4 Free Apple Xserve!

[solderburn]

 

Hello folks, 

So I got four Xserves last week, they were about to be thrown out. The one in the picture is a 2009, Dual 2.93 Ghz Quadcore Intel Xeon X5570 with 24GB DDR3 EEC 1066, and a 4 Port 4gbit/s Fiber card.

I installed macOS Sierra on it with no problems and I also got the RAID working. It's blazing fast. I would like to use it on top of my desk until I have enough space for a small server room.

 

Project Stage I: Quiet Cooling

In order to use it in my bedroom it has to be quiet. I've been working on it since Friday and the noise can wreck your head. I removed one of the two power supplies since I don't need any redundancy yet to make the whole thing quieter.

But I will have to water cool it. I don't want the risk that comes with water-cooling myself, so I'm going for an AIO water cooling system. The stock fan array of total 7 Fans (7 in a row, 2 in line) HAS TO GO.

 

My only requirements are: 1. The height - It has to fit in a 1U server. So the direction of the tubing going into the cooling block cant be from top, it has to come from the side. Like the Accelero Hybrid III. It's nice and flat and the tubes come in from the side into the cooling element. Only issue with that is the right angle of the tubing going into the radiator. Perhaps a Modified Corsair H5 SF is the solution. I found pictures of a H5 SF with its blower fan taken off. Tubes entering the cooling block rotate and can be adjusted to be completely flat. So it looks like it could be a fit.

 

Project Stage II: Upgrades.

I also took out the DVD drive and replaced it with a caddy which is housing a 128GB SSD. Sadly I was not able to boot from it (it's slow to show up after boot) so I scrapped that idea.

I installed 3 x 1TB Hard drives. They are configured in RAID 0 and average 300MB/s read and write which is ok. Interesting to know if it's possible to make a RAID + SSD Fusion drive. I could use one of the PCIe slots to install a Samsung Evo 960 256GB M.2 and if possible create a Fusion Drive. It sounds cool if you're not afraid to lose your data 

CPUs can be replaced with two Intel Xeon X5675 (3.06 Ghz, 6 Core - 160$ total ) and upgrade the RAM from 24GB to 64GB (another 170$).

 

Also anyone having experience with the OS running on RAID? I have 3x 1TB Hard-drives running in Raid 0, I would now like to carbon copy the OS from the SSD onto the 3 Drive Raid array. Any issues with that?

 

Tell me what you guys think. What is the best cooling solution that you guys would suggest? And any help is really appreciated, 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Technomancer__]

Nice

 

But I whould go Windows...

[Zando_]

You got four? Wanna send me one?

[solderburn]

I got stuck once without my macbook and having to finish some work i had to buy an ASUS 14"laptop for 300 bucks, it even has an USB 3.1c Port. It came pre-installed with Windows. No joke, I couldn't even click trough the settings, everything was lagging. I formatted the ssd within the first half an hour after buying it and threw Debian on it. Funny my first legally bought windows License and i didn't even bother to write it down.

No idea why anyone would ever use windows on a server. LOL

 

7 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

You got four? Wanna send me one?

Shipping is too expensive mate! Besides you can get them really cheap in the US. Need more btw so could you send me some  ?

[brwainer]

21 minutes ago, solderburn said:

The stock fan array of total 7 Fans (7 in a row, 2 in line) HAS TO GO

Most server systems monitor the RPMs of each fan, and will go into an alert mode if one fails, and may shut off if two or more fail. If they aren't all present, it may refuse to boot. So when you remove the fans, you may have to wire up some sort of splitter so the RPM Sense pin (3rd pin on a fan connector) can be fed from one fan to multiple connectors.

