Server Question

[Oli1549]

I currently have my old pc setup on unraid and am looking to upgrade to a proper rackable cheapo server with plenty of ram for VM's ETC.

 

I was quite happy to pay the price of this one i found: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-PowerEdge-R710-Server-Xeon-Quad-Core-X5570-2-93GHz-16GB-Ram-6x-3-5-Bays/173277669170

 

I did not know if I could have 2 CPU's in it as I don't know the motherboard?! not sure if any of you know.

Could i simply boot off the unraid USB just like i do now, is it as simple as that?

and how many ram slots would this have? it comes with 16 but how many more slots are there and whats the max gb amount of ram?

 

If anyone knows the answers please let me know!

 

Thanks,

Oli

 

 

[factorialandha]

Reading the description, this machine comes with 1 CPU and 16gb of memory,

 

it has 18 DIMM slots to increase memory capacity, and id expect with that many DIMM slots it would be dual CPU. ( to utilize all 18 you will have to have 2 CPUS )

 

Id have to do more research on the server and spec itself, but id be surprised to find out it isnt a dual cpu motherboard.

 

MAX ram generally depends on CPU combination and the specific motherboard id expect. But id expect to be able to get to at the very least 144GB (18 8GB dimms)

 

[Oli1549]

Very Clear thanks for that,

So you'd be happy to say it has 2 CPU's availability, i may just go for it, it has 14 days return anyway.

 

As for ram is any old ddr3 ram ok to use?

 

Oli

[Razor Blade]

Well... for RAM compatibility I made a post about that recently...

 

https://linustechtips.com/main/profile/548804-razor-blade/?status=208892&type=status

 

 

The R710 is a great server for the price IMO. Some things to keep in mind are that server listed likely has a Gen I motherboard so if you upgrade the CPU in the future Gen I boards do not support CPUs over 95W TDP. Also 5500 series CPUs are being dropped out of support for ESXI 6.7 so if you were planning on running ESXI download the 6.5 version.

 

I have a few more links to things I've posted about the 11th Gen Dells in my signature, feel free to browse.

[Oli1549]

25 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

Well... for RAM compatibility I made a post about that recently...

 

https://linustechtips.com/main/profile/548804-razor-blade/?status=208892&type=status

 

 

The R710 is a great server for the price IMO. Some things to keep in mind are that server listed likely has a Gen I motherboard so if you upgrade the CPU in the future Gen I boards do not support CPUs over 95W TDP. Also 5500 series CPUs are being dropped out of support for ESXI 6.7 so if you were planning on running ESXI download the 6.5 version.

 

I have a few more links to things I've posted about the 11th Gen Dells in my signature, feel free to browse.

2

How much is an updated motherboard for over 95W TDP CPU's?

 

I would be looking at using unraid anyway so it shouldn't affect me? 

 

If i was going to get a better CPU, what would you recommend? id be looking at NAS storage and Game servers, fairly resourceful games too. i don't mind going overkill just not overpriced! budget used on eBay probably £50 per CPU.

 

Thanks

[Razor Blade]

LGA1366 Xeons are dirt cheap. Can't go wrong with either L or X 5600 series CPUs. I would personally stay away from E series as in my experience they are seem to be less power efficient and offer less performance. Since all these CPUs are cheap there really isn't much reason to go with an E CPU anymore.

 
I wouldn't really bother trying to track down a Gen II board unless you have a problem with your existing board. The X5680 and X5690 CPUs are the 130W TDP processors which might offer a bit better performance than something like an X5670 or X5675 (which are both excellent choices BTW Either one would run on a Gen I board as well) but not worth the price of purchasing the 130W TDP CPUs and a Gen II board.

 

I'm not familiar with UnRAID so I'm unable to answer if it would affect you or not. Just something to keep in mind that software that requires features not present in a 5500 series CPU would be affected.

[Oli1549]

2 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

LGA1366 Xeons are dirt cheap. Can't go wrong with either L or X 5600 series CPUs. I would personally stay away from E series as in my experience they are seem to be less power efficient and offer less performance. Since all these CPUs are cheap there really isn't much reason to go with an E CPU anymore.

