Right, all ready to be packed and then dragged up to the top of Mt Everest (my flat with its 108 steps). Not looking forward to that tbh.
I also bought another 3 SSDs. Three Intel 180gb drives for £14 each. So the racks will be full.
Sr Vr. The ACME server.
- Thread starter ALXAndy
- Start date
Right, all ready to be packed and then dragged up to the top of Mt Everest (my flat with its 108 steps). Not looking forward to that tbh.
I also bought another 3 SSDs. Three Intel 180gb drives for £14 each. So the racks will be full.
OK. Apologies for the radio silence, it's been a bit of a crap week.
I got home and lugged everything I needed up the stairs. Sucked tbh. Started building it that night, and immediately noticed an issue. Whilst everything fits how I planned it to I did not realise the USB 3.0 header would be covered so tightly. I thought it was up the side of the board like 99% of the boards I have used in the past so didn't pay it much thought. That was a mistake. It doesn't fit no way no how. There may be a way around this, and I will try, but as of now no front USB.
I also realised very quickly that I should not have stopped after shortening the 24 and 8 pin. Space is a premium in this old chassis, so that bit me.
That was after an over two hour fight with the PSU. Let me cover that also. Firstly the mesh grille was rubbing the fan. So I had to use the old frame as a spacer. Not a deal breaker. However, I soon realised the connector in the PSU for the fan made no sense. I figured it out eventually, and got a lovely electric shock for the convenience ffs. I also found out that yes it's a 140mm fan but Enermax used 120 mount holes. Meaning I had to drill the fan and mess around with it for ages. UGH. Then I found out it's just a hair too thick so had to mod that too ffs. I got that done, and then the next day I shortened the PCIE power cable.
It's not finished (needs final cable ties etc) but lesson learned from the past don't tie everything down until you are sure it all works.
I already had Ubuntu installed but it was giving some AMD error at launch. I got around that by connecting it to the network and installing a couple of updates via terminal. The rest? has been slow going, but that is what you get when you are in an alien OS that you have never really dug deeply into before.
It took me the best part of a day just to install the video driver. I downloaded them from Nvidia but they came packaged as a .run file. I then became blinkered by this, and it cost me a few hours. Firstly when I tried to launch it it was telling me I needed to be logged in as root. However, when I did that I could not see the DIR structure. I then found a way to make myself root, and launched it. Then it told me it was unhappy about something else. Many hours had passed now and I was peed off with it so I started having a look around Ubuntu and happened across the software update part that also has "other devices" listed. Sure enough, there it was.
However, I then noticed another problem. See if you can spot it.
I will come back to that shortly. The next step was figuring out how the heck you combine volumes in Ubuntu. Back to school I went. Found out that it was all done by terminal unless you used a GUI. Cool, so I set about finding one. I eventually found the respository for KDE partition manager. However, when I watched a guide on the internet it was making no sense and didn't even look like the one I was using. I then looked at the help guide, but again the GUI was completely different.
It seems it has been updated (the GUI/app) but the documentation hasn't. Eventually after a few hours I figured it out. And created my spanned volumes.
Which all worked beautifully. However, you will note something is missing. Look closer...
Yup, no Revodrive X3. Now if you cast your mind back to the first picture of Ubuntu you can see it is there. However, it is there in four parts. That is how the drive works. Four 250gb Sandforce SATA SSDs all hiding behind a Marvell controller. Now when I first saw this I figured "Hmm, no RAID but I can span the volumes to make the drive back up into one piece". Only you can't. It only allows you access to the first 250gb. The rest? can not be partitioned or formatted in any shape or form. So basically? that will have to come out. There was a hacked together user driver created in 2011, but I can't find it.
The good news is that you can see, we have the rest of the SSDs all picking up, detected and spanned into volumes.
So basically the rig is now ready to be set up for Nextcloud. That is literally the final step, now that I have all of the hardware up and running how it should be.
