159$ US 'new' Quanta D51B-1U LGA2011-3 Server Best Offer

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

eroji

Active Member
Dec 1, 2015
276
52
28
40
Looks like a SAS 12Gb RAID controller. I guess that would suggest the backplane is expander type and should drive all 10 bays.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

semidetached

Active Member
Sep 18, 2018
110
129
43
Looks like a SAS 12Gb RAID controller. I guess that would suggest the backplane is expander type and should drive all 10 bays.
I ordered from a different (now gone) listing. My unit has two cables running to dedicated connectors on the motherboard that carry PCIe signals. The first two bays can do either NVMe 2.5" drives or SAS/SATA. So either 10 SAS drives or 2 NVMe + 8 SAS are supported
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

SPCRich

Active Member
Mar 16, 2017
256
137
43
42
I didn't pick this exact one, but found another for 150 shipped with rails. It arrived Friday, come to find out it not only has heatsinks, but x540 dual 10G card, and the LSI 12G SAS RAID Controller. I looked on ebay and it goes for 250+ $ itself, so this was an incredible steal. Chassis, dual PSUs, 10G networking, 250$ raid card, and rails for $150$
 

SPCRich

Active Member
Mar 16, 2017
256
137
43
42
Damn lol. The caddies is going to turn out to be more expensive than the server itself.
That seems to be a trend... they're going for 29$ each... to buy all 10 would cost 290$, almost double the chassis. And for anyone curious, I tried SMC (supermicro) caddies, they don't fit :(
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

int0x2e

Member
Dec 9, 2015
94
71
18
44
I didn't pick this exact one, but found another for 150 shipped with rails. It arrived Friday, come to find out it not only has heatsinks, but x540 dual 10G card, and the LSI 12G SAS RAID Controller. I looked on ebay and it goes for 250+ $ itself, so this was an incredible steal. Chassis, dual PSUs, 10G networking, 250$ raid card, and rails for $150$
Sounds like an amazing deal! Was it a complete surprise, or did you already see hints in the sellers photos? :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

eroji

Active Member
Dec 1, 2015
276
52
28
40
I'm still waiting for my order of 3 which should arrive some time this coming week. From the listing picture, it looks like it already includes the mezzanine dual SFP+ expansion card, and another person mentioned their order came with the 12Gb SAS controller. I had ordered the rails separately, and will have to pick up the caddies. If everything goes according to plan, this will be a nice replacement for my existing VMware homelab setup and give me the ability to set up a proper vSAN cluster.

The only parts of that I am not yet sure is how to set up the boot disks and how to adapt the M.2 NVMe cache SSDs. I suppose I could use SATA DOM with USB header adapter for power for boot. As for the M.2 SSDs, either a PCIe to M.2 adapter or M.2 to 2.5" NVMe adapter enclosure.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

SPCRich

Active Member
Mar 16, 2017
256
137
43
42
Sounds like an amazing deal! Was it a complete surprise, or did you already see hints in the sellers photos? :)

I had no idea. In fact, I thought I was going to get a janky one, because the one in the photos had weird looking rack ears...but the one I received had normal ears, and all these goodies :D Literally all I needed was CPU/Memory and caddies

Edit: This is the one I purchased, they have more: QuantaGrid Server D51B-1U 10SFF BAREBONE 2x HEATSINK 2x PSU RAIL | eBay

Edit2: The description says i350 and 3Gbps sata controller, so either their description is wrong, or they have various models and I won the lottery :D
 
Last edited:

SPCRich

Active Member
Mar 16, 2017
256
137
43
42
I'm still waiting for my order of 3 which should arrive some time this coming week. From the listing picture, it looks like it already includes the mezzanine dual SFP+ expansion card, and another person mentioned their order came with the 12Gb SAS controller. I had ordered the rails separately, and will have to pick up the caddies. If everything goes according to plan, this will be a nice replacement for my existing VMware homelab setup and give me the ability to set up a proper vSAN cluster.

The only parts of that I am not yet sure is how to set up the boot disks and how to adapt the M.2 NVMe cache SSDs. I suppose I could use SATA DOM with USB header adapter for power for boot. As for the M.2 SSDs, either a PCIe to M.2 adapter or M.2 to 2.5" NVMe adapter enclosure.
Let me know if the U.2 Adapter works. When I looked at mine, the first 2 slots are hooked up to onboard SATA, the remaining 8 are hooked up to the SAS 12G controller. I had to do a full round of firmware updates (BIOS/BMC/RAID controller to bring mine up to date, and I'm wondering if NVME drives will work hooked up to the controller!
 

SPCRich

Active Member
Mar 16, 2017
256
137
43
42
12G SAS controller: https://www.qct.io/getfile/download?id=4a9c300c85ad040e43910281a71a063c35df6ca4caf270b1444c5a2431fc31d20f632a87904b36a1ce8cf2618a62732e92df13160ab15022c0f1e1c08d6222fdMbCmTVmbIO1GqGlV8+WR4MSlYKtBKv2/82tYUMbt1cE=

in case that doesn't work, go here: QuantaGrid-D51B | 1U Rackmount Server | QCT.io and download the file named "D51B-1U_D51B-2U_D51BV-2U QS-3108-R6-PD32-2G 12G_RAID" (it's the first one)

BIOS: https://www.qct.io/getfile/download?id=291e7923ce4fc3ff4087fe80ddfed6605c02bf14560b93e3d6077a7461075272d7700fa3920026ad904c11524317c1ca020026aad0028dfd6e25c8ac4ff99eb7SuI5qtrW0wW9KpppPAyf6FuyO2qfGQtbBIn/tWvTHao= (it's the first one under BIOS, Version S2B_3B20)

IPMI : https://www.qct.io/getfile/download?id=ad3594ab2815ca5c22cd115ea9a183199424ab21a2608898cea878bccc7e1463f923ac8802160401b1824ac14c088e21f6eba070aaccd48dd8ec94811bf26aa9pocAI++mFpr43Zc6653RQZpmzJpZx8gpQf3EML8NjI8=

(First under BMC, version 3.79.0)

Note, BIOS took via the webui right away, but I had a hell of a time updating the IPMI..I'm used to dell and supermicro, so i couldn't figure this out..and if you go into "update mode", it just spins, since no firmware is uploaded. I couldn't find out where to upload the image, and there are 2 files in the folder, one encrypted, the other not. After 3 tries, and having to pull power on the box and reboot it, I ended up just booting to a livecd of Ubuntu and using their linux script to do the update for both the IPMI and the raid controller. If anyone knows how to do the IPMI via the GUI, I'd love to know because i couldn't find out how.

Also, I was unable to find updates for other stuff, like the PSU's, backplane, etc. There are updates for the 10G nics, but not sure how to find the current version.
 
Last edited: