Dell PowerEdge R620 Home Server Help RAID/OS

[JClarkGames]

Hey there just bought my first server to use as a Home Server, the purpose for this server is to use for development mainly deploying/testing different apps (mainly node.js for discord bots, websites, and messing around with various other things like configuring SSH and just learning more about managing and operating a server.)

 

Dell PowerEdge R620

System Specs
Motherboard: 

CPU: 2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2660 0 @ 2.20GHz
Memory: 8x16GB DDR3 1600Mhz (128GB)

iDRAC7 Enterprise

PERC H710 Mini

Harddrives: 4x600GB Seagate drives 2.5" SAS HDD (Came with the server)

Additional Drives: 2x1TB 2.5" Hard drives (Dell brand SAS) 

Power Supply: 2x 750 Watt (Originals)

 

I created a RAID 10 Array for the initial 4 Harddrives it came with but bought 2 more drives and unable to add them to the RAID Array (Have no experience with RAID this is my first time using RAID of any kind) 

 

Not sure what other information would be useful. I did manage to get iDRAC setup on a static IP and working it also came preinstalled with Windows Server 2016 but I decided to wipe the drives and install Ubuntu Server 22.04.4 LTS. I was trying to figure out how to setup either ESXi or Proxmox but have no experience and couldn't find downloads for ESXi. 

 

I was also trying to figure out how to install the OS onto a USB and use that for booting to use all the storage available for the actual server but have also never properly figured out how to use the linux/ubuntu file system and mount drives properly.

Wondering if I can get some advice/support on setting up and configuring this properly.

Thank you again in advance!

[JClarkGames]

I believe I also posted this to the wrong section unsure how to move it if someone can do that for me please.

[Needfuldoer]

[ Moved to Servers, NAS, and Homelab ]

 

38 minutes ago, JClarkGames said:

I created a RAID 10 Array for the initial 4 Harddrives it came with but bought 2 more drives and unable to add them to the RAID Array (Have no experience with RAID this is my first time using RAID of any kind) 

You can't add more drives to an existing array. That's something you can do with a software RAID like ZFS, Btrfs, or Storage Spaces, but in order to use those properly on this hardware you have to reflash the RAID controller to make it act as a non-RAID HBA. (Software RAID wants direct access to the drives, and RAID cards get in between the hardware and the OS.) It's pretty straightforward, especially since you have iDRAC Enterprise so you can mount the virtual disk images without writing them to USB drives. 

 

42 minutes ago, JClarkGames said:

I was trying to figure out how to setup either ESXi or Proxmox but have no experience and couldn't find downloads for ESXi. 

ESXi is commercial software, and VMWare recently discontinued the free tier (boooo). 

 

43 minutes ago, JClarkGames said:

I was also trying to figure out how to install the OS onto a USB and use that for booting to use all the storage available for the actual server

You don't want to do that. USB flash drives are made to be cheap, not have good longevity. The 12th gen PowerEdge servers also don't have USB 3 support so you're stuck with USB 2 speeds. 

 

If you have an 8-bay R620, get one of those optical bay to 2.5" adapters and install a boot SSD in place of the DVD drive. A SATA DOM is also an option. 

 

You won't be able to directly boot off an M.2 SSD in a PCIe adapter, but you can put the Clover bootloader on a flash drive plugged into the internal USB port and use that to chain-load an OS installed on the M.2.

 

If you don't want to buy more hardware, use two of the drive bays for your boot mirror and then use the rest of the bays for your storage pool.

 

If you find the 1U form factor too restrictive, all the parts you have can drop into a 2U R720. (An R720XD will have twelve 3.5" bays or twenty-four 2.5" bays, plus two 2.5" bays on the back for your boot mirror.)

[JClarkGames]

20 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

You can't add more drives to an existing array. That's something you can do with a software RAID like ZFS, Btrfs, or Storage Spaces, but in order to use those properly on this hardware you have to reflash the RAID controller to make it act as a non-RAID HBA. (Software RAID wants direct access to the drives, and RAID cards get in between the hardware and the OS.) It's pretty straightforward, especially since you have iDRAC Enterprise so you can mount the virtual disk images without writing them to USB drives. 

Ah I see would you recommend software RAID over hardware RAID? Im leaning more towards Hardware RAID I was also trying to figure out if I can just say backup or image my entire existing array onto my Desktop PC and then redo my RAID again with the new Drives and the add back my image? Im not really losing any data or anything just gonna have to reinstall Ubuntu Server again so at the moment no data loss really atm.

 

23 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

ESXi is commercial software, and VMWare recently discontinued the free tier (boooo). 

 

Ahh that's a shame i thought there was a free version or something, i'm assuming Proxmox is also commercial but i could also just google that as well.

 

24 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

If you have an 8-bay R620, get one of those optical bay to 2.5" adapters and install a boot SSD in place of the DVD drive. A SATA DOM is also an option. 

 

I have a 10 Bay backplane/server forgot to mention that, so I have 4 more drive bays available. and I'm not too worried about really having a separate boot drive does make sense though no point throwing an OS onto a USB.

 

Does anyone have any advice on how I can backup my server(s) ontop of this new local server I do have an OVH Dedicated Server but no clue how to do a proper backup at all. Eventually the plan is to add on a NAS but that wont be for a long time.