I got home and lugged everything I needed up the stairs. Sucked tbh. Started building it that night, and immediately noticed an issue. Whilst everything fits how I planned it to I did not realise the USB 3.0 header would be covered so tightly. I thought it was up the side of the board like 99% of the boards I have used in the past so didn't pay it much thought. That was a mistake. It doesn't fit no way no how. There may be a way around this, and I will try, but as of now no front USB.
I also realised very quickly that I should not have stopped after shortening the 24 and 8 pin. Space is a premium in this old chassis, so that bit me.
That was after an over two hour fight with the PSU. Let me cover that also. Firstly the mesh grille was rubbing the fan. So I had to use the old frame as a spacer. Not a deal breaker. However, I soon realised the connector in the PSU for the fan made no sense. I figured it out eventually, and got a lovely electric shock for the convenience ffs. I also found out that yes it's a 140mm fan but Enermax used 120 mount holes. Meaning I had to drill the fan and mess around with it for ages. UGH. Then I found out it's just a hair too thick so had to mod that too ffs. I got that done, and then the next day I shortened the PCIE power cable.
It's not finished (needs final cable ties etc) but lesson learned from the past don't tie everything down until you are sure it all works.
I already had Ubuntu installed but it was giving some AMD error at launch. I got around that by connecting it to the network and installing a couple of updates via terminal. The rest? has been slow going, but that is what you get when you are in an alien OS that you have never really dug deeply into before.
It took me the best part of a day just to install the video driver. I downloaded them from Nvidia but they came packaged as a .run file. I then became blinkered by this, and it cost me a few hours. Firstly when I tried to launch it it was telling me I needed to be logged in as root. However, when I did that I could not see the DIR structure. I then found a way to make myself root, and launched it. Then it told me it was unhappy about something else. Many hours had passed now and I was peed off with it so I started having a look around Ubuntu and happened across the software update part that also has "other devices" listed. Sure enough, there it was.
However, I then noticed another problem. See if you can spot it.
I will come back to that shortly. The next step was figuring out how the heck you combine volumes in Ubuntu. Back to school I went. Found out that it was all done by terminal unless you used a GUI. Cool, so I set about finding one. I eventually found the respository for KDE partition manager. However, when I watched a guide on the internet it was making no sense and didn't even look like the one I was using. I then looked at the help guide, but again the GUI was completely different.
It seems it has been updated (the GUI/app) but the documentation hasn't. Eventually after a few hours I figured it out. And created my spanned volumes.
Which all worked beautifully. However, you will note something is missing. Look closer...
Yup, no Revodrive X3. Now if you cast your mind back to the first picture of Ubuntu you can see it is there. However, it is there in four parts. That is how the drive works. Four 250gb Sandforce SATA SSDs all hiding behind a Marvell controller. Now when I first saw this I figured "Hmm, no RAID but I can span the volumes to make the drive back up into one piece". Only you can't. It only allows you access to the first 250gb. The rest? can not be partitioned or formatted in any shape or form. So basically? that will have to come out. There was a hacked together user driver created in 2011, but I can't find it.
The good news is that you can see, we have the rest of the SSDs all picking up, detected and spanned into volumes.
So basically the rig is now ready to be set up for Nextcloud. That is literally the final step, now that I have all of the hardware up and running how it should be.
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Did you think about trying Unraid instead of straight up Linux, there is a Nextcloud docker install for it. (Not free but minimal cost really, love my Unraid box)
Mind it can be problematic with random hardware.
Mind it can be problematic with random hardware.
Yeah see I know Unraid would not work with the SAS cards "as is" and I would need to flash them into IT mode. That was the main attraction with Ubuntu and Linux specifically as I don't need to do that. Plus it was free 
But no, jokes aside I am kinda familiar with Linux. Like, to the point where the help you can get is awesome and it's mainly pulling stuff down through terminal with lots of information on that.
The Revodrive not working could turn out to solve a problem. IE, if I can find a USB 3 card with an internal connector on that can go there. I do want the front USB to function, as it's the only way to really access the rig once it goes into place.
