5U The Waifu. my new server

[Salv8 (sam)]

hello! how ya doin!

it's apparently a right of passage to make a post on your new server round here so I'll start writing mine up!

 

my current server is a IBM System X3200 M2, it's got a Core 2 Quad Q9400, 8GB of ECC DDR2 memory, a 80GB OS drive and many other drives in a fucked configuration.

heres why i am upgrading:

its to jank.

basically the servers storage is a mix of hardware and software RAID.

yes you read that right. i know it's not a good idea but i did it because it was the best option at the time when i needed more storage.

i'll make a basic chart and put it as a spoiler for those interested:

Spoiler

 

my cache is even more fucked, so much that i can't even remember how it's layied out...

 

so lets upgrade, i started looking on e-bay for a server with a lot of drive bays. not a lot of servers with more then 10 drive bays, i want some future proofing so i pefur more, so i look on gumtree (local australia e-bay, think Craigslist but a lot less crackhead vibes)

and i found one.

this BAD girl right here:

https://linustechtips.com/main/uploads/monthly_2019_12/Capture.PNG.77c0800b5154dda7cca651fc9586e8d1.PNG     (edit, the drives are 500GB each, i counted wrong)

(linked since the post editor won't allow me to make it bigger)

oh yes... shes the one...

24 DrIvE bays...

12 TB of StOrAgE...

*moans!*

sorry...

 

so i got her for $850 AUD without the moutherboard, ram and CPU and here she is:

Spoiler

front drive bay

 

some cable management got to get those 24 cables in line somehow!!!

 

backplane, not sure what make and model, prob will check later

 

some raid cards, 64-bit LBA support for drives larger then 2tb!!!! (and it's own RISC processor! bonus!)

 

 

i'm gonna replace them with a 1th gen ryzen system since they are a. cheap and b. still supported

i'm going from a jank system to a...less jank system.

and yes, her code name is 5U The Waifu. i'm putting my Waifu's on her.

i'll update you guys with more soon but don't expect me to update within a week or two, i'm going to be out of my house for 2 weeks as of Saturday this week. so i'll be looking for parts during that time and will buy some probably during or after Christmas.

i'll update you guys then with the final specs of 5U The Waifu.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Salv8 (sam)
weird link was set to the post itself inside the post?

[Bombastinator]

Too jank, huh?  This apparently merely acceptable level of jank previous to it reaching “too jank” levels is perhaps worrisome.

[DoctorNick]

52 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Too jank, huh?  This apparently merely acceptable level of jank previous to it reaching “too jank” levels is perhaps worrisome.

I agree with Ben here. You might also consider real Waifu instead of 12TB of 4K porn.

[Salv8 (sam)]

9 hours ago, DoctorNick said:

I agree with Ben here. You might also consider real Waifu instead of 12TB of 4K porn.

i already have some Waifu's, i've just run out of space for my porn thats why i'm upgrading!

[Mikensan]

You could just convert it to a JBOD enclosure and connect it to whatever you have laying around. Trying to stuff consumer parts in there might get a little tricky otherwise.

[Salv8 (sam)]

well it's been 2 weeks and time for an update!

i hate life! turns out the redundant PSU backplane i have probably doesn't support load sharing (the ability to combine multiple redundant PSU's wattage without any redundancy, basically negating the entire purpose of a redunt PSU buy hey! i don't really care)

so thats fun, i need to power this setup (ill explain why i've got this in a sec but heres the pcpartpicker list): https://au.pcpartpicker.com/user/samiscool24/saved/4FZskL

and unfortunately then PSU's in the system aren't enough to handle it, i calculated the powerdraw of the array here before i left home so that i could start working on the part list while i was away:

Spoiler

187 watts for 17 deskstar HDDs
16 watts for 2 seagate moddle 1 HDDs
13 watts for 1 seaget barracude HDD
11 watts for 1 hitachi HDD
30 watts for 3 WD HDDs

260 watt useage for array
90 watts advailable for rest of system

calculated with both 12+ volt and 5+ volt rails that was specified on the drives themselves, not the best idea but i couldn't find info on some of the drives online.