 
I wouldn't really bother trying to track down a Gen II board unless you have a problem with your existing board. The X5680 and X5690 CPUs are the 130W TDP processors which might offer a bit better performance than something like an X5670 or X5675 (which are both excellent choices BTW Either one would run on a Gen I board as well) but not worth the price of purchasing them and a Gen II board.

What was that about the 95TDP limit on the Gen1? so 2x X5680 would run fine on that gen1 mobo.

 

 

[Razor Blade]

Just now, Oli1549 said:

What was that about the 95TDP limit on the Gen1? so 2x X5680 would run fine on that gen1 mobo.

 

 

X5680 is 130W TDP. Each socket on a Gen I board is limited to 95W TDP. If you install an X5680 on a Gen I board you will get a system halt with the message "This cpu power rating is not supported"

[Oli1549]

Just now, Razor Blade said:

X5680 is 130W TDP. Each socket on a Gen I board is limited to 95W TDP. If you install an X5680 on a Gen I board you will get a system halt with the message "This cpu power rating is not supported"

but will still work?!

[Razor Blade]

Just now, Oli1549 said:

but will still work?!

Nope. The system won't boot past the blinking "This cpu power rating is not supported" message.

[Oli1549]

Just now, Razor Blade said:

Nope. The system won't boot past the blinking "This cpu power rating is not supported" message.

soooo i couldnt run them in the gen1 mobo, whats the best option here.

[Oli1549]

1 hour ago, Razor Blade said:

Nope. The system won't boot past the blinking "This cpu power rating is not supported" message.

Would unraid run on this system though?

[Razor Blade]

2 hours ago, Oli1549 said:

soooo i couldnt run them in the gen1 mobo, whats the best option here.

Gen 1 board part numbers include YDJK3, N047H, 7THW3, VWN1R and 0W9X3. Gen 2 board part numbers include XDX06, 0NH4P and YMXG9. That part number is found on a small white sticker somewhere on the motherboard.

 

Truely...if you're stuck on running high TDP CPUs there isn't another option you will have to buy a Gen II board. Depending on your overall configuration and power needs if you go too high you may also need 870 watt power supplies. It can be a slippery slope with this stuff. I highly encourage you to research and ask questions for ANY upgrade you're planning. Retired servers are full of incompatibility pitfalls and got-chas.

 

2 minutes ago, Oli1549 said:

soooo i couldnt run them in the gen1 mobo, whats the best option here.

Yes an R710 will run UnRAID

 

 

If I were you, I would rock what I had until you felt you needed to upgrade something. If you're planning on putting in hard drives larger than 2TB (3TB for upgraded perc 6 controllers) then an HBA or upgraded RAID card should be your next priority. A pretty cheap way is to get an IBM M1015 (LSI SAS9220-8i) and cross flash it with LSI 9211-8i firmware in IT mode. Instructions found here... https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/

[Oli1549]

2 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

Truely...if you're stuck on running high TDP CPUs there isn't another option you will have to buy a Gen II board. Depending on your overall configuration and power needs if you go too high you may also need 870 watt power supplies. It can be a slippery slope with this stuff. I highly encourage you to research and ask questions for ANY upgrade you're planning. Retired servers are full of incompatibility pitfalls and got-chas.

3

Hmm, Full of incompatibility issues, server is bought, if I bought another CPU exactly the same as the one that's in it now X5570, that would be fine?

 

As for that RAID Card stuff, im a complete novice when it comes to that, i understand kind of the ways of saving and different RAIDS, but nothing about how they are run and their firmware or how any of that works. To keep it simple, what do you advise i BUY as for a RAID card that would be suitable for this "Cross Flashing" - knowing absolutely nothing on what it will do...

 

Thanks for the help.

 

[Razor Blade]

1 minute ago, Oli1549 said:

Hmm, Full of incompatibility issues, server is bought, if I bought another CPU exactly the same as the one that's in it now X5570, that would be fine?

 

As for that RAID Card stuff, im a complete novice when it comes to that, i understand kind of the ways of saving and different RAIDS, but nothing about how they are run and their firmware or how any of that works. To keep it simple, what do you advise i BUY as for a RAID card that would be suitable for this "Cross Flashing" - knowing absolutely nothing on what it will do...

 

Thanks for the help.