I also wanted to get all of it working as it should before I dive straight into something else (like Nextcloud). I remember that FreeNAS was a bit of a pain and I really had absolutely no idea what I was doing so every time I made a hardware change I had to reinstall it all again. At least now I can image off the Ubuntu install and then wreck it as many times as I like lol.
Overall I am very happy. Sadly the PC gods have put a black cloud over me this week
Got home and booted my AL rig I just upgraded. Got into Win 11 and within about 10 seconds the screen is strobing. Like, flashing like F with no task bar or anything. Now this is the second bug I have had with Win 11, but the a-hole thing about it is you immediately suspect the new hardware. Turns out it was Steam !!! incredibly yeah, it was Steam. Then I go to listen to some music and my Beyerdynamic T5P have mysteriously blown both drivers whilst I wasn't here. Oh joy, a grand to replace those
But no, jokes aside I am kinda familiar with Linux. Like, to the point where the help you can get is awesome and it's mainly pulling stuff down through terminal with lots of information on that.
The Revodrive not working could turn out to solve a problem. IE, if I can find a USB 3 card with an internal connector on that can go there. I do want the front USB to function, as it's the only way to really access the rig once it goes into place.
I also wanted to get all of it working as it should before I dive straight into something else (like Nextcloud). I remember that FreeNAS was a bit of a pain and I really had absolutely no idea what I was doing so every time I made a hardware change I had to reinstall it all again. At least now I can image off the Ubuntu install and then wreck it as many times as I like lol.
Overall I am very happy. Sadly the PC gods have put a black cloud over me this week
Got home and booted my AL rig I just upgraded. Got into Win 11 and within about 10 seconds the screen is strobing. Like, flashing like F with no task bar or anything. Now this is the second bug I have had with Win 11, but the a-hole thing about it is you immediately suspect the new hardware. Turns out it was Steam !!! incredibly yeah, it was Steam. Then I go to listen to some music and my Beyerdynamic T5P have mysteriously blown both drivers whilst I wasn't here. Oh joy, a grand to replace those
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- 23,552
- Location
- Hertfordshire
Those PC Gods suck balls.
Yeah I have been looking into a SAS card for my unraid, does seem flakey for some models and some fixes include sticking tape over some pins.
Yeah I have been looking into a SAS card for my unraid, does seem flakey for some models and some fixes include sticking tape over some pins.
I've done it before. Like, flashed a LSI (Dell) into IT mode. For my FreeNAS. It insists on ZFS and it doesn't work unless you flash the SAS into IT mode. Thankfully I didn't need tape, but it was still a big ball ache. These two are the same as that one, but one does look slightly different and I am also in no mood to start putting tape on them lol.
Been a bit caught up in other things but hopefully tonight I will start dragging down Apache and etc.
Been a bit caught up in other things but hopefully tonight I will start dragging down Apache and etc.
We are getting there, slowly.
I have installed and enabled and tested LAMP (all of the comonents like Apache, PHP etc). They are all working. Then I realised I would need a way to point at the rig. Which then took me on a huge side quest involving my dynamic IP and etc. A real head F for someone who doesn't know his arse from his networking elbow.
Thankfully my friend got me to the point where I needed to set up the router and etc. I figured before doing that I would put the rig back together and get it tidied and buttoned up.
Booted it up and after about 10 minutes it shut down. Figured it was a loose pin on the PSU, as when I went to reboot it it immediately shut off. FFS, this rig doesn't want to be closed ! Took out the 24 pin cable and soldered any problematic pins. Started it back up started fine. 10 minutes later shut off again.
It turns out that some complete and total idiot with no brains unplugged the AIO pump wire to tidy it and other wires, yet forgot to plug it back in lmao. *whistles*. So with that finally figured out after the hoses were red hot it is now back up and functional again.
Last night I figured I would load up Transmission and see how it was for torrents. I mean, what is the point in grabbing movies and music from my PC then sending them to this right? may as well grab them directly on this. And that was when I realised that all of the volumes I had created are like this.