23 minutes ago, solderburn said:

I installed 3 x 1TB Hard drives. They are configured in RAID 0 and average 300MB/s read and write which is ok. Interesting to know if it's possible to make a RAID + SSD Fusion drive. I could use one of the PCIe slots to install a Samsung Evo 960 256GB M.2 and if possible create a Fusion Drive. It sounds cool if you're not afraid to lose your data 

If the drives are in a sort of hardware RAID, and the OS sees them as a single drive, then this should work with fine. If you are doing the RAID0 in the OS, then it probably won't work. The reason is the Fusion drives are implemented using the OS's RAID layer. But if you have a "single hard drive" then you will be able to make a Fusion drive. http://www.techrepublic.com/article/pro-tip-how-to-create-and-disable-a-fusion-drive/ or http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/storage-drives/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html (basically the same instructions).

 

27 minutes ago, solderburn said:

Also anyone having experience with the OS running on RAID? I have 3x 1TB Hard-drives running in Raid 0, I would now like to carbon copy the OS from the SSD onto the 3 Drive Raid array. Any issues with that?

you can use the macOS Disk Utility to clone one volume to another. Regardless of which type of RAID you are using (hardware or software) it should be able to sort it out. And if it doesn't, you will still have the OS installed on the RAID0 and can try moving it via some other means. Just don't try to clone the system while it is running off the RAID0 - boot off the OSX Sierra installer and use the Disk Utility in there.

[luigi90210]

How much is shipping to California? I'll pay it if I can get one for free. 

[solderburn]

16 minutes ago, brwainer said:

Most server systems monitor the RPMs of each fan, and will go into an alert mode if one fails, and may shut off if two or more fail. If they aren't all present, it may refuse to boot. So when you remove the fans, you may have to wire up some sort of splitter so the RPM Sense pin (3rd pin on a fan connector) can be fed from one fan to multiple connectors.

If the drives are in a sort of hardware RAID, and the OS sees them as a single drive, then this should work with fine. If you are doing the RAID0 in the OS, then it probably won't work. The reason is the Fusion drives are implemented using the OS's RAID layer. But if you have a "single hard drive" then you will be able to make a Fusion drive. http://www.techrepublic.com/article/pro-tip-how-to-create-and-disable-a-fusion-drive/ or http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/storage-drives/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html (basically the same instructions).

 

you can use the macOS Disk Utility to clone one volume to another. Regardless of which type of RAID you are using (hardware or software) it should be able to sort it out. And if it doesn't, you will still have the OS installed on the RAID0 and can try moving it via some other means. Just don't try to clone the system while it is running off the RAID0 - boot off the OSX Sierra installer and use the Disk Utility in there.

I tried the cloning function, its recover from disk x to disk y. But im not sure if it also is copying the boot sector. There is a Hardware RAID card connected to the bays but im not sure if i can "hardware" Raid them since im using Sierra and not the Xserve version of OSX. I created the Raid with the Raid-Assistant in Disk Utility.

[brwainer]

Just now, solderburn said:

I tried the cloning function, its recover from disk x to disc y. But im not sure if it also is copying the boot sector. There is a Hardware RAID card connected to the bays but im not sure if i can "hardware" Raid them since im using Sierra and not the Xserve version of OSX. I created the Raid with the Raid-Assistant in Disk Utility.

Best way to see if it is copying the boot sector is to test it - just remove the RAID card, or disconnect all the RAID drives, connect the SSD, and try to boot.

[solderburn]

1 minute ago, brwainer said:

Best way to see if it is copying the boot sector is to test it - just remove the RAID card, or disconnect all the RAID drives, connect the SSD, and try to boot.

OK, so i remove all drives out of the bays, i pop the ssd in a tray and try to boot. Give me a sec.

[Zando_]

25 minutes ago, solderburn said:

I got stuck once without my macbook and having to finish some work i had to buy an ASUS 14"laptop for 300 bucks, it even has an USB 3.1c Port. It came pre-installed with Windows. No joke, I couldn't even click trough the settings, everything was lagging. I formatted the ssd within the first half an hour after buying it and threw Debian on it. Funny my first legally bought windows License and i didn't even bother to write it down.

No idea why anyone would ever use windows on a server. LOL

 

Shipping is too expensive mate! Besides you can get them really cheap in the US. Need more btw so could you send me some  ?

