Dell PowerEdge T20 Mini Tower Server - Owner Thread

[RB] · 9 Jul 2018 at 22:36

bremen1874 said:
Anyone transferred the T20 guts into a bigger, better ventilated, case?

Mine was freaking out today due to the drive temperatures.

I could also do with adding a couple of extra drives.

I could probably squeeze the extra drives into the existing case but that isn't going to help with the drive temperatures.

Yup, see my old post here

It's not quite as easy as a straight swap unfortunately

bremen1874 · 9 Jul 2018 at 23:00

Thanks for that.

Is the actual motherboard mounting straightforward?

The wiring I can deal with.

[RB] · 9 Jul 2018 at 23:20

bremen1874 said:
Thanks for that.

Is the actual motherboard mounting straightforward?

The wiring I can deal with.

Yup, standard mb mounting holes from memory

kkelly · 10 Aug 2018 at 13:09

Bump, what ram you guys using ? I would like to add another 8 GB

Thanks

[RB] · 10 Aug 2018 at 13:50

Using four sticks of '8G Kingston KVR16LE11' in mine.

Data sheet here:

https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR16LE11_8.pdf

Seems to be very expensive now compared to when I picked it up :eek:

Buffalo2102 · 10 Aug 2018 at 16:03

I've got 16GB of Teamgroup Elite in mine. I don't really require ECC RAM for my needs.

Sparky__H · 10 Aug 2018 at 19:30

All of mine have got 32GB of CT102472BA160B. Cant fault the stuff.

If you sit on ebay for long enough it comes up at good prices but disappears quickly.

NickTheBiz · 11 Aug 2018 at 08:45

Guys, I need to upgrade my crappy Pentium CPU in my T20. Is there anything still for sale/available that's cost effective? Don't need much of a boost, it's doing little more than acting as a RAID array, but when I try and watch Twitch or a film on it, it's very poor.

Sparky__H · 11 Aug 2018 at 10:34

NickTheBiz said:
Guys, I need to upgrade my crappy Pentium CPU in my T20. Is there anything still for sale/available that's cost effective? Don't need much of a boost, it's doing little more than acting as a RAID array, but when I try and watch Twitch or a film on it, it's very poor.

"This BIOS Release Note says "Updated the Desktop 4th Generation Intel Core Processor Family Microcode to 0x20.". This just means this new BIOS version adds support for the Intel® Core™ i7-4790, i7-4790S, i7-4790T, i7-4790K, i7-4785T, i7-4771, i7-4770R, i7-4770K, i7-4770, i7-4770S, i7-4770T, i7-4765T, i5-4690, i5-4690S, i5-4690T, i5-4690K, i5-4670R, i5-4670K, i5-4670, i5-4670S, i5-4670T, i5-4670R, i5-4590, i5-4590S, i5-4590T, i5-4570R, i5-4570S, i5-4570T, i5-4570, i5-4460, i5-4460S, i5-4460T, i5-4440, i5-4440S, i5-4430, i5-4430S, i3-4370, i3-4370T, i3-4360, i3-4360T, i3-4350, i3-4350T, i3-4340, i3-4330, i3-4330T, i3-4170, i3-4170T, i3-4150, i3-4160, i3-4160T, i3-4150T, i3-4130, and i3-4130T processors."

Just make sure you have the latest bios and it does not hurt to make sure you find a forum post with someone running it first.

I found one running an i3 4150 and they are going for about £50 atm (ECC support too).

NickTheBiz · 11 Aug 2018 at 10:47

Sparky__H said:
Just make sure you have the latest bios and it does not hurt to make sure you find a forum post with someone running it first.

I found one running an i3 4150 and they are going for about £50 atm (ECC support too).

Cheers dude. Have you got a link to that BIOS update?

NickTheBiz · 11 Aug 2018 at 10:50

Don't worry, got it. Ta.

brakeinup · 18 Sep 2018 at 16:05

NickTheBiz said:
Guys, I need to upgrade my crappy Pentium CPU in my T20. Is there anything still for sale/available that's cost effective? Don't need much of a boost, it's doing little more than acting as a RAID array, but when I try and watch Twitch or a film on it, it's very poor.

I just upgraded the G3220 in my T20 to a Core i5 4590S. Latest BIOS installed then the CPU - no issues. Still using the standard heatsink/fan. Running 4x 1080P CCTV cameras with Blue Iris, Plex and backups. It hovers around 35% CPU usage.

Edit: with cameras gone to infra red, the CPU is hovering around 20%.