 

If you're wanting my suggestion upgrading to 2 CPUs it would be to purchase a pair of X5670 or X5675 CPUs and one additional heatsink part number TY129 (unless the server comes with 2 CPU heatsinks for some reason...I doubt it would though)

 

Depending on how the memory is configured... I would assume it might include four 4GB sticks or two 8GB sticks which you would be able to split among the two CPUs and upgrade later if you need/want to.

 

 

For the RAID card depending on what it comes with would determine what you would need. There are probably dozens of options out there but I've tested the method I posted about above. You should be able to find that card on Ebay for under £30. The instructions should be all there on that link to cross flash it. The only other thing you would need would be a pair of 1 meter SFF-8087 SAS cables with one end at a right angle to connect from the RAID card to the DELL backplane.

[Oli1549]

1 minute ago, Razor Blade said:

For the RAID card depending on what it comes with would determine what you would need. There are probably dozens of options out there but I've tested the method I posted about above. You should be able to find that card on Ebay for under £30. The instructions should be all there on that link to cross flash it. The only other thing you would need would be a pair of 1 meter SFF-8087 SAS cables with one end at a right angle to connect from the RAID card to the DELL backplane.

1

Damn, This makes so much sense and cleared so much up for me. The card i found actually Linus uses in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_B8AFvguqo

Question:

That card(9211-8i 6Gbps 8 Ports HBA) Connects to the backplane via SAS SATA i assume the backplane requires 2 connections?... Put essentially plug from the RAID card to the backplane, then drives would slot into the backplane normally, these drives could be standard Seagate 1TB drives for example? right? my question is, is that all correct what is im saying? <<

 

Thanks.

[Razor Blade]

6 minutes ago, Oli1549 said:

Damn, This makes so much sense and cleared so much up for me. The card i found actually Linus uses in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_B8AFvguqo

Question:

That card(9211-8i 6Gbps 8 Ports HBA) Connects to the backplane via SAS SATA i assume the backplane requires 2 connections?... Put essentially plug from the RAID card to the backplane, then drives would slot into the backplane normally, these drives could be standard Seagate 1TB drives for example? right? my question is, is that all correct what is im saying? <<

 

Thanks.

That's correct. The LFF R710 (the one with six 3.5" drives) has a backplane with two SFF-8087 connectors. You would need two cables to connect to the new raid card. Once the RAID card is connected to the backplane, the hard drives will slot into the backplane on sleds that look like this.

 

 

Hopefully your server came with some of these sleds. If not they also can be found on Ebay. I just want to caution you about some of the cheaper chinese ones, they have plastic sides which cause the tray to flex way too much...they work...but can be difficult to get to fit right. Make sure to ask the seller if the drive sleds have metal sides...or just get some OEM ones.

[Oli1549]

1 minute ago, Razor Blade said:

That's correct. The LFF R710 (the one with six 3.5" drives) has a backplane with two SFF-8087 connectors. You would need two cables to connect to the new raid card. Once the RAID card is connected to the backplane, the drive will slot into the backplane on sleds that look like this.

 

 

Hopefully your server came with some of these sleds. If not they also can be found on Ebay. I just want to caution you about some of the cheaper chinese ones, they have plastic sides which cause the tray to flex way too much...they work...but can be difficult to get to fit right. Make sure to ask the seller if the drive sleds have metal sides...or just get some OEM ones.

Yeah ok, that's great, you said about that tutorial that enabled cross-flashing, what difference will this make for someone like me using this for a game server/NAS/Media Server, is it worth it? It mentions about it being a risky thing to do, is it really worth it?

 

As for a parity drive as redundancy to save me from failures, would i still do it the same as i currently am? allocate one of the drives in unraid to be a parity.

 

 

[Razor Blade]

15 minutes ago, Oli1549 said:

Yeah ok, that's great, you said about that tutorial that enabled cross-flashing, what difference will this make for someone like me using this for a game server/NAS/Media Server, is it worth it? It mentions about it being a risky thing to do, is it really worth it?

 

As for a parity drive as redundancy to save me from failures, would i still do it the same as i currently am? allocate one of the drives in unraid to be a parity.

 

 

Before I can answer your question I will have to explain something.

