bought a cheap server

gamerdude1989 · 16 Aug 2016 at 05:16

hey guys

bought a cheap server off ebay. only cost me £23, just to add to my rack, as my mrs wants something safe to store her precious photos/video's on..
She had an external HDD, but that started acting up, and luckily i managed to copy the contents onto my computer just before it failed completely..

So, i bought a Dell Poweredge 2950 III, doesnt need to be super powerful..
it was cheap because it has no CPU, but ive got a few Xeon E5345 Quad Cores sitting around, so no issue..

Im a bit confused though, as the spec sheet states "6x 15k SCSI or 7.2k Sata"...
How does that work? does the back plate for the hot swap caddies have both, SCSI connections, aswell as Sata connections then?

Screen shot from Dell Spec sheet:::

Minstadave · 16 Aug 2016 at 06:08

You can connect SATA drives to a SAS header:

http://www.scsita.org/serial-storag...onnect-sas-and-sata-hdds-to-a-sas-system.html

The caddy should accept both as the physical connector is very similar:

http://www.supremelaw.org/systems/sas/SAS.and.SATA.connectors.1.JPG

gamerdude1989 · 16 Aug 2016 at 06:19

OMG really? you can physically connect a sata hard drive into a SCSI port!
Wow, thats crazy

nutcase · 16 Aug 2016 at 06:28

No, that's flexible

gamerdude1989 · 16 Aug 2016 at 06:54

nutcase_1uk said:
No, that's flexible

huh?

gamerdude1989 · 16 Aug 2016 at 06:55

oh haha, just caught on.. yes it is

ov_sjo · 16 Aug 2016 at 07:27

Are your Mrs' photos only going to be stored on the server? If so you'll still need a backup

The running costs of an old 2950 - might be cheaper to store them on an online service like flickr or similar.

swain90 · 16 Aug 2016 at 07:40

ov_sjo said:
might be cheaper to store them on an online service like flickr or similar.

Who says they're appropriate for flickr

??

Armageus · 16 Aug 2016 at 08:28

gamerdude1989 said:
hey guys

bought a cheap server off ebay. only cost me £23, just to add to my rack, as my mrs wants something safe to store her precious photos/video's on..

There is no such thing as a "cheap server", when talking about enterprise kit - whilst it may have been cheap to buy, it isn't cheap to run (not to mention noisy).

I also wouldn't describe it as "safe" for precious photos - A 10 year old server has lots that can go wrong (Drives/Raid Controller/Motherboard/Processors/RAM/PSUs/OS) vs an external drive that literally is just a drive that can fail.

For a "safe" solution, then cloud backup is a good choice as already suggested, and just keeping it in at least 2 different places (e.g. another external drive, and a separate internal drive in a PC).

gamerdude1989 said:
Im a bit confused though, as the spec sheet states "6x 15k SCSI or 7.2k Sata"...
How does that work? does the back plate for the hot swap caddies have both, SCSI connections, aswell as Sata connections then?

(SAS) Serial Attached SCSI and SCSI are too different things.

Steveocee · 16 Aug 2016 at 09:47

I'm all for enterprise kit in an overkill situation at home but agree with the others. A dropbox subscription would probably have been a better option in this case.

swain90 · 16 Aug 2016 at 11:22

Steveocee said:
I'm all for enterprise kit in an overkill situation at home but agree with the others. A dropbox subscription would probably have been a better option in this case.

But wheres the fun in that?

I think having another backup somewhere else would also be a wise idea!

gamerdude1989 · 16 Aug 2016 at 22:09

my plan is to RAID 1 array it, so that there is a Redundancy there, All files backed up onto another drive, incase of failure..

Yeah i know they are loud and that, But isnt a problem, ive already got 3 other servers, So will just be joining the rack thats in my shed.. So noise isnt an issue...

Mujja · 18 Aug 2016 at 12:57

I would still have a cloud/off-site backup.

Semple · 18 Aug 2016 at 13:04

Not sure i'd bother with the redundancy!

How many GB's of photos are we talking about?

If you have the OS on one disk, and data on a separate disk, if the data drive failed, it wouldn't take long to restore the contents from the backup drive.

gamerdude1989 · 18 Aug 2016 at 15:56

well ive recieved the server guys.. OMG its huge!

Installed FreeNAS 9.10.1 onto a 8gb USB disk, and set that as boot drive..
But then i put in the IP into my browser address bar, to access the Server to set it up, it will not detect any of the hard drives!

The server came with 6x 146gb SAS drives already in it, so i thought it just keep them in there until my 1tb Hard drives arrive in post..
But under the freenas in my browser.. under Storage, it says None?
i clicked to import etc, but nothing works..

The BIOS detects them fine, and the LED's on the hotswap caddies light up fine..

any help will be greatly appreciated, as im new to freenas..
My other servers run Linux Server, But i really dont like that..

cheers

ov_sjo · 18 Aug 2016 at 15:56

Chances are FreeNAS doesn't have the drivers for the PERC RAID controller card. No idea if it's simple to compile in, but I suspect not as it's more an appliance O/S.

Armageus · 18 Aug 2016 at 16:06

The PERC 5 / PERC 6 cards can't be flashed to the "IT mode" or JBOD mode afaik, and that makes them a poor choice for the ZFS storage of FreeNAS.

You would be better running a standard OS on it, and using the hardware raid modes of the controller.

Personally still seems like a lot of effort to end up with something that has a higher chance of failure than an external drive.

gamerdude1989 · 18 Aug 2016 at 16:17

Armageus said:
The PERC 5 / PERC 6 cards can't be flashed to the "IT mode" or JBOD mode afaik, and that makes them a poor choice for the ZFS storage of FreeNAS.

You would be better running a standard OS on it, and using the hardware raid modes of the controller.

Personally still seems like a lot of effort to end up with something that has a higher chance of failure than an external drive.

english please?

So basically, i bought a server, that doesnt work with freenas?

Armageus · 18 Aug 2016 at 16:27

gamerdude1989 said:
english please?

So basically, i bought a server, that doesnt work with freenas?

Basically yes

The Raid controller in your server will be a "hardware raid" PERC 5 or PERC 6 card.

FreeNAS has it's own "software raid" that works best when it talks directly to the drives e.g. normal individual SATA hard drives.

Some "hardware raid" cards can be changed/tricked into behaving like basic sata ports ("JBOD mode" or "IT mode"), the PERC5/PERC6 in your server isn't one of them from what I can tell.

If you run Windows Server or a Linux distro that has drivers for the Raid card, then it will run in "hardware raid" mode, and everything will be ideal (e.g. the hot swap will work correctly - lights work properly with drive failure etc)

gamerdude1989 · 18 Aug 2016 at 16:58

So if i install a Linux server, it will run fine for me?
Do i have to source the Raid drivers myself? or will Linux Server Os automatically install them?

im sorry for the noob questions, This is the first time ive ever setup a server.
My existing servers are basic home computer hardware grade, that i fit into a Rack mount case..

cheers