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:::

gamerdude1989 · 16 Aug 2016 at 06:19

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

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

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...

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

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?

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

gamerdude1989 · 18 Aug 2016 at 18:09

i cannot seam to find the spec sheet for the correct one i have..
can find the spec sheet for the Dell poweredge 2950 I and III, but not mine, i have the number II model..

cheers

gamerdude1989 · 18 Aug 2016 at 20:53

well found that ubuntu linux server is supported, which i dont mind using.
all installed to usb drive, setup ip configuratin etc, but when it came to installing samba, it just comes up with errors. something like "unable to lock root"

gamerdude1989 · 19 Aug 2016 at 02:20

guys, sorry for noob question. how do i find out my router ip?
i need it when configuring samba/smb.conf

i obviously know my computers ip on the network, but dont know how to find my router ip.
im with bt, home hub, if that helps

gamerdude1989 · 19 Aug 2016 at 03:02

scrap that, figured it

can now access drive, issue is, can only access the linux install drive, which is a 32gb usb drive.
dont know how to access the 3 drives ive got in the caddies

gamerdude1989 · 19 Aug 2016 at 15:44

yes i am new to Linux myself.. But learning

and yes Semple.. That is why freeNAS didnt detect hard drives, because they werent in a RAID array.
The server came with 3x 146gb SAS drives installed, that im just using to learn with..
I set two of them to RAID 1 together.. so a single 146gb Drive with redundancy, and freenas recognised it instantly

my issue was, i ddnt know the command line to make a shareable folder in the 2nd hard drive.. (the only hard disk available to share was the root drive, which is a 32gb USB stick.. that was easy to make a shareable folder for.
Mkdir /files ......... etc
But didnt know the command line to access the SAS hard drive, to be able to make a shareable folder on the drive, so that it can be accessed across the network..

DOS is easy.. you type in the drive letter... Like, if 2nd hard drive is E: drive, you type n E:/ and thats it, your now accessing it..
But being new to linux, i dont know the command line for the SAS hard drive..
I tried mkdir /dev/ads1 /files ........
as the second drive is seen as ads1 on this server..
But just not knowledgeable on the commands for linux.

cheers

gamerdude1989 · 19 Aug 2016 at 16:14

hi mate..
yeah i was using cd too.. But when i still didnt know the commands to select the SAS drives haha.

also, in cfdisk, when i set the partition to mount the bay drives, Do i need to set them as bootable? i left that un-checked, since im booting off a usb drive

cheers

gamerdude1989 · 20 Aug 2016 at 00:29

thanks guys.. i really appreciate your help..

Turns out, this system can run Freenas just fine, but found out, it doesnt like a clean install of freenas 9.10....
If i do a clean install of 9.10, it wont recognise the hard drives, even though they are configured as RAID 1...
But, Freenas 9.2 is just fine with the on board RAID card..
So i did a clean install of 9.2, and mounted the drives fine (the 3x 146gb HDD's that came with it)..
and then did upgrade to 9.10.. and still works perfectly..

Should receive my hard drives tomorrow..
6x WD Black 1tb HDD's, which will be in RAID 1 setup, so 3tb for storage, and each drive having its RAID 1 backup, incase of failure

All working like a beauty now.. Time to disconnect her, get her out the living room, because its driving my mrs mad

and mount it in my rack, in the brick shed, along with the others

cheers

gamerdude1989 · 20 Aug 2016 at 00:40

axer said:
A Dell 2950 is going to suck a good 1-1.5A of power 24x7. Hate to be the barer of bad news but the only winner was the seller as they managed to avoid paying WEEEEEEEE costs by palming off their no longer economically viable hardware to you and at a profit

its all good though mate.. i already have 3 other servers running in the rack, Aswell as multiple computers in multiple rooms in the house..
Workstation PC for general use, Gaming PC dedicated for gaming, HTPC on living room tv, a htpc in my bedroom

Im used to expensive electricity bills buddy.. Especially when the Mrs wants to keep the hot tub constantly heated in the garden.. thats a 2.5kw heater

but i appreciate your concern

gamerdude1989 · 20 Aug 2016 at 02:48

axer said:
I'm a fellow high power user myself, I use a whopping 50-60kWh /day on average and hence take reasonable measures to try and be efficient where possible.

For example, my home server which shares media, stores CCTV recordings and manages a bunch of services around the house uses about 0.4-0.5A despite being a beastie 2U Supermicro server with QuadCore CPU and 8x 4TB 7200RPM SATA disks in hardware RAID.

I strongly suspect medium to long term, it would really pay to invest in newer generation, non proprietary (for easier upgrades) hardware.

Non-the-less, enjoy your new server

if my dell is pulling 1-1.5A, thats only around 350-400w..
my gaming pc pulls around 800w from the wall with its twin R9 390's, CPU, GPU and RAM fully overclocked etc..
And that PC runs 24/7

Surely it shouldnt be any more than an average daily computer?

gamerdude1989 · 20 Aug 2016 at 03:28

OKay, randomly ran into a problem.. Was all running fine when i set it all up..
But now that i have shut it off, and booted it back up..
just keeping getting this... constantly looping... Wont boot, just does that.

any ideas?

gamerdude1989 · 20 Aug 2016 at 03:34

Okay, seams the only way i can stop it doing that, is by removing the Ethernet cable from Port 1 and plugging it into Port 2...
But when i boot it up with ethernet in port 2, i hangs on this!

FFS, servers are doing my head in already

gamerdude1989 · 20 Aug 2016 at 12:26

ov_sjo said:
You're not using FreeNAS properly if you're using hardware RAID mirrors. It uses the ZFS file system which is software RAID and you lose some of the benefits if you present it with logical disks from hardware RAID.

If you can create logical disks for each of the physical disks and present them to FreeNAS individually that would be OK.

hard disk's have to be set in a RAId of some type by Raid card BIOS, to be able to be recgonised..
Apparetly, these servers dont support JBOD.. So unless the drives are in RAID, they are not recognised at all by freeNAS