That was why Transmission kept crashing, as I was trying to write to a volume it could not write to. So that's today's job and another side quest (they are all the same apart from the install drive ffs).
Oh and of course actually put the actual lid on for the final time ffs.
I have installed and enabled and tested LAMP (all of the comonents like Apache, PHP etc). They are all working. Then I realised I would need a way to point at the rig. Which then took me on a huge side quest involving my dynamic IP and etc. A real head F for someone who doesn't know his arse from his networking elbow.
Thankfully my friend got me to the point where I needed to set up the router and etc. I figured before doing that I would put the rig back together and get it tidied and buttoned up.
Booted it up and after about 10 minutes it shut down. Figured it was a loose pin on the PSU, as when I went to reboot it it immediately shut off. FFS, this rig doesn't want to be closed ! Took out the 24 pin cable and soldered any problematic pins. Started it back up started fine. 10 minutes later shut off again.
It turns out that some complete and total idiot with no brains unplugged the AIO pump wire to tidy it and other wires, yet forgot to plug it back in lmao. *whistles*. So with that finally figured out after the hoses were red hot it is now back up and functional again.
Last night I figured I would load up Transmission and see how it was for torrents. I mean, what is the point in grabbing movies and music from my PC then sending them to this right? may as well grab them directly on this. And that was when I realised that all of the volumes I had created are like this.
That was why Transmission kept crashing, as I was trying to write to a volume it could not write to. So that's today's job and another side quest (they are all the same apart from the install drive ffs).
Oh and of course actually put the actual lid on for the final time ffs.
Blast from the past.
In the end I took apart my other NAS and transformed the board and CPU etc from that. It is something very old, 3570? something like that. It has 8gb RAM and a MATX board.
I ended up putting TrueNAS on. I couldn't get my head around Ubuntu, and it was proving too much agg. It has been in service ever since, and has been great. I also upgraded the home network to all CAT 6 wired.
Recently I found a copy of Avatar 2 in 4k. Seems the RAM was running very low, and it wasn't streaming smoothly. So, with some left over parts I am going to upgrade. @Cenedd did send me a 2600K but it would have been more aggro than it was worth.
So now I have the following. One 11400F. And this.
Which I purchased here today. Was £80. I have 32gb RAM over 4 sticks, DDR4 3200. Which IMO will be the biggest upgrade. Problem is I have two X4 SAS cards, and no onboard with the 11400F. So I bought this for £31.
And will need to find a way to get everything running. My first option is X1 mining riser for £3. Which I have also ordered.
Which I hope will just work from one of the X1 slots. If that fails and I get no signal out? I will need to try something like this.
We shall see. I bought that GPU specifically as it is low profile, and will have room under it for whatever I need to get it working.
In the end I took apart my other NAS and transformed the board and CPU etc from that. It is something very old, 3570? something like that. It has 8gb RAM and a MATX board.
I ended up putting TrueNAS on. I couldn't get my head around Ubuntu, and it was proving too much agg. It has been in service ever since, and has been great. I also upgraded the home network to all CAT 6 wired.
Recently I found a copy of Avatar 2 in 4k. Seems the RAM was running very low, and it wasn't streaming smoothly. So, with some left over parts I am going to upgrade. @Cenedd did send me a 2600K but it would have been more aggro than it was worth.
So now I have the following. One 11400F. And this.
Which I purchased here today. Was £80. I have 32gb RAM over 4 sticks, DDR4 3200. Which IMO will be the biggest upgrade. Problem is I have two X4 SAS cards, and no onboard with the 11400F. So I bought this for £31.
And will need to find a way to get everything running. My first option is X1 mining riser for £3. Which I have also ordered.
Which I hope will just work from one of the X1 slots. If that fails and I get no signal out? I will need to try something like this.
We shall see. I bought that GPU specifically as it is low profile, and will have room under it for whatever I need to get it working.
