2.5" HDD Caddy Screws needed for IBM x3650 M4 (Canadian)

[dalekphalm]

Hey guys,

 

So I went to setup my "new" IBM Server (x3650 M4 - 2.5" variant), and discovered I didn't have any screws to mount the HDD's I just bought into the caddy's. Standard HDD screws have the domed heads which interfere with the clearance for installation of the caddy. So I basically need 2.5" HDD mounting screws with a flat head that recess into the caddy.

 

Ideally I need to buy them from a Canadian retailer (or eBay.ca as long as it doesn't take weeks to ship). I looked up the datasheet specs from the Seagate HDD's I bought, and they list the screw specs as "M3 x 0.5". Can I assume that means M3 screws at 0.5 cm in length? The Seagate datasheet was not clear what the spec actually meant.

 

Any help here is appreciated.

[cyphon21]

You might have some slight luck at a local computer shop. There are a few local to myself (Waterloo) that have some old servers like that kicking around and might have some of those screws. Could also try a fastener type shop. Doubt they will, but I've been surprised there before.

[dalekphalm]

13 minutes ago, cyphon21 said:

You might have some slight luck at a local computer shop. There are a few local to myself (Waterloo) that have some old servers like that kicking around and might have some of those screws. Could also try a fastener type shop. Doubt they will, but I've been surprised there before.

I live in the Waterloo Region - could you be specific about which stores?

 

My failsafe plan was to check somewhere like Bolts Plus, since they can usually special order just about any kind of screw made on earth.

[cyphon21]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I live in the Waterloo Region - could you be specific about which stores?

 

My failsafe plan was to check somewhere like Bolts Plus, since they can usually special order just about any kind of screw made on earth.

Orion One, Horizon Computing, Saigontek, just to name a few.

 

Spaenaur might be a better store then bolts plus for an order in. 

 

How many do you need?

[cyphon21]

Are these the ones you're after?

 

 

[dalekphalm]

20 minutes ago, cyphon21 said:

Orion One, Horizon Computing, Saigontek, just to name a few.

 

Spaenaur might be a better store then bolts plus for an order in. 

 

How many do you need?

So I was able to dig up more info on the screws themselves - they should be M3 x 0.5 (0.5 meaning a thread pitch of 0.5mm), with a length of around 4mm.

18 minutes ago, cyphon21 said:

Are these the ones you're after?

 

 

Those look quite close (perhaps exactly) what I'm looking for. With the recessed flat head.

 

I found a listing on Amazon for 100pcs (I need at minimum of 24, possibly up to 64 in total):

https://www.amazon.com/Laptop-Hard-Drive-Screws-ASUS/dp/B00MJUC9TY

Unfortunately it's Amazon.com instead of .ca, but they do ship this item to Canada, so it's still a good fallback.

 

Ideally I'd still like to find somewhere local that just has them in stock.

[cyphon21]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

-snip-

Let me take a look when I get home.I used to have a few of those servers, and I'm a hoarder for those screws. I will also check her at my office if we have a bunch.

 

The screenshot I posted are not philips head screws, but I thought those might be the ones you were looking for.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, cyphon21 said:

Let me take a look when I get home.I used to have a few of those servers, and I'm a hoarder for those screws. I will also check her at my office if we have a bunch.

 

The screenshot I posted are not philips head screws, but I thought those might be the ones you were looking for.

Oh I don't care about what head is on the screws. Philips is easier of course, but I have access to Torx, security torx, and Hex screw drivers, so I'm not too picky in that regard.

[Mikensan]

If you kept your motherboard spare screws or the spare screws that came with your desktop case you should have some compatible screws. Or if you kept the boxes your hard drives came in you may have scews in the box still. Too bad you don't live further south, I have a handful I could give you.

 

Also grats on the M4, very nice - of those on my rack my M2 has been the most stable.

[dalekphalm]

6 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

If you kept your motherboard spare screws or the spare screws that came with your desktop case you should have some compatible screws. Or if you kept the boxes your hard drives came in you may have scews in the box still. Too bad you don't live further south, I have a handful I could give you.

 

Also grats on the M4, very nice - of those on my rack my M2 has been the most stable.

As I said in my OP, I'm using these HDD's (2x 2.5" Seagate 1TB) in the M4, with the included 2.5" caddy's. Standard HDD screws won't do, since the dome on the head of the screw blocks the caddy from sliding into place.

 

We must have tossed the original screws when we shredded the HDD's that originally came with the server, so that's why I don't have any (hand-me-down from Work).

[cyphon21]

Oh, by the way you can change that amazon link to .ca and get the Canadian price, plus shipping etc. Shows 6.29 + Free Shipping for me when I do that. However, you're still looking at a wait.