Can't really send you some, since I don't have any. I do have a great condition PowerMac G5. I'd like to build a hackintosh inside it (not illegal, since it's an Apple branded case, and they let you replace hardware on PowerMacs), but it work fine, so I don't want to break it. Or let it go. It'll probs sit around for a few more years till I'm better at building PCs, then I'll build a nice new Mac inside it. 

[solderburn]

31 minutes ago, brwainer said:

Best way to see if it is copying the boot sector is to test it - just remove the RAID card, or disconnect all the RAID drives, connect the SSD, and try to boot.

Alright, so it is booting no issue with the SSD in the tray and all the other HDDs out. I tried to install a EFI firmware and LOM update but its refusing. Perhaps a quick fix in the plist. Any suggestion? I got all 3x 1TB Disks inserted, going to try to copy the SSD that has macOS on it onto the one Virtual 3TB RAID0 Disk. Lets hope it works.

 

Edit: Booting from Sierra install USB stick and will copy Sierra from SSD-USB onto the Virtual S3 3TB Raid Image.

Btw anyone any idea why it allways is booting so damn slow? Even from the SSD inside the Bay. Is it because of the EEC ram?

[solderburn]

Its booting and working like a champ! This is the best idea ever. Xserve as Desktop and Gaming Machine! Holy shit...

Just need to water cool it, SSD into PCIe adapter card, then Fusion drive the RAID with the SSD, replace the two CPUs with two 6 Core 3Ghz Xeons and upgrade the RAM to 64gb or even 128GB.

 

Omg its like Christmas!!

[solderburn]

3 minutes ago, solderburn said:

Its booting and working like a champ! This is the best idea ever. Xserve as Desktop and Gaming Machine! Holy shit...

Just need to water cool it, SSD into PCIe adapter card, then Fusion drive the RAID with the SSD, replace the two CPUs with two 6 Core 3Ghz Xeons and upgrade the RAM to 64gb or even 128GB. Oh yeah and perhaps a mini GTX or Mini AMD graphics card or even better just using the MXM slot and popping in the fastest MXM 2.0 card i can find.

 

Omg its like Christmas!!

 

[brwainer]

The slow booting is because it is a server, and on servers you never skip any testing. Most desktop and laptop computers use a "Fast Boot" procedure where they don't do things like memory checking (trusting that the memory is what it claims to be and has no issues) and other tests.

 

You can try the Fusion steps out and see if it will work, treating your "System" drive as the hard drive, but I'm not really expecting it to. That looks like its using the same RAID layer in the OS that Fusion uses.

[LuisMarch]

Hi! Have you succeeded in replacing/silencing the fans? I have a similar Xserve and I tried the Macs Fan Control, but even at 1500rpm it's still too noisy to keep it in the same room where I have my desk.

[bcguru9384]

On ‎7‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 4:46 PM, solderburn said:

I got stuck once without my macbook and having to finish some work i had to buy an ASUS 14"laptop for 300 bucks, it even has an USB 3.1c Port. It came pre-installed with Windows. No joke, I couldn't even click trough the settings, everything was lagging. I formatted the ssd within the first half an hour after buying it and threw Debian on it. Funny my first legally bought windows License and i didn't even bother to write it down.

No idea why anyone would ever use windows on a server. LOL

 

Shipping is too expensive mate! Besides you can get them really cheap in the US. Need more btw so could you send me some  ?

if you know what your doing windows is more efficient platform

but you must change the default settings

most never do and then cry that windows sucks

you would crap your pants if you knew just how much windows features and tools are hidden and never used

ever ever used...

i thank apple for being kind to the ignorant and linux for trying to teach the ignorant

i was fanboy to opensource till i learned the evil side of it (yin and yang)

now i only let business professionals right my OS (thanks apple thanks android(if you could just redo some files) big thanks windows)

otherwise you got some great hardware that work great for ya any OS you choose

just the level of setup needed for OS choice

[TheCherryKing]

I'm glad to see that mac OS will work with a SAS RAID controller. 