Is the problem that you want to run the x16 GPU in a x1 slot? If so, aren't you supposed to be able to just cut the end of the slot out so that it will physically fit? I'd be insulating the exposed pins for safety but I thought that was the idea. Depends on the card if it'll run as low as x1 too.
Yeah I suppose I could do that. Would rather not though tbh. The mining adapter was £3. Beats hacking up a board. Besides, I got the GPU because it is low profile, so it would not work any way. As it stands I can screw it in at the top of the PCI bracket, then I will have space under it to add a mining riser.
I think most GPUs will run at X1. That will be why mining risers work. However, if it does want X4 (looks like it is only wired for that any way !) then I can get 4 lanes out of a NVME slot.
Yeah that is the backup plan ! £13 from Ali. Will try the mining riser first, which will let me know if it will post in a X1 (as that is all it does, an extension if you will). If it won't I can go nuclear and grab one of them NVME X4 to X4 or above (they do them into a X16 slot, tho obs only wired to X4).
OK so a lot done. Going away this weekend so no point in going too nuts, and besides I don't have the GPU yet.
Board is in, CPU fitted, cooler fitted etc. I also switched the PSU as the cables on the Enermax were awful. Extremely stiff and annoying. I put in a 850W I got here from the MM for £30. Much better.
The intake fans were in the lid before. They are Arctic thin models. Obviously now I can't have exhausts in the lid, so instead they are just huge vents now.
When I get back I will have the GPU with me, and will order 12 1tb SATA SSDs. Then I will do the software work etc.
Board is in, CPU fitted, cooler fitted etc. I also switched the PSU as the cables on the Enermax were awful. Extremely stiff and annoying. I put in a 850W I got here from the MM for £30. Much better.
The intake fans were in the lid before. They are Arctic thin models. Obviously now I can't have exhausts in the lid, so instead they are just huge vents now.
When I get back I will have the GPU with me, and will order 12 1tb SATA SSDs. Then I will do the software work etc.
OK. So it is back up and running.
I ended up using one of the 180gb Intel drives for the Truenas install.
The GPU worked perfectly on the mining riser, but not without a 6 pin PCIE power connector plugged in.
Unfortunately the SAS card got in the way a bit. BTW, that SAS card is warped that is not anything touching it. It has always been like that. What I had to do was grab a mobo mounting post (UNC) and then screw that into the PCI screw hole. Then add a Corsair M3 spacer for a AIO, and then use a nut to secure the GPU. The underside of the riser is insulated with neoprene, so there is no danger. It isn't ideal, but then it works. Thankfully it is Displayport only, so I have a DP to HDMI in there permanently meaning you never have to poke the back of the GPU.
So the big test. Can I now stream Avatar 2 as a full 4k BR rip without hitching and stuttering? yes !
What a stunning movie.
Right now it is just running on the two 3tb 3.5" discs. The planes are all emptied out, ready for the big purchase in around 3 weeks. Which will probably be 2tb SSDs x 12, but we will see. If money is tight I will go with 1tb for now.
I ended up using one of the 180gb Intel drives for the Truenas install.
The GPU worked perfectly on the mining riser, but not without a 6 pin PCIE power connector plugged in.
Unfortunately the SAS card got in the way a bit. BTW, that SAS card is warped that is not anything touching it. It has always been like that. What I had to do was grab a mobo mounting post (UNC) and then screw that into the PCI screw hole. Then add a Corsair M3 spacer for a AIO, and then use a nut to secure the GPU. The underside of the riser is insulated with neoprene, so there is no danger. It isn't ideal, but then it works. Thankfully it is Displayport only, so I have a DP to HDMI in there permanently meaning you never have to poke the back of the GPU.
So the big test. Can I now stream Avatar 2 as a full 4k BR rip without hitching and stuttering? yes !
What a stunning movie.
Right now it is just running on the two 3tb 3.5" discs. The planes are all emptied out, ready for the big purchase in around 3 weeks. Which will probably be 2tb SSDs x 12, but we will see. If money is tight I will go with 1tb for now.