Advice requested

[nicklebon]

First post here and I apologize in advance if these questions seem mundane.

I have been looking at building a new server to replace an Ancient Dell 2900 sitting in my home lab. The 2900 is currently serving as an esxi server hosting 2 Windows servers, several firewall management VMs of various types and few linux VMs. One of the Windows VMs also serves as my primary file server Anyway the 2900 has been long in the tooth for a while and really needs to replaced. I am leaning toward the following board:

Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10SDV-7TP4F

I would like to build an all in one solution using the above board but I have questions.

1. Can I use the Broadcom 2116 SAS/SATA ports on this board and pass them through to something like Napp-it though not necessarily napp-it? Should I? My thoughts here are to make more efficient use of storage space vs what I am doing today.

2. What is a decent, but not bank breaking, case to support the above board and at least 10 3.5" drives in hot swap trays connected to the 2116.


If you feel my above choices are ill advised I am open to other suggestions keeping in mind my needs are:

1 Ability to run esxi
2 Large storage capacity ie spinners
3 Prefer rack mounted but not required as the current 2900 is in tower configuration.

Thanks

 

[i386]

1)
I think that's possible.

Should I?

That depends on what storage system you want to build, if you plan to add more drives and so on.
2)
What's "bank breaking" for you? <$500? $1000?
Is noise a problem?

 

[gea]

1.
yes

2.
In a professional environment, you use 16bay SuperMicro or Chenbro cases, nothing else. They are pricey but of high quality. They are loud. You can also look at used ones An alternative would be cheaper cases like Norco with a direct attached backplane (no expander) where you use silent fans, see

http://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/napp-it_build_examples.pdf
http://www.norcotek.com/product/rpc-3216/

 

[nicklebon]

Thanks for replies. I agree that Supermicro would be the preferred way to go but finding a chassis that works seems to be the challenge. I had thought to use the CSE-835TQ-R800B but have been told by the vendor that this chassis will not work. According to the vendor the only approved cases are a short list of tiny 1U cases or a prebuilt 5018D8-AR12L superserver. The superserver is right out. Unless someone has a clean way to get the 2116 ports from one of tiny chassis to an expansion chassis housing drives those aren't an option either.

I would prefer the chassis to be <=600ish but understand that one can't always get what they want.

Noise isn't a primary concern but I do sit 10 feet away from the rack where it will live for too many hours a day so there is some weight given to noise levels. I prefer larger slower rpm fans found in larger chassis vs the shrieking higher pitched sound of their 1u cousins.

One thing I did leave out and that is that dual PS are preferred.

 

[i386]

I had thought to use the CSE-835TQ-R800B but have been told by the vendor that this chassis will not work. According to the vendor the only approved cases are a short list of tiny 1U cases or a prebuilt 5018D8-AR12L superserver.

You can use any chassis that provides enough airflow and your mainboard fits in (basically all supermicro b or other vedors chassis that support atx or bigger formats). On some chassis you won't be able to use one mounting hole but that's not a problem.

Unless someone has a clean way to get the 2116 ports from one of tiny chassis to an expansion chassis housing drives those aren't an option either.

There are pci adapters that convert sff 8643 (internal sas) to sff 8644 (external sas) ports.

Noise isn't a primary concern but I do sit 10 feet away from the rack where it will live for too many hours a day so there is some weight given to noise levels.

I would use that as an excuse to spend more money and buy a supermicro chassis with pwm fans and sq power supplies.

 

[nicklebon]

You can use any chassis that provides enough airflow and your mainboard fits in (basically all supermicro b or other vedors chassis that support atx or bigger formats). On some chassis you won't be able to use one mounting hole but that's not a problem.



There are pci adapters that convert sff 8643 (internal sas) to sff 8644 (external sas) ports.



I would use that as an excuse to spend more money and buy a supermicro chassis with pwm fans and sq power supplies.

Thanks for confirming my initial thoughts. I had assumed that what you said about the chassis was the case thus my surprise when wired zone told me the case would not work. I ordered a Lenovo SA-120 for external storage and am now looking for a chassis with rps for the board that won't cost me a pci-e slot the the way these "supported" 1U boxes do and allow a slot bracket for an sff-8088 connector.

 

[K D]

The board totally works on any of the supermicro Chassis. There are several threads on the forum that describe this. I am currently using it with an ancient 846 chassis as well as with an 826. One of the motherboard screws will not fit but I don't see any issues because of that.

@sfbayzfs has a supermicro 836 for sale in the For Sale section that would be perfect for this board and within your price range.

 

[nicklebon]

Okay I've come across a SC836 chassis with 2 800W PS. My concern is that it has a SAS836TQ backplane. From what I can find this is a passive direct connect backplane that should support whatever my HBA, LSI 2116, supports. Is this correct? Can the BPN be swapped out easily down the road? The PWS are larger than I would like but that seems to be the case most the time. My hope is that I can pickup some smaller PWS later or perhaps trade these with someone wanting larger.

 

[nicklebon]

Well I missed out on the chassis, but he has another similar chassis with an old x7dbi+ motherboard in in it. The previous chassis w/ pws was 200 but he wants 350 for this one. I do not see $150 value in a board I'm going toss. Anyone here see that differently? Am I missing some value to that board?