 

RAID cards are SOC or "software on chip" devices. A little computer who's whole job is to create and maintain your arrays. Many of these RAID cards love their job so much, they don't like to pass that job onto the operating system...In other words the RAID card won't let you have direct access to drives. Instead of the operating system seeing hard drives, it sees "virtual" drives which means the operating system may not be able to interact properly with the drives. One gigantic downside to using such a configuration is if the card ever went bad? Unless you would be able to import the array, you're screwed.

 

What you want is what is known as an HBA or Host Bus Adapter. This HBA is like gate keeper. It will be happy to pass along direct control over your hard drives as if they were connected to the motherboard. This means that UnRAID would see those hard drives without having to interact with the card. The upside is if the HBA goes bad, you just replace it with another HBA. The OS still sees the same drives as it did before.

 

Cross flashing the RAID card to act as an HBA causes the card to basically "turn off" it's RAID function. If you're going to run a RAID file system controlled by the OS, absolutely it is worth it. If you're not comfortable with flashing the card, you might be able to find a seller that has done it for you just keep in mind it would be significantly more expensive...Just know that flashing it wasn't difficult. I followed the instructions and it worked the first time I tried it.

[Oli1549]

2 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

Before I can answer your question I will have to explain something.

 

RAID cards are SOC or "software on chip" devices. A little computer who's whole job is to maintain your array. Many of these RAID cards love their job so much, they don't like to pass that job onto the operating system...The RAID card won't let you have direct access to drives under it's watch. Instead of the operating system seeing hard drives, it sees "virtual" drives which means the operating system may not be able to interact properly with the drives. One gigantic downside to using such a configuration is if the card ever went bad? Unless you would be able to import the array, you're screwed.

 

What you want is what is known as an HBA or Host Bus Adapter. This HBA is like gate keeper. It will be happy to pass along direct control over your hard drives as if they were connected to the motherboard. This means that UnRAID would see those hard drives without having to interact with the card. The upside is if the HBA goes bad, you just replace it with another HBA. The OS still sees the same drives as it did before.

 

Cross flashing the RAID card to act as an HBA causes the card to basically "turn off" it's RAID function. If you're going to run a RAID file system controlled by the OS, absolutely it is worth it. If you're not comfortable with flashing the card, you might be able to find a seller that has done it for you just keep in mind it would be significantly more expensive...Just know that flashing it wasn't difficult. I followed the instructions and it worked the first time I tried it.

Ok wow. that first paragraph sounds scary, i agree, flashing it sounds like a great idea, and makes the raid card basically act as a splitter for 1 pcie port to 8 ports of sata, right?!

 

I shall do as you suggest and in the near future invest in one of those HBA cards and follow the instructions to flash it.

 

As for making my transfer rates on the local network fast, is there anything i can do, im not sure if you know unraid at all.

 

 

[Razor Blade]

6 minutes ago, Oli1549 said:

Ok wow. that first paragraph sounds scary, i agree, flashing it sounds like a great idea, and makes the raid card basically act as a splitter for 1 pcie port to 8 ports of sata, right?!

 

I shall do as you suggest and in the near future invest in one of those HBA cards and follow the instructions to flash it.

 

As for making my transfer rates on the local network fast, is there anything i can do, im not sure if you know unraid at all.

 

 

How fast did you want to go?

 

That R710 comes with four 1Gb network ports right on the motherboard which should give you realistic transfer speeds of around 100MB/s (this depends on a lot of factors...so YMMV).

[Oli1549]

Just now, Razor Blade said:

How fast did you want to go?

 

That R710 comes with four 1Gb network ports right out of the box which should give you realistic transfer speeds of around 100MB/s (this depends on a lot of factors...so YMMV).

100MB/s Per port? so 400MB/s?

 

[Razor Blade]

51 minutes ago, Oli1549 said:

100MB/s Per port? so 400MB/s?

 

It isn't really that simple... You may be able to bond or team the connections but that doesn't necessarily mean you get 4X speed.

[Oli1549]

Just now, Razor Blade said:

It isn't really that simple... You may be able to bond or team the connections but that doesn't necessarily mean you get 4X speed.

hmm ok, il just bond it with 4 connections to the switch thatll be best right?

[Razor Blade]

1 minute ago, Oli1549 said:

hmm ok, il just bond it with 4 connections to the switch thatll be best right?

If the switch supports it, yes that would be a good use. Not only would it allow multiple computers to access your server but it would give you a lot of redundancy as well.