the rest of the system took up 90 watts! i did some research and the CPU (which was only one when i got it, forgot to put that in sorry!) had a 65W TDP so really didn't consume much wattage. the rest of the system must of consumed 15-20 watts from some simple deduction (for RAM, Moutherboard and two raid cards)

thats not a lot but i'm guessing that who ever built this must of really wanted to save power considering the constraints with this system

so unfortunly it has to be even more jank then my last server...

the last thing i wanted

On 12/4/2019 at 9:36 PM, Bombastinator said:

Too jank, huh?  This apparently merely acceptable level of jank previous to it reaching “too jank” levels is perhaps worrisome.

you're getting your wish mate!

so how the fuck am i solving this you ask but not really ask?

simple, i'm running the array off the redundant PSU's, the the rest of the system off a spare dell workstation 750W PSU i have, it's been in use for a very long time (i used it to power a classic xbox 360 once!) and deffently still pulls it's weight.

i'm using a simple cable off ebay here to allow both to run at the same time when i push the power button.

so why am i doing this in the first place? simple, i can't idenfity what connectors the PSU's use for their PSU backplane

i created a thread here in hopes of figguring it out

unfortunately no-one responded (a trend i notice when i ask for help, and people wonder why i don't like asking for help and with it being my last resort) and i have been unable to idenfiy the case as well, from what i can tell, the case itself might of been made spificly for the server and i can't find any manufacturer name or model to help me with it, so it's a mystery that i will solve later when i can be bothered.

 

this thing is so big, we need an intermission, heres "Chemical Gary Zone" by Chris Kogos, a cover of Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic The Hedgehog 2:

 

ok, lets get back into the action, what was i talking about again?...

oh right. i i knew what it was i could of bought more powerful PSU's instead of this but my life must always be jank apparently!

@Bombastinator you cursed me you bastard!

annnnnnnnyways!!!!!! lets continue on to that part that everyone loves, why i'm using these specs for my system.

simple.

i want the system to last a long time, the array, PSU's and case from what i can tell, have been in the since 2005! it's been doing it's thing for over 14 (almost 15) years!

thats the reliability i want!

the CPU's 8 cores will be perfect for plex, light VM work and being a storage server.

the 8gb of ram is just a cost saving measure, i'll upgrade with more when i need it, i don't need that much right now so it's fine.

the motherboard i got it for one good reason:

it has 3 pcie 16x slots, one for a GPU (GT 210, i have one spare, the CPU doesn't have integrated graphics so i need it) and two for my RAID cards so they can run at their fullest potential.

i don't care that it has RGB (i'll probably turn it off cause it will just get annoying) and only supports 64GB of ram (it's only going to be doing light VM work, at most a vm might take up 16 gb of ram)

i'm getting these two ssd's because

a. i don't have ssd's that i trust enough to run my server (shocking i know)

and b. the only ssd i have on hand is dram-less and is slower then slowpoke from Pokemon.

these have dram cache, and are fast enough to run windows server.

 

and thats it for now, i'm gonna get the parts after Christmas because i don't have the $1000 AUD for the rest of the system right now and i don't mind waiting for it

so have fun wondering why you read all of this, i'm gonna go spend Christmas with my "loving" family.

bye.

[LaPlume]

350W PSU sounds a bit weak for a 5U case with that many storage bay.

It could be worth looking more into it, because I would suspect that it wasn't designed with quad redundancy in mind (cause at that point that's redundantly stoopid), but maybe more like load-sharing redundancy, aka you can loose 1 of the 4 PSUs without down time, and the 3 left take the hit of the fourth missing, as in they "add up".

 

You may, in fact, be dealing with more like a 1400W power distribution, that just runs with a ceiling of 1050W when one gives up the ghost, or 700W if two die hand-in-hand?

 

Actively trying to read that poopoo with no luck so far.

