**Dell PowerEdge T20 Mini Tower Server - Owner Thread**

[StevenG]

I've just bought one of these to replace my micoserver due to the current cashback offer and needing some extra speed.

Went for the basic spec one as it's only used for RSS downloading and storage and streaming.

I'll be looking to mod mine to take more drives as I don't want to upgrade my storage drives just yet to save some money.

The current plan is to have 1 ssd for OS and a further 4-6 3.5" drives for storage.

Any of you guys have one?, Pics, specs, experiences, problems etc share it all here!

 

[Chanc3]

Looks pretty decent for the price and I've always wanted one to play around with. What OS are you putting on it?

Would be keen to see some photos of the insides.

 

[GDL]

What's the T20 like for the HP Ilo equivalent?

 

[StevenG]

I'm yet to take delivery of mine but i'm coming from a N36L mega old so should see a massive improvement in performance.

I'm running win7 on my n36l but may try something different on the new one, basically use RSS downloader in uTorrent, mySQL and SMB file sharing at the moment.

 

[SoundsGood]

Got one with 32gb of ram running around 15 VMS in esxi 5.5. The only downside I've found is you can't disable the power button which my daughter loves to press..

 

[rickjames]

Gonna bite on one very soon, just finding the best RAM that'll suit it. Kinda want to just say eff it and get ECC RAM. Also need a cheap DVD drive for it...

 

[Hyburnate]

Got one with 32gb of ram running around 15 VMS in esxi 5.5. The only downside I've found is you can't disable the power button which my daughter loves to press..

Can't you unplug it from the motherboard? If it's that much of a problem Could always wire in one with a cover or something.

 

[Adam]

I moved from the N54L to one, it's in the loft running Xpenology. Seems to transcode. 1080p pretty well although I have my eye on a Xeon E3.

 

[Chanc3]

Am I right in thinking the CPU can be swapped out then?

Also, I've got a load of ECC RAM (1GB Sticks) in my desk drawer that I don't mind giving out.

 

[kkelly]

@Adam, have you tried it was a high quality 1080p file 25/30mbp ?

 

[NickTheBiz]

Have bought one too. Very interested in what CPU and memory changes people are getting.

@SoundsGood - 15 VMs??!? How many VMs does one need at home?

 

[NickTheBiz]

I've found some of this lying around, suitable?

Mr Memory DDR3 1333 4GB 256M*8 PC3-10606 ECC-DIMM

 

[Chanc3]

The Dell website talks about an "expansion kit" for 2 additional 2.5" drives, but I haven't managed to find any more information on it yet. I'm guessing it's just an adaptor for an existing 3.5" bay?

 

[Little_Crow]

The Dell website talks about an "expansion kit" for 2 additional 2.5" drives, but I haven't managed to find any more information on it yet. I'm guessing it's just an adaptor for an existing 3.5" bay?

I found this.
It looks like they happily live in the optical drive bay, and the adaptor (shown right at the end of the video) is just an expansion card for the further 2 SATA ports.

It's hard to say though, there is no commentary, and the ODD that's in there when the caddy is removed magically disappears.

 

[SoundsGood]

@SoundsGood - 15 VMs??!? How many VMs does one need at home?

I don't need so many but after accidentally corrupting one of my "*********" multi-purpose servers I decided to split the services out and configure them with version controlled puppet. So if I destroy one I can rebuild it in minutes.

This is the current list..

F5 BigIP load balancer
Brocade VTM load balancer
Redhat 6 kickstart server
Redhat 7 gateway for ISP 1, squid proxy, DNS master
Redhat 7 gateway for ISP 2, squid proxy, DNS slave
Redhat 7 File server (samba, nfs, ftp)
Redhat 7 Git repo + CI
Redhat 7 Mesosphere master
Redhat 7 Mesosphere slave
Redhat 7 Puppet master
Redhat 7 LAMP
Redhat 7 Jump box
Redhat 7 Stats box (ELK, Graphite)
Redhat 5 Cluster test 1
Redhat 5 Cluster test 2
Debian Nagios monitoring
Debian Kali Linux
BSD pfSense
Windows 2012 R2 Jump box
Solaris test
Windows 7 test
RancherOS test
Atomic Host test

 

[rickjames]

Right, got the server and 16gb of memory in my cart, can anyone recommend an optical drive that'll fit and is also cheap? Or is installing Server 2012 R2 on these via USB boot possible/easy?

 

[Deleted member 138126]

Definitely via USB. Use Rufus to make the USB key from the ISO.

You can fit an SSD up in the space where the optical drive would go.

 

[rickjames]

Ah, cheers. Got a Server 2012 ISO handy, so will give Rufus a go. Ta.

 

[NickTheBiz]

I don't need so many but after accidentally corrupting one of my "*********" multi-purpose servers I decided to split the services out and configure them with version controlled puppet. So if I destroy one I can rebuild it in minutes.

This is the current list..

F5 BigIP load balancer
Brocade VTM load balancer
Redhat 6 kickstart server
Redhat 7 gateway for ISP 1, squid proxy, DNS master
Redhat 7 gateway for ISP 2, squid proxy, DNS slave
Redhat 7 File server (samba, nfs, ftp)
Redhat 7 Git repo + CI
Redhat 7 Mesosphere master
Redhat 7 Mesosphere slave
Redhat 7 Puppet master
Redhat 7 LAMP
Redhat 7 Jump box
Redhat 7 Stats box (ELK, Graphite)
Redhat 5 Cluster test 1
Redhat 5 Cluster test 2
Debian Nagios monitoring
Debian Kali Linux
BSD pfSense
Windows 2012 R2 Jump box
Solaris test
Windows 7 test
RancherOS test
Atomic Host test

Flippin' hell!

 

[-TA-]

Cabling technology
10/100Base-T(X)

No Gigabit Ethernet?! Guess you can add a card in?

Need to update our server+NAS to deal with many TB of photos!