[NelizMastr]

12 hours ago, bcguru9384 said:

if you know what your doing windows is more efficient platform

but you must change the default settings

most never do and then cry that windows sucks

you would crap your pants if you knew just how much windows features and tools are hidden and never used

ever ever used...

i thank apple for being kind to the ignorant and linux for trying to teach the ignorant

i was fanboy to opensource till i learned the evil side of it (yin and yang)

now i only let business professionals right my OS (thanks apple thanks android(if you could just redo some files) big thanks windows)

otherwise you got some great hardware that work great for ya any OS you choose

just the level of setup needed for OS choice

Your preference is Windows, great. That doesn't make it great as the primary operating system on a server. In fact, not using a hypervisor is pretty much stupid these days. Wasting an entire server on one operating system is basically wasting resources and power thus money. Not saying macOS is a decent server OS, because it simply isn't so guess why Apple pulled out, but Windows is far from the ideal choice. Yes, it'll probably run in a virtualised instance, but never waste an entire server on Windows.

[linuxjackie]

Hi,

I got a Xserve 2009 but single CPU , I tried to remove the 7-Bays fans.But it just can't boot up .

Also, is it possible to upgrade X5690 or W3690 ?

THanks

Jackie

[Jay Deah]

If that’s the last model of Xserve then it will be on the VMware esxi HCL

 

if it is one of those (not the previous gen into one) it’s worth a lot of money as they are the only rack mount Mac servers on the VMware HCL. Check this out and if they are the good ones, sell them and buy yourself 10 gaming PCs

[leadeater]

On 7/16/2017 at 9:46 AM, solderburn said:

No idea why anyone would ever use windows on a server.

Because it works very well on properly resourced hardware, ever used a current version of Mac OS on 4GB of ram. Damn that's slow as hell.

 

Anyway you use Windows Server if you need to but little to none of the features of that really apply to home users and home labs much so no real point bothering if you don't even like the OS anyway.

[leadeater]

On 10/31/2017 at 2:34 AM, NelizMastr said:

Your preference is Windows, great. That doesn't make it great as the primary operating system on a server. In fact, not using a hypervisor is pretty much stupid these days. Wasting an entire server on one operating system is basically wasting resources and power thus money. Not saying macOS is a decent server OS, because it simply isn't so guess why Apple pulled out, but Windows is far from the ideal choice. Yes, it'll probably run in a virtualised instance, but never waste an entire server on Windows.

Server 2016 Hyper-V is actually really good, I still prefer ESXi but there are some aspects of Hyper-V that I wish were in ESXi. Some of the really good selling points of Server 2016 and Hyper-V are only available in Datacenter edition which is so stupid, S2D needs to be standard feature.

[NelizMastr]

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

Server 2016 Hyper-V is actually really good, I still prefer ESXi but there are some aspects of Hyper-V that I wish were in ESXi. Some of the really good selling points of Server 2016 and Hyper-V are only available in Datacenter edition which is so stupid, S2D needs to be standard feature.

I have to admit most of my Hyper-V experience was in 2008R2 and 2012R2. Starting to get comfortable with 2016 currently. 

 

(Btw, holy shit necro much lol)

[Jay Deah]

To the guy saying not running a hypervisor is stupid, I’m sorry but you are plain wrong.

 

its not even one of those ‘different strokes for different folks’ things you’re just pain old missing the point. And I speak as someone who has been doing this as a career for nearly 20 years and is a huge vsphere fanboy.

 

there are many many use cases where a bare metal server is preferable over something virtualised. The most obvious one would be for a single standalone server running simple workloads. You’ve got no better hardware resilience, no san, no vmotion etc so here’s no wins there. You have more points of failure in that there is a hypervisor that can break (and they do break, PSODs aren’t as rare as you’d think) and if you’re running all Windows roles like a bit of file sharing, maybe a small iOS install etc. Then having this all on a single OSE is absolutely fine.

 

I understand the benefits of Virtualization believe me, but there is not one size fits all.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, NelizMastr said:

(Btw, holy shit necro much lol)

Omfg, thank you for point that out lol. Didn't even notice.