[Salv8 (sam)]

12 hours ago, LaPlume said:

-snip-

as much as i agree with you server equipment from that era consumed a lot of power, i wouldn't be surprised that the original owner really wanted to keep power consumption down.

unfortunately i don't even know if the PSU backplane supports load sharing, every single code/number/whatever has lead to nothing on google.

i did find someone who might of made the case but their contact email is broken and i can't get a hold of them at all.

which has lead me to believe that it is a white box. the person i bought this from doesn't even know who made it or what model it might be.

unless i had proof that it can load share, i wouldn't be doing this. but i don't.

i had two weeks to research this crap, if i found something i would of put it up for others so they can benefit from what i have found.

but i've got nothing. the only other way to see if it does support load sharing is if i took the entire thing apart and looked up the PSU backplane model, but i'm not doing that because i have the rational fear that i won't be able to but it back together again.

thanks for your help man, but there's nothing else i can do right now.

when i am more confidant that i can put this thing back together then i'll try, but for now, i'll just Jerry Rig it

[Bombastinator]

25 minutes ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

as much as i agree with you server equipment from that era consumed a lot of power, i wouldn't be surprised that the original owner really wanted to keep power consumption down.

unfortunately i don't even know if the PSU backplane supports load sharing, every single code/number/whatever has lead to nothing on google.

i did find someone who might of made the case but their contact email is broken and i can't get a hold of them at all.

which has lead me to believe that it is a white box. the person i bought this from doesn't even know who made it or what model it might be.

unless i had proof that it can load share, i wouldn't be doing this. but i don't.

i had two weeks to research this crap, if i found something i would of put it up for others so they can benefit from what i have found.

but i've got nothing. the only other way to see if it does support load sharing is if i took the entire thing apart and looked up the PSU backplane model, but i'm not doing that because i have the rational fear that i won't be able to but it back together again.

thanks for your help man, but there's nothing else i can do right now.

when i am more confidant that i can put this thing back together then i'll try, but for now, i'll just Jerry Rig it

I don’t know why anyone does that whole quote “snip” stuff.  I haven’t seen it on any other site.  It makes it hard to follow the conversation.  It makes sense for partial or multi quote when one is only replying to part of a statement but cutting the whole thing is strange.  There a button to hide the quote if it uses too much screen space.

[LaPlume]

I suggested it was a load balancing unit because the supermicro motherboard that went in this (according to the model number you gave) supports theorically 100W CPU in each socket.

Add a couple of raid card, chipset, ram, and 10 disks, we would be already over-capaciting a 350W PSU.

 

So I'm personnaly pretty convinced it indeed balance part of the load, I was mostly wondering "how much/well it balances".

 

I think the best idea would be to make your calculations with a 700W top limit for your whole system, array included. It would be a safe bet, because if you think 350W with 270W of array, 90W for system, would mean that minus lets say a pair of raid cards, you're down to what? 40-50W for chipset/ram/cpu? It doesn't make sense, and would mean one PSU is running full tilt with 3 PSUs in standby.

 

Assuming 1400W on a 15 years old powerdelievery we can't know what it's made of would be risky imo.

 

Thus pretending you have 700W to play with is both kinda safe and not too much constraints for your system building.

 

 

SIDE NOTE THOUGH: I would advise you to just get your hands on a PSU tester. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Q8SUYHW/r It's not really expensive, but 15bucks VS testing a jank PSU with actual hardware, I would defo prefer to fry that doodad than a motherboard and cpu.

 

It won't test the wattage, but just the voltage stability at "idle load". It's a good sanity check to be sure at least your PSU array isn't too jank.

 

 

Also, look into which cables you work with before making your decision on motherboard and GPU.

If modern middle-high end PSUs can handle having a 8+8 splitter on a PCI or EPS rail and power stuff like that, in less than ideal conditions, I wouldn't trust that much it would hold on rails and caps put together 15 years ago.

[Salv8 (sam)]

7 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

I don’t know why anyone does that whole quote “snip” stuff.  I haven’t seen it on any other site.  It makes it hard to follow the conversation.  It makes sense for partial or multi quote when one is only replying to part of a statement but cutting the whole thing is strange.  There a button to hide the quote if it uses too much screen space.

don't know either, just seems to be the norm.

