bought a cheap server

A) Find out what the Raid card is
B) Find an operating system that supports it (look in the hardware compatibility guides)


There should be loads that support a common dell server, even an old spunker like this.
 
gamerdude1989 said:
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
Click to expand...

The BIOS screen for the RAID controller should pop up during boot.. that'll give you an idea what it is. Failing that, take the lid off the server and have a look for yourself.
 
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"
 
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
 
Dunno if it's because i haven't had my morning coffee yet, but that last update went straight over my head.

You mentioned you can access the "linux install drive" which is your USB flash drive? - nothing to do with the SAS disks?

Don't know too much about Dells servers, but after post'ing the RAID controllers should present some options that allow you to create a volume. At the moment i suspect you have some un-raided disks that the OS can't currently see.
 
It sounds like a general lack of understand of storage, shares and Samba. If you are looking for a project and want to learn some new stuff then persevere with it, but if you're looking for a quick fix NAS then trying random stuff and posting a step by step trial'n'error here may not be the best approach.
 
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 said:
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
Click to expand...

mkdir is 'make directory'
cd is 'change directory' which is what you were probably after

You shouldn't be accessing the drives directly in this manner, really. The idea of FreeNAS is that you tell it which drives you want to join together in a pool, then it creates an array and mounts it somewhere like /pool or /depot or whatever you name it.

Then you can create filesystems on top of this which are equivalent to shared folders - so /pool/music or /pool/photos etc.
 
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
 
Also beware that changes you make in FreeNAS at the console may not persist as the file-system may be read-only (or it was the last time I used the junk).
 
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 :D

All working like a beauty now.. Time to disconnect her, get her out the living room, because its driving my mrs mad :D and mount it in my rack, in the brick shed, along with the others :D

cheers
 
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 :P
 
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 :P
Click to expand...

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 :D

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 :D

but i appreciate your concern
 
gamerdude1989 said:
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 :D

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 :D

but i appreciate your concern
Click to expand...

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 :)
 
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 :)
Click to expand...

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?
 
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?

6389D18F-B10C-490A-A2BC-543FD28DC437_zpswjropqqu.jpg
 
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

FDE9743A-3259-4342-BC72-16B03C1F7BDD_zpstv1gvfku.jpg
 
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