 

 

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, cyphon21 said:

Oh, by the way you can change that amazon link to .ca and get the Canadian price, plus shipping etc. Shows 6.29 + Free Shipping for me when I do that. However, you're still looking at a wait.

 

 

Ahh good catch. I'll check that out if I can't get anything else.

Bolts Plus got back to me - $11 plus 2 days for the order to come in, for 100pcs. But since it's special order, there's likely a restocking fee. Although for $11, I might just bite the bullet even if they don't work properly.

[cyphon21]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Ahh good catch. I'll check that out if I can't get anything else.

Bolts Plus got back to me - $11 plus 2 days for the order to come in, for 100pcs. But since it's special order, there's likely a restocking fee. Although for $11, I might just bite the bullet even if they don't work properly.

That's not too bad of a deal at all. Any luck contacting the other stores I mentioned? They probably have an old peanut butter jar full of them haha.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, cyphon21 said:

That's not too bad of a deal at all. Any luck contacting the other stores I mentioned? They probably have an old peanut butter jar full of them haha.

I haven't had a chance to look into it much further - will be at work for another... 5 and a half hours.

[Mikensan]

8 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

As I said in my OP, I'm using these HDD's (2x 2.5" Seagate 1TB) in the M4, with the included 2.5" caddy's. Standard HDD screws won't do, since the dome on the head of the screw blocks the caddy from sliding into place.

 

We must have tossed the original screws when we shredded the HDD's that originally came with the server, so that's why I don't have any (hand-me-down from Work).

Yea I know standard screws won't do and you need counter-sunk heads - you usually get both varients with motherboards and case screws - just a thought in case you had kept them in a closet somewhere.  

 

Oh that stinks  But very cool to get the M4 man, hope you serves you well.

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

Yea I know standard screws won't do and you need counter-sunk heads - you usually get both varients with motherboards and case screws - just a thought in case you had kept them in a closet somewhere.  

 

Oh that stinks  But very cool to get the M4 man, hope you serves you well.

Yeah there are no counter-sunk screws included in any of my screw collections (aside from larger 6/32 screws).

 

I currently have a Dell T410 - it's a great server. but the M4 has like double the cores/threadsm and a crap ton more RAM. And my main array (ZFS) is in an External MD1200 DAS disk shelf anyway.

 

I'm likely going to try and sell the T410 after I get the M4 up and running.

[Mikensan]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Yeah there are no counter-sunk screws included in any of my screw collections (aside from larger 6/32 screws).

 

I currently have a Dell T410 - it's a great server. but the M4 has like double the cores/threadsm and a crap ton more RAM. And my main array (ZFS) is in an External MD1200 DAS disk shelf anyway.

 

I'm likely going to try and sell the T410 after I get the M4 up and running.

Ah poo, it is always the one you need you don't have! IBMs are solid, that thing will last you a good while I'm sure (not to mention ESXi is getting harder to install on older hardware - had to mount a disc image to update). Sorry to derail and go off topic, just love new hardware.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Mikensan said:

Ah poo, it is always the one you need you don't have! IBMs are solid, that thing will last you a good while I'm sure (not to mention ESXi is getting harder to install on older hardware - had to mount a disc image to update). Sorry to derail and go off topic, just love new hardware.

Hopefully I don't have any issues with the M4 - I downloaded the 6.7 ISO (latest I could find), and intend on installing that onto the 2x 1TB drives (With the remaining space as the VM datastores).

[Mikensan]

7 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Hopefully I don't have any issues with the M4 - I downloaded the 6.7 ISO (latest I could find), and intend on installing that onto the 2x 1TB drives (With the remaining space as the VM datastores).

I think that would be fine, it's the old intel X- processor generation that's getting tougher. Haven't heard of any of the xeons E- series having issues. Yup 6.7 is what gave my old girl a dirty look - I uploaded the image to update manager and tried to roll it out that way - got told basically to take a walk. So fired up IPMI and mounted it, updated with a warning and marched on. I don't think I'll be so lucky within the next few versions.

 

Did you get the 6.7 from IBM's website? If you go to their support / select your model / view all - under "embeded hypervisor" you'll find the custom image. I took a quick look, I only see 6.0 but they do have a service pack for 6.5. What I typically do is just download the 6.0 and update it - to keep all the custom drivers.

https://www-945.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/systemx/selectFixes?parent=Lenovo System x3650 M4&product=ibm/systemx/7915&&platform=All&function=all#Embedded Hypervisor

 

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

I think that would be fine, it's the old intel X- processor generation that's getting tougher. Haven't heard of any of the xeons E- series having issues. Yup 6.7 is what gave my old girl a dirty look - I uploaded the image to update manager and tried to roll it out that way - got told basically to take a walk. So fired up IPMI and mounted it, updated with a warning and marched on. I don't think I'll be so lucky within the next few versions.

