Dell C6100 