6 hours ago, LaPlume said:

I suggested it was a load balancing unit because the supermicro motherboard that went in this (according to the model number you gave) supports theorically 100W CPU in each socket.

Add a couple of raid card, chipset, ram, and 10 disks, we would be already over-capaciting a 350W PSU.

the cpu consumes 65 watts, i did do a calulation of how much the array consumes:

Spoiler

187 watts for 17 deskstar HDDs
16 watts for 2 seagate moddle 1 HDDs
13 watts for 1 seaget barracude HDD
11 watts for 1 hitachi HDD
30 watts for 3 WD HDDs

260 watt useage for array
90 watts advailable for rest of system

calculated with both 12+ volt and 5+ volt rails that was specified on the drives themselves, not the best idea but i couldn't find info on some of the drives online.

so they can run the system, the ram, motherboard and raid cards might take up what, 10-15 watts at most? you would still have 5-10 watts left which does lead credence to my green power saving design theory.

On 12/23/2019 at 8:41 AM, LaPlume said:

So I'm personnaly pretty convinced it indeed balance part of the load, I was mostly wondering "how much/well it balances".

again, i don't know and i would rather not risk it.

On 12/23/2019 at 8:41 AM, LaPlume said:

Assuming 1400W on a 15 years old powerdelievery we can't know what it's made of would be risky imo.

for a two core two thread cpu running a 24 bay system? god no, if you wern't being power comsumption conshious, it might take up, what, 400 watts? that would be overkill, and considering they had a two core cpu in there, my guess is that they wern't the overkill type.

On 12/23/2019 at 8:41 AM, LaPlume said:

Thus pretending you have 700W to play with is both kinda safe and not too much constraints for your system building.

you gonna have to rephrase that... it starts off as an insult then gets into a complment without using much infomation for both? what?

On 12/23/2019 at 8:41 AM, LaPlume said:

SIDE NOTE THOUGH: I would advise you to just get your hands on a PSU tester. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Q8SUYHW/r It's not really expensive, but 15bucks VS testing a jank PSU with actual hardware, I would defo prefer to fry that doodad than a motherboard and cpu.

 

It won't test the wattage, but just the voltage stability at "idle load". It's a good sanity check to be sure at least your PSU array isn't too jank.

i don't have the money for that (i think my friend has one but i'm not sure, i'll ask him), the rest of the system is running off the del psu, the only thing being powered by the reduntent PSU's are the array and drives. (not even the ssd's are going to be powered off that)

from a quick look inside the redeunt psu's it doesn't look like anything is wrong at a first glance but i'll have a closer look when i have some time on my hands to wave away your fears.

On 12/23/2019 at 8:41 AM, LaPlume said:

Also, look into which cables you work with before making your decision on motherboard and GPU.

If modern middle-high end PSUs can handle having a 8+8 splitter on a PCI or EPS rail and power stuff like that, in less than ideal conditions, I wouldn't trust that much it would hold on rails and caps put together 15 years ago.

it's a gt 210, it doesn't have a 8pin plug on it, it's pcie powered...

agiain the only thing that the redeunt PSU's are powering are the array and drives (not the ssds), the rest is being powered by the dell PSU that i have on hand.

the ebay connectior's purpose is to allow both to run at the same with without resorting to the paper clip solution.

 

i have had time to think this though, two weeks is a long time.

[LaPlume]

Sorry for the phrasing, english isn't actually my first language, EU medieval scum there.

 

When I said "Thus pretending you have 700W to play with is both kinda safe and not too much constraints for your system building.", I meant that with a 4x350W PSU configuration, and the kind of hardware that was in the case at first, it made actually no sense at all if there wasn't some kind of load balancing going on, and that, for safety reason,

/>if it would be bold and actually risky-dumb to say "hey, lets just count 350W times four, means it's a 1400W psu!",

>it would though still be a safe bet to consider the whole thing as a 700wattish capable unit, and that jerry-ringing a second PSU on it wasn't really necessary and a hassle you could get rid of.