NeoVo · 18 Sep 2018 at 17:10

Thanks for heads up on this, have updated my BIOS to A18 and now keeping an eye out for one of those CPUs on that auction site.
Will hopefully give my server a little bit of extra punch and allow it to last a couple of years longer.

brakeinup · 18 Sep 2018 at 19:39

NeoVo said:
Thanks for heads up on this, have updated my BIOS to A18 and now keeping an eye out for one of those CPUs on that auction site.
Will hopefully give my server a little bit of extra punch and allow it to last a couple of years longer.

I bought mine for £75. Not bad considering the performance boost. Probably get £20 to £30 for my G3220

NickTheBiz · 19 Sep 2018 at 08:38

Cheers guys. Have sourced an i3 to bung in there myself.

[RB] · 19 Sep 2018 at 14:31

I think I will actually shed a tear if/when I have to get rid of the T20, it's been such a good box for the money! Saw an advert for the equivalent T30 which was some £200+ more expensive and without the cash back :/

Jamauk · 19 Sep 2018 at 17:40

I've just stuck with the standard Xeon e3-1225 v3 3.20ghz in mine. Seems to cope well enough running WHS2011, only 8GB memory as that's all WHS will support, but that's all that is really needed. I've modified the case somewhat to host an SSD for the OS, 2x2TB drives for CCTV (virtual RAID), 1x500GB for PC backup through WHS, 4x6GB WD Red drives in virtual RAID with DriveBender. I can never understand why the case isn't designed to play host to more drives, a bit like the RAID restrictions on the HP Micro Servers. I moved from running WHS on a HP MicroServer N36l that was struggling with WHS prompting daily issues, the lack of RAID on the server itself and within WHS prompted a virtual RAID solution that I've stuck with for simplicity, it worked for me when I upgraded to WD RED drives, when a drive failed and when I moved over to the T20.

Got it running WHS as mentioned with DriveBender, within that qBittorrent, UniFi controller, TFTP server for several Cisco phones, DSL Stats, Logitech MediaServer, PLEX & BlueIris running 7 Foscam CCTV cameras. The only processor intensive thing is the CCTV and even then it only hovers around the 50-60% mark. If I had to start again from scratch I'd probably go down the virtual route, but that's probably for another day when I move onto the next generation of Dell home servers.

The HP N36l has been relegated to running Elastix.

brakeinup · 20 Sep 2018 at 13:33

Jamauk said:
I've just stuck with the standard Xeon e3-1225 v3 3.20ghz in mine. Seems to cope well enough running WHS2011, only 8GB memory as that's all WHS will support, but that's all that is really needed. I've modified the case somewhat to host an SSD for the OS, 2x2TB drives for CCTV (virtual RAID), 1x500GB for PC backup through WHS, 4x6GB WD Red drives in virtual RAID with DriveBender. I can never understand why the case isn't designed to play host to more drives, a bit like the RAID restrictions on the HP Micro Servers. I moved from running WHS on a HP MicroServer N36l that was struggling with WHS prompting daily issues, the lack of RAID on the server itself and within WHS prompted a virtual RAID solution that I've stuck with for simplicity, it worked for me when I upgraded to WD RED drives, when a drive failed and when I moved over to the T20.....

The lack of more drive space is probably down to insufficient cooling for more the 4 discs.

Is DriveBender the way to go for disc mangement?

Jamauk · 20 Sep 2018 at 17:47

Cooling doesn't seem to be an issue with it, a concern I had when I put it together, monitoring it closely over the first couple of months. CPU sits at ~40°C and haven't had any complaints with the drives over the last year I've had it.

DriveBender certainly seems to work well for me, going from one server to another it picked up and built the new array very quickly. In the N36l I upgraded from 2TB to 6TB drives very quickly and easily, the upgrade was prompted by a drive failure which it recovered from with no loss of files. On both the N36 & now the T20 I get write speeds of up to 110MB/Sec. I've never really tried hardware RAID so I don't know how it compares. Before the N36 I had a HP MediaSmart Server with WHS, so once again that used software RAID (then built into the OS).

brakeinup · 29 Sep 2018 at 09:09

I needed more discs in my T20 but was out of ports, so purchased a used PERC H310 for £22 and flashed to IT mode. This has 2 ports enabling 8 SATA after flashing (and buying SAS to SATA cables). This works really well. Also added in a used drive cage from another Dell. Running SSD for OS and 5 discs. Temperatures are fine with the standard fan setup.

For the cost and minimal hassle (flashing), the H310 is an excellent buy IMO if you are looking to increase the port count.

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

Dell PowerEdge T20 Mini Tower Server - Owner Thread