then you would have something to play with but you do need more RAM.

 

[Letiteuf55]

Ok thanks for all of your advice !
So i'm looking for a new mother board, proc, ram and sata controller. But i'm looking for a non expensive solution...
I continue my research on this forum. thanks again.

 

[danb35]

I don't know about in .fr, but in .us, the HP Proliant ML10 for under US$200 seems like the current bang-for-buck leader.

 

[Letiteuf55]

My server is a SC 836, i think i prefer change hardware and keep the chassis.

 

[Letiteuf55]

My server is a SC 836, i think i prefer change hardware and keep the chassis.

But i'm a newbie in configuration design...
I'm looking for cheap sata controller but i dont think it's easy to find...

 

[Letiteuf55]

Here is a solution :

INTEL Core i5 6400 - ASROCK H110M-DVS/D3 - 2x 4 Go DDR3 KINGSTON HyperX Fury 1600 MHz
https://www.rueducommerce.fr/produi...kingston-hyperx-fury-1600-mhz-cas-10-24079402
3* Syba Contrôleur SATA III 4 ports PCI-e 2.0 x1
http://amzn.eu/5ExW8ct

So i can have 16 Sata connector.
Is it a good idee ?

 

[Letiteuf55]

I don't know about in .fr, but in .us, the HP Proliant ML10 for under US$200 seems like the current bang-for-buck leader.

yeah, it's cheap ! And what about perf for plex ?

 

[Letiteuf55]

Or this http://a.co/3PvNLuX inside my Supermicro plus a 4 sata controller pci card.

 

[danb35]

Is it a good idee ?

No. The i5 doesn't support ECC, and SATA controller cards are almost universally garbage.

 

[danb35]

yeah, it's cheap ! And what about perf for plex ?

Well, its passmark score is about 5500, and Plex recommends 2000 per stream for 1080p transcoding. You should be able to comfortably handle two simultaneous streams.

 

[Thomas102]

My server is a SC 836, i think i prefer change hardware and keep the chassis.

Hi,
My company owns a few SC 836 chassis and all have a SAS backplane with SFF8087 connector. If this is your case don't assume you can easily reuse the drive bay without a SAS HBA

I have another supermicro server with smaller backplane using one sata/sas connector per disk. Plugin a motherboard SATA connector on it didn't work. I had to connect the SAS RAID controler with a miniSAS cable.

Last point, the backplane might be SAS1 and cause you trouble (SAS1 is not recommended with modern gears).

The risk is to buy gears that simply not work with the chassis. Test well before spending any money. If the AMCC 9550SX are supported by freebsd just keep them for now even if they don't provide it-mode.

 

[danb35]

don't assume you can easily reuse the drive bay without a SAS HBA

Of course, adding a SAS HBA is easy enough, and not particularly expensive.

 

[Thomas102]

Of course, adding a SAS HBA is easy enough, and not particularly expensive.

And then discover the disks are slowly dying and need replacement. They are probably about 10 years old now.
And then discover the backplane needs updating to recognise SATA replacement disks. Not particulary expensive either though :
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...202715?hash=item3d2e3493db:g:8-YAAOSwl8NVcOjM

Of course this is pure speculation. But getting this server ready for FreeNAS may cost a lot at the end.
There must be a reason for this 10TB server to have been discarded.

Alternatives to FreeNAS exists and I'll recommend give them a try before spending any money on this server.