 

And I said all that regarding your PCPartpicker listing, which wouldn't be then an issue powering from the stock PSUs.

 

But got it, you do you, you don't want to risk it, it was just "badly phrased informative thoughts".

[Salv8 (sam)]

4 hours ago, LaPlume said:

Sorry for the phrasing, english isn't actually my first language, EU medieval scum there.

thats ok man, i've got friends that i've known my whole life that still have trouble with english.

4 hours ago, LaPlume said:

And I said all that regarding your PCPartpicker listing, which wouldn't be then an issue powering from the stock PSUs.

while it can, i'm not even sure if it supports load sharing, i would rather not find out later that the PSU's can't run my setup due to not enough power then have to jerry rig it to run both until i get that cable i linked to earlier.

i do know there is another cable in the system to goes to the PSU backplane (most likely to allow the motherboard to communicate with it for information and configuration) but a. i don't think that standard is used anymore and is replaced with USB to allow the OS to do that instead. and b. i'm not gonna figure out how to use it on a modern system cause it's a feature i don't need.

[LaPlume]

What I meant is not that I "think" there is load balancing going on, I meant that I'm like 99.99999% sure there is load balancing going on, but:
>that if I'm 100% sure that because of its age it would be bold to assume it's 1 unit capacity times 4
>that I'm not sure if it's designed to support the full load of 3 or 4 combined unit
>and that I never saw or heard of a load balancing 4way setup that can't handle the equivalent of 2 units worth of load

-> hence what I made the call for 700W.

I'm pretty convinced it's capable of powering your inital pcpp build, but indeed, as it's a "white box", until you can examine the backplane/ get some key serial number that lead somewhere, or unless <you encounter an old powerhungry system in the trash/ someone let you try stability test with their hardware>, there is no way to prove it.

 

 

As for the weird cable, if you can get a picture of it... it actually could lead to an interesting find! If it's a proprietary thingy, or an old standard that isn't in use anymore, it would narrow down the scope of searches of the origins of your gear to a finite list!

[NelizMastr]

8 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

thats ok man, i've got friends that i've known my whole life that still have trouble with english.

while it can, i'm not even sure if it supports load sharing, i would rather not find out later that the PSU's can't run my setup due to not enough power then have to jerry rig it to run both until i get that cable i linked to earlier.

If the previous owner could run dual Xeon 51xx series and 24 drives on those PSUs, a Ryzen system will certainly be able to work as it's MUCH more energy efficient than those old Xeons and their fully buffered DDR2 DIMMs that also consumed 8W each.

 

Also, the RAID controllers will make sure your PSUs don't get that full load at once, they do a staggered start. There's rarely a case where every single component is running full blast. An idling HDD doesn't consume 10W either.

 

Another thing to consider, a watt meter doesn't compensate for poor PSU efficiency. What it's pulling at the wall might not represent the actual load from the components.

[Salv8 (sam)]

On 12/25/2019 at 1:31 AM, NelizMastr said:

An idling HDD doesn't consume 10W either.

i know that, i'm looking at worse case scenarios, i will be hitting this server hard and i don't want the unit dying while i'm working on something

(also the drives are from 2006, not really the best year for energy efficient computer components, have you seen a dell unit from that time period? it's cheaper running a Tesla then one of those things!!!!)

On 12/25/2019 at 1:31 AM, NelizMastr said:

If the previous owner could run dual Xeon 51xx series and 24 drives on those PSUs, a Ryzen system will certainly be able to work as it's MUCH more energy efficient than those old Xeons and their fully buffered DDR2 DIMMs that also consumed 8W each.

the dual CPUs would of consumed about 130 watts (i now see why he removed one) the ryzen CPU does consume 105 watts and i do see where you are comming from.

but would you run a ryzen off those old PSU's? if the drives die, no problem, i can replace them and copy my backed up data back over to them. (thats like $50 AUD to replace them)

if the PSU's kill the CPU/board, thats about $500 AUD to replace, i don't have that kind of money.

by putting less load on them it will reuse the chance that they will decide to commit Sudoku and take out the rest of the system.

as much as i don't like the cable solution, it's better then the paper clip solution.

