[thideras]

I've recently (thanks to Ben333) found the niche that I love: Servers. He has been bugging me about this Dell PowerEdge he has and while I really wanted it, I didn't want to go through the hassle of getting it and getting it setup. But, the pictures got to me, I wanted the server badly, there was no way I couldn't get it without it bothering me, the price was too good. Once I knew the server was coming, I started looking at racks and everything that I can put in one. All my switches are rack mountable and UPS's will either be rack mounted (I'll have to pick them up) or I'll sit them on a shelf in the rack.

That is just the beginning. This will be a log that is updated when anything changes. I'm not sure how often the updates will be, but there is going to be a ton.

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This post updated on January 4, 2013

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Equipment list:

• Custom built file server
• 2x Dell PowerEdge 2650
• Compaq R3000 UPS (dead batteries, untested)
• Dell PowerConnect 5224
• 2x IBM x3650

Retired equipment:

• Two Custom Yonah servers (Retired 1/28/2012)
• Two Compaq DL360 servers (Retired 02/11/2012)
• Dell Poweredge 2550 (Retired 02/11/2012)
• Sencore P3 server (Retired 02/11/2012)

----------------------------------------------

Current detailed equipment list:

Dell PowerEdge 2650 (Icinga/Database server) - "Perl"
--CPU: 2x 2.4 GHz Pentium 4
--RAM: 6 gb
--HDD: 4x 76 gb 10k SCSI in RAID 10
--OS: CentOS 6.0

Dell PowerEdge 2650 - "Java"
--CPU 2x 2.2 GHz Pentium 4
--RAM: 6 gb
--HDD: 5x 36 gb 10k SCSI in RAID 5
--OS: CentOS 6.0

File server - "Ruby"
--CPU: 2x AMD Opteron 6134 Magny-Cours 2.3GHz Socket G34
--MB: ASUS KGPE-D16
--MEM: 256 gb Samsung
--HDD:
------3x 30 gb Seagate Cheetah 10K SAS
------9x 2 tb Hitachi
------7x 1 tb Hitachi
--Raid controller: Intel SRCSASBB8I (Actually a LSI 8708EM2)
--PSU: Corsair HX620
--Case: Norco 4020
--OS: CentOS 6.0

IBM x3650 - "Fortran"
--CPU: 2x Xeon 5430
--RAM: 8gb
--HDD: 4x 73gb 10k RPM SAS
--PSU: 2x 850w hot swap

IBM x3650 - "Cobol"
--CPU: 2x Xeon 5430
--RAM: 8gb
--HDD: 4x 73gb 10k RPM SAS
--PSU: 2x 850w hot swap

Switch:
--Dell PowerConnect 5224

UPS:
--Compaq R3000
--3u design

[thideras]

Table of contents
Updated January 4, 2013 (Page 59)


Servers:

File server

• File server in the old Antec 300 (Posted April 15, 2009)
• Moved to Norco 4020 server case (Posted June 18, 2009)
• Upgraded heatsink/RAM (Posted July 16, 2009)
• Video of the file server (Posted July 29, 2009)
• Server back to *nix - was 2003 (Posted December 9, 2009)
• OS drive failed (Posted December 17, 2009)
• Added SAS drives as the OS drive (Posted January 7, 2010)
• More pictures of the file server (Posted January 13, 2010)
• Added 5 more 2 TB drives (Posted September 22, 2011)
• Magny Cours and 64gb RAM arrived (Posted March 12, 2012)
• Crazy power cabling to run server (Posted March 13, 2012)
• New hardware install into rack (Posted March 14, 2012)
• 192gb of RAM arrived (Posted October 25, 2012)
• Server upgraded to 256gb RAM (Posted October 31, 2012)

Compaq DL360

• Servers arrived damaged, partially fixed (Posted September 1, 2009)
• Retired 02/11/2012

Dell PowerEdge 2550

• Pictures taken upon arrival (Posted April 15, 2009)
• Retired 02/11/2012

7u Unbranded (Sencore TSS3030)

• Server arrived, pictures included (Posted August 1, 2009)
• More detailed pictures of the server (Posted September 19, 2010)
• Retired 02/11/2012

Dell PowerEdge 2650

• Servers ordered (Posted July 12, 2011)
• Servers arrived (Posted July 16, 2011)
• Servers mounted on rails in the rack (Posted July 26, 2011)
• Upgraded RAM (Posted January 11, 2012)
• Considered parting out (Posted February 5, 2012)