 

Did you get the 6.7 from IBM's website? If you go to their support / select your model / view all - under "embeded hypervisor" you'll find the custom image. I took a quick look, I only see 6.0 but they do have a service pack for 6.5. What I typically do is just download the 6.0 and update it - to keep all the custom drivers.

https://www-945.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/systemx/selectFixes?parent=Lenovo System x3650 M4&product=ibm/systemx/7915&&platform=All&function=all#Embedded Hypervisor

 

I didn't even think to look for an IBM specific custom image - does this include specific drivers, etc? I just downloaded the 6.7 ISO from the VMWare downloads page. This is what I did for my Dell as well, last time (That was 6.5 I believe).

[Mikensan]

10 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I didn't even think to look for an IBM specific custom image - does this include specific drivers, etc? I just downloaded the 6.7 ISO from the VMWare downloads page. This is what I did for my Dell as well, last time (That was 6.5 I believe).

I've done it both ways for my personal dells, and noticed better performance out of the custom image. At my old job I had some serious performance issues with our R720s as well as random shutdowns until I used the dell custom image (though I'm still not 100% that was the solution for the power downs, damn grimlins).

 

For my IBM I had no choice, the newest image they had was 4.X or some crazy shit. I will say that is one thing Dell is better about - providing custom images faster (I also prefer their firmware / bios update methods).

 

You can roll the 6.7 and just install the support package for 6.5 they provide (have never done this but it is supported) vs going from 6.0 > 6.7.

 

Oh yea I also wanted to say good move to use disks vs a thumb drive - I've killed 1 and I have 1 more tha'ts dying. I know with 6.0 and before you had to pre-partition the disks if you wanted to use the extra space on a disk as a datastore, but I think since 6.5 it will let you use extra space as a datastore - haven't tried since I decided to just use flash drives.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Mikensan said:

I've done it both ways for my personal dells, and noticed better performance out of the custom image. At my old job I had some serious performance issues with our R720s as well as random shutdowns until I used the dell custom image (though I'm still not 100% that was the solution for the power downs, damn grimlins).

 

For my IBM I had no choice, the newest image they had was 4.X or some crazy shit. I will say that is one thing Dell is better about - providing custom images faster (I also prefer their firmware / bios update methods).

 

You can roll the 6.7 and just install the support package for 6.5 they provide (have never done this but it is supported) vs going from 6.0 > 6.7.

 

Oh yea I also wanted to say good move to use disks vs a thumb drive - I've killed 1 and I have 1 more tha'ts dying. I know with 6.0 and before you had to pre-partition the disks if you wanted to use the extra space on a disk as a datastore, but I think since 6.5 it will let you use extra space as a datastore - haven't tried since I decided to just use flash drives.

I've never liked using USB drives as OS boot drives. Every time people recommend that for FreeNAS or unRAID or ESXi it makes me cringe, because of how unreliable USB drives are in comparison.

 

I'm not concerned that much about performance, since ESXi will mostly stay in RAM anyway.

 

I know in 6.5 it lets you use the remaining space as a Datastore. I did that with the SSD installed into my T410 (Made a 50GB virtual HDD and gave it to my Plex VM as a cache - now I'll probably give Plex the entire SSD).

[Mikensan]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

I've never liked using USB drives as OS boot drives. Every time people recommend that for FreeNAS or unRAID or ESXi it makes me cringe, because of how unreliable USB drives are in comparison.

 

I'm not concerned that much about performance, since ESXi will mostly stay in RAM anyway.

 

I know in 6.5 it lets you use the remaining space as a Datastore. I did that with the SSD installed into my T410 (Made a 50GB virtual HDD and gave it to my Plex VM as a cache - now I'll probably give Plex the entire SSD).

Yea I can speak personally to the reliability of the thumb drives. I've killed 2 on my FreeNAS box, 1 on my R610 and the 1 on my M2 is dying (scratch logs won't write there anymore).

[Mikensan]

Yea with 6.5 they realized not everyone wants to use SD cards and with hyperconverged solutions on the rise, is a much needed feature.

 

I have a LOT of flash drives laying around and since I backup my config for FreeNAS everytime I make a change (seldom) and ESXi pulls a config from vcenter - ontop of me using VSAN... Flash drives 4 life @ home lol.

[cyphon21]

Couldn't find any countersunk at home. I would go with that Bolts Plus deal myself or see if anyone else has them of course before hand. I had an old M2 years ago, I don't recall ever 'needing' the screws on those 2.5" HDD sleds. Does the M4 require them or its flopping around kind of thing?