On 12/24/2019 at 5:33 PM, LaPlume said:

until you can examine the backplane

the backplane's are generic, as annoying as that is. they don't have any special features (like a SAS to sata convertor on board), they just split the power that they receive from a molex conector to the drives. from what i can see, they each only got one power converter on each one, so each converter is powering 4 drives.

(yes there are multiple, i didn't relise untill last night when i was poking around, theres 6 back planes powering 4 drives each, it's not like a more modern solution where there is just one backplane and it handles all of the drives with on-board SOC's and crap, although it looks like it could fit one, might be an upgrade in the future...)

[LaPlume]

Sorry for the confusion, I wasn't speaking there of the backplane in which you ram the drives, but the one in which you ram the 4 PSUs

 

Also, yes, the voltages, amps and connectors are the same, so yes, a ryzen build would run in it -- assuming the quad PSU is still in good shape, and at least have stable voltages on all its rails.

[NelizMastr]

On 12/29/2019 at 1:20 AM, Salv8 (sam) said:

i know that, i'm looking at worse case scenarios, i will be hitting this server hard and i don't want the unit dying while i'm working on something

(also the drives are from 2006, not really the best year for energy efficient computer components, have you seen a dell unit from that time period? it's cheaper running a Tesla then one of those things!!!!)

the dual CPUs would of consumed about 130 watts (i now see why he removed one) the ryzen CPU does consume 105 watts and i do see where you are comming from.

but would you run a ryzen off those old PSU's? if the drives die, no problem, i can replace them and copy my backed up data back over to them. (thats like $50 AUD to replace them)

if the PSU's kill the CPU/board, thats about $500 AUD to replace, i don't have that kind of money.

by putting less load on them it will reuse the chance that they will decide to commit Sudoku and take out the rest of the system.

I Lol'd at the sudoko meme.

 

Anyway, to be more to the point, I rarely trust PSUs beyond 5-8 years, depending on the specs. If this server is from 2006-2007, they probably aren't even 80+ rated yet, which is concerning. They are usually build pretty well, though, so reliability should be fine. That said, the ATX spec has changed over the years, and newer components don't always work well with old PSUs. If you can find newer compatible units for a fair price and higher output, they're worth considering.

[LaPlume]

@NelizMastrFrom what I understood, it's a pretty proprietary and pretty untraceable piece of hardware, and since it's embedded in the enclosure, and since the enclosure is basically why he bought the damn thing in the first place... that kinda sounds like a thin slice of chance to work.

[NelizMastr]

On 12/30/2019 at 12:12 PM, LaPlume said:

@NelizMastrFrom what I understood, it's a pretty proprietary and pretty untraceable piece of hardware, and since it's embedded in the enclosure, and since the enclosure is basically why he bought the damn thing in the first place... that kinda sounds like a thin slice of chance to work.

You'd be surprised how standardized server PSUs can be. Especially for generic systems like these. It's mostly Dell, HPE, Lenovo, Huawei, Cisco and Supermicro that do their own proprietary thing. There's a reasonable chance you can replace these, but we'd need decent pics of one of the PSUs with measurements to be sure.

[LaPlume]

@NelizMastr Oh I know.

 

PSUs are a bit like ram sticks. There are some odd balls made by some bonkers, but it's mostly plop in and rock, just like RAM...

 

EXCEPT=> RAM won't usually catch fire if something goes wrong. 

 

But Indeed, if OP catch a PSU "module" with the same size and connector as the 4 he already has, there is a decent chance it will just work.

 

But even if they replace all 4 of the PSUs, the enclosure itself, for load-balancing, has some components onboard, it's not just wiring.

 

Are the actual PSUs and enclosure closer in quality to what you find on servermonkey, or closer to what you find on Wish, can't tell. They may replace the four PSUs by brand name compatible one, the enclosure is still a mystery.