 

[Evan]

Absolutely not, unless people want those boards for a museum or something nothing prior to 55xx/56xx boards is worth using let alone selling.

 

[nicklebon]

Thanks. I was pretty sure there was no value there. The old Dell I'm replacing had better CPU than what was in that board. So forget that. I did just buy this on ebay instead. Too late to ask but did I do okay?

SuperMicro X8DTH-i/6/if/6P - Intel Xeon X5650 6-Core 2.67 GHz, 24 GB RAM | eBay

I'm thinking the SAS2-836EL2 and LSI MegaRAID SAS 9280 make that a decent deal. Yes? The 2x 4Gb FCal are meh but .... Now with that done and out of the way, anyone in NC want to trade some smaller, <=800W, PWS for those 1K PWS?

 

[nicklebon]

Well, I'm hoping the silence on this doesn't mean I got ripped off. Either way even I can't recoup some of my cost with LSI controller, Qlogic FCal cards, the board, RAM and CPU I still got the case, rails and PWS for under $300. Anyone notice that the seller seems to have the rails upside down in their ad?

 

[Rand__]

Well its not a great price (primarily due to condition) but I think its fair with the SAS2 backplane

 

[BLinux]

Well, I'm hoping the silence on this doesn't mean I got ripped off. Either way even I can't recoup some of my cost with LSI controller, Qlogic FCal cards, the board, RAM and CPU I still got the case, rails and PWS for under $300. Anyone notice that the seller seems to have the rails upside down in their ad?

actually, i think that motherboard makes a nice machine and has onboard SAS2008 controller that you can flash to IT or IR firmware easily using firmware provided by Supermicro. you could sell the LSI card and other cards in it and just use the on-board SAS controller; would probably reduce heat production and power consumption too. if you're not dead set on using the X10 board you mentioned, that wouldn't be a bad start. I was testing that board with 2x L5640 CPUs, and it idled around 140W and was a lot faster than my PE2900-III w/ 2x L5430. RAM and CPUs are really cheap for those older machines.

I saw this thread and got interested because I'm in the same boat... have a pair of old PE2900 i want to retire. Decided to go the Supermicro route using older cheap parts (but newer than the PE2900 w/ 54xx Xeons). I was going to go with the X8DTH-6F board, but decided to try out the X9 platform to see how much I could save in power consumption, found out it's only about 20-25W w/ the E5 V1 CPUs I have. Looking for a good deal on E5-26xx V2 CPUs to see if I can drop that power consumption a bit more, but no luck finding the CPUs within my price range yet. The X10 stuff seems to be completely out of my price range so I won't be touching that. In retrospect, not sure going with X9 was worth it for me, but I will anyway now that I already bought the hardware. The 25W difference I think is only going to save me about $50/yr.

 

[nicklebon]

Well that went badly. The seller shipped the server with the rails attached and power supplies installed. They wrapped it with bubble wrap and paper. The rails acted as levers and bent the chassis and rails to hell and back and seem to have destroyed at least one pws. The plus side is they seem be taking responsibility and are paying to send it and offering a full refund. I'm back in market for chassis ... sigh

 

[nicklebon]

Okay I may have gotten lucky here. A local shop is selling a Compellent SC030 CT-SC030 which appears to built on the SC836 chassis. I am going to go look at it during lunch but I suspect is has a 836TQ backplane. The 836TQ is just a direct connect passthrough, meaning no hdd size limitations just 16 cables yes? The backplane assembly could be reasonably swapped with a sas2-836el1 assembly yes?

Any other caveats with Compellant box I should be aware of?


After visit edit

I can't win. The chassis is has the inner / attached to chassis rails but not the out rails / attached to rack rack rails. They were going to look for the rails but were pretty sure they not available. I am hoping I can find rails down the road if I can work out the other issues.

It has the rear window below the the pws which I believe indicates this to be a B chassis. It also has the PWS-801-1R power supplies which work but are inefficient. It did have the TQ backplane as suspected along with the oddest network card I have ever seen. I was not able get a good look at the card and they would not let me remove it to examine. It appeared to have memory DIMM and perhaps a battery. I am working with my previous seller on letting me swap the backplane of the destroyed SC836 with this one before sending it back. I suspect that will go well.

It also had 16 dummy trays with the beige plastic inserts. Can the dummy tray have the inserts removed and be usable?

Thanks

 

[nicklebon]

I felt the need to update this thread due to the excellent response from the Ebay vendor. As stated earlier the ebay case was damaged in shipping and had to go back. While in process of getting it packed up I was able to get an SC836TQ chassis with an old X7DBI+ board with a TQ backplane and a SIMLP B ipmi card locally. I asked the original ebay seller if they would be okay with me switching the backplanes giving them the direct connect backplane and me keeping the expander and the LSI 9280 4i4e. They agreed and to my surprise refunded me the full purchase price + shipping anyway due to my hassle. In the end I ended up with the 836 chassis, 6Gbps expander backplane and an LSI 9280 4i4e. The folks at Lake Michigan Computers came through on customer service IMHO.