Dual socket Yonah servers

• Servers ordered (Posted July 18, 2011)
• Servers arrived (Posted July 25, 2011)
• Norco 270 cases arrive (Posted August 5, 2011)
• Both servers installed in the case (Posted August 5, 2011)
• Power supplies installed (Posted August 16, 2011)
• Received 2x WD RE2 drives (Posted January 11, 2012)
• Retired 1/28/2012

IBM x3650

• Server ordered (Posted January 28, 2012)
• Servers arrived (Posted February 2, 2012)
• Rails arrived and installed (Posted February 15, 2012)
• Upgraded both servers to dual quad core (Posted March 1, 2012)

Norco 470

• NAS software tests being conducted on system (Posted June 17, 2012)
• Server installed in the rack (Posted July 15, 2012)

Switches/routers/firewalls:

Firewall/router

• Considering a Cisco router (Posted July 14, 2009)
• Purchased Cisco 3640 (Posted July 14, 2009)
• Cisco 3640 arrives damaged (Posted July 18, 2009)
• Switching to the Astaro firewall (Posted November 9, 2009)
• Pictures of the Astaro firewall (Posted November 9, 2009)
• Glimpse of the Astaro firewall (Posted November 21, 2009)
• Picture of the daily Astaro reports (Posted August 18, 2010)

Dell PowerConnect 5224

• Switch arrived (Posted August 16, 2011)
• Fixed a failed fan (Posted August 24, 2011)

Power management:

Compaq R3000

• Found the Craig's List listing (Posted August 1, 2009)
• UPS moved in, batteries dead (Posted August 3, 2009)

RAID controllers/hard drives:

Perc 5/i

• First glimpse of the modified Perc 5/i (Posted April 23, 2009)
• Perc 5/i benchmarked (Posted January 4, 2010)
• Added a second Perc 5/i (Posted January 6, 2010)

LSI 8708EM2 and SAS expander

• RAID card and SAS expander purchased (Posted April 16/17, 2011)
• RAID card arrived (Posted April 20, 2011)
• RAID card installed (Posted April 21, 2011)
• Testing rigorously (Posted April 26, 2011)
• SAS expander installed and routed (Posted April 29, 2011)
• Cables rerouted (Posted May 10, 2011)

Hard drives

• 8x Hitachi drives arrive (Posted April 21, 2009)
• 7x Hitachi drives testing (Posted April 23, 2009)
• 4x 2TB Hitachi drives arrive (Posted July 25, 2011)
• 10x 750gb drives arrived (Posted June 13, 2012)
• 8x 1.5tb drives arrived (Posted July 2, 2012)

Operating systems/File systems/Programs/Scripts/Virtual Machines/Software

• Considering the ZFS file system (Posted May 9, 2009)
• File server moved to Open Solaris OS (Posted May 21, 2009)
• File server moved to CentOS (Posted June 29, 2009)
• Share directory explained - file server (Posted January 2, 2010)
• Updated RSYNC script (Posted February 12, 2010)
• Test cluster up and running (Posted September 27, 2010)
• Script to see if drives are mounted (Posted October 23, 2010)
• Revised mount-check script (Posted February 26, 2011)
• RAID Web Console up and running (Posted April 21, 2011)
• Virt-manager with all the VMs running (Posted June 6, 2011)
• Database server up and running (Posted July 18, 2011)
• Installed Conky on desktop system (Posted August 2, 2011)
• Icinga installed and running (Posted August 13, 2011)
• Playing with iSCSI (Posted September 26, 2011)
• LDAP (Posted January 16, 2012)
• New Icinga version installed (Posted February 8, 2012)
• Setup Exchange on Windows 2008 server (Posted December 31, 2012)

Server racks

• Purchased HP rack (Posted April 9, 2010)
• HP rack at the new place (Posted April 29, 2010)
• Loading the HP rack (Posted May 1, 2010)
• Loaded HP rack (Posted May 2, 2010)
• HP rack loaded and running (Posted May 2, 2010)
• Wire managed the rack (Posted July 31, 2010)
• New power cables ordered (Posted January 14, 2012)
• Re-done wiring with quad gigabit (Posted March 18, 2012)

Problems

• VMWare explodes (Posted May 17, 2010)
• 1TB Hitachi drives stops working (Posted May 20, 2010)
• UPS decides to die (Posted July 6, 2010)
• Astaro firewall stops deleting logs (Posted August 6, 2010)
• Second DL360 has disk problems (Posted August 19, 2010)
• VMWare dies for the last time (Posted April 16, 2011)
• Unable to get the RAID card to go into the BIOS (Posted April 20, 2011)
• Hitachi drive decided to die (Posted April 29, 2011)
• OCZ Vertex completely fails (Posted May 14, 2011)
• Unable to resize ext4 partitions in CentOS 5.6 (Posted May 27, 2011)
• Dell PowerEdge 2650 drive issues (Posted July 17, 2011)
• Bad rails arrived (Posted August 8, 2011)
• Occam's Razor sucks (Posted September 9, 2012)
• Full secondary RAID array (Posted December 3, 2012)

Planning

• Planning HTPC (Posted July 13, 2010)
• Setting up a test cluster (Posted September 26, 2010)
• Server redesign ideas (Posted March 05, 2011)
• Web servers and more (Posted April 15, 2011)
• iSCSI for the virtual machine servers (Posted August 4, 2011)
• HTPC, iSCSI and NRPE planning (Posted September 16, 2011)
• Attempting to adapt Norco cases to Dell rails (Posted January 5, 2012)

Good information from others

• Wire management - Xaotic
• HP SAS expander link - cw823
• Don't listen to me when it comes to buying server

[Albaholic]

Subscribed!

[Ben333]

Glad you like it, you have the second best one

A quad seems kinda overkill for a file server, then again mine has two Opteron 2.0s though hehe. Think a faster CPU would help your smoothwall?

[thideras]

Dell server:

This was picked up off Ben333 (Thanks!) here on OCF. It will be used as a web server and anything else that I can cram into it that will not require fast processors or a ton of storage.

Outside shot:







Opened shot:







Internal shot:







Close-up, right side:







Close-up, left side:







Front, without grill:







Front, with grill:

[thideras]

File server:

[Evilsizer]

T,
just fyi your "close up, right side" and "close up, left side" are the same pic.... as well your "opened shot" and "internal shot" are the same...

[SeanChiarot]

Originally Posted by thideras

File server:


[/IMG]

O_O well i guess you did say OVERKILL... right O-o but dammmmm enough harddrives?!

[thideras]

Fixed the pictures, not sure what happened there.

[Albaholic]

Originally Posted by SeanChiarot

O_O well i guess you did say OVERKILL... right O-o but dammmmm enough harddrives?!

I'm sure thiddy will agree. There is no such thing as enough.

[thideras]

Originally Posted by Albaholic

I'm sure thiddy will agree. There is no such thing as enough.

Exactly . If you look at my first post, I link the case I'm going to get for the server.

[Albaholic]

Originally Posted by thideras

Exactly . If you look at my first post, I link the case I'm going to get for the server.

I was looking at getting one of those once I move to the mainland. Planning any hardware changes other than the case?

[thideras]

For the file server? I'd like to add my second Perc 5/i and more drives. Anything else after that, not really.

[Albaholic]

Originally Posted by thideras

For the file server? I'd like to add my second Perc 5/i and more drives. Anything else after that, not really.

Quite a beast. Any idea how much juice that thing pulls running 24/7?

[thideras]

Originally Posted by Albaholic

Quite a beast. Any idea how much juice that thing pulls running 24/7?

No idea, I'll have to figure that out. The disks will spin down after usage though and I do fold; so it is going to be hard to predict.

[Aynjell]

So you basically just bought it for a case? Or will you be using the stock P3's?

[thideras]

Originally Posted by Aynjell

So you basically just bought it for a case? Or will you be using the stock P3's?

I am and will be using the hardware in it, no need to replace the hardware when it is perfectly capable of its job; that is teach me about webservers and just to have one for fun.

[Aynjell]

Originally Posted by thideras

I am and will be using the hardware in it, no need to replace the hardware when it is perfectly capable of its job; that is teach me about webservers and just to have one for fun.

Sounds like a fun project. Do you really need special hardware like that to make webservers work right?

[Albaholic]

Originally Posted by Aynjell

Sounds like a fun project. Do you really need special hardware like that to make webservers work right?

No, but when the stuff is going for cheap in the classies, im sure its hard to resist

[thideras]

Originally Posted by Aynjell

Sounds like a fun project. Do you really need special hardware like that to make webservers work right?

Nope, no special hardware needed. The main reason for me not wanting it on my file server (even though it is way more than capable) was to offload "downtime" from that server to this one. My file server is constantly changing. I run a Teamspeak server for a friend on our server and I have to let him know everytime that I need to work on my server. That bothers me. SO, as said below, this was a cheap fix; it allows them to keep using a server and it allows me to work on my own projects while learning about webservers. I also wanted to go linux for the webserver, and that is difficult with an already purchased copy of Windwos 2003; don't want it to just sit there.

Originally Posted by Albaholic

No, but when the stuff is going for cheap in the classies, im sure its hard to resist