 

 

My call to OP would still be "take reduced risk at reduced cost".

 

> check Volt/Amps of the PSU, to check that, though it doesn't smoke, that it's not somehow already on weed.

 

> run an old discardable config in it, check in your circle of friends if someone has an old config to try this one (good fun could be a pair of Fermi cards with a buldozer Cpu, THAT would be a great test) / OR run the old hardware that was in it previously, with like a CPU stress test and adding a powerhungry old-gen GPU to maximize the load.

 

> you may now run your new config with half-peace of mind. 

 

 

Going for refurb stuff is always a higher risk of something going wrong, cause eh, old stuff, but don't buy refurb for a pretty penny (because 850AU$ is a pretty penny for 2006 hardware, especially if you only keep enclosure and PSU, and ditch the rest) if it's for then not even using it fully, and jankensteining an ATX PSU onto it.

 

It's defeating the very purpose of what you paid for, else you could have gone shopping for an ikea shelf to screw 5.25bay 3.5hotswap docks into, and hot gluing a cheapo tower case at the back of it. That's jank, but actually no waste.

 

 

If you can't get to trust what you buy, a safer call would have been a 4u 16bays iStarUSA-M-4160-ATX (for SATA/SAS), or a Silverstone 3U 16bay RM316 (for SAS) enclosure, that are made to take consumer gear in, like bog standard ATX PSUs.

It's not off by many in bay/$ , but you would actually use it fully.

 

Yes, you would loose the pleasure of playing around with old stuff, and on that, I totally feel ya.

I defo love my old janky servers. But I do actually run them full tilt. I use them, make them worth every penny I paid for them (and it wasn't much for most).

 

But it's like if you bought a corsair 1000D uber-giant case, and slapped an AM3 ITX motherboard in it, a nvidia 210GT, with a diablotek PSU ploped on top on the PSU shroud.

[Salv8 (sam)]

On 1/4/2020 at 12:59 AM, NelizMastr said:

You'd be surprised how standardized server PSUs can be. Especially for generic systems like these.

by all means try identifying this connector, cause i've had no luck, i can't even find the PSU manufacturer.

these days they are standard thanks to Intel with their CRPS standard, generic manufactures can just use this and there isn't any issue.

my case was made in 2006, from what i can tell CRPS was introduced back in 2012.

a good six years later...

unless i FULLY take apart the server and probe around the redundant PSU backplane to figure how how the fuck they build it, i'm just going to have to make do...

[LaPlume]

I noticed that in your search-for-clues post you're saying you're looking for an higher capacity one because 350W wont do.

 

It would totally, it's 4x 350W, and in now way you're limited to 350W, at worse you're limited to something like 700W. The real question there isn't load capacity, but reliability as whole. And for that it looks like probing would be the way to go... I mean at least check that the voltages are in range.

[Salv8 (sam)]

it's been two months and heres an update that no-one cares about.

the raid cards can't join together and create a single array, great there goes my storage layout plan of having multiple partitions for everything.

so now the new layout will be:

1x raid 1 for the OS (on the SSD's via on-board raid since i don't want another raid card)

1x raid 6 for 12 drives that will be the main storage (e.g plex and p0rn) that will be 5tb with two drive failures with good read speed (not gonna write much to it so the read speed gain will be useful)

1x raid 0 of 4 drives for plex metadata (will keep a backup in case of drive failure)

1 raid 0 of 8 drives for torrent data (i can lose it since i can start the torrent process again if needed)

 

i've download the drivers onto my desktop for quick deployment, and i'll be using the web GUI for my raid cards since they can notify me if something goes wrong)

i also have the raid card's user guide in case something goes wrong and i need to lookup some information about the cards in order to troubleshoot my issue.

 

i also haven't bought the server parts since i'm still trying to raise money to buy it so thats not changed.

thats essentially it, see you in 10,000 years when i finally finish the server!

[GDRRiley]

don't feel bad, these home server build are always slow unless you get an amazing deal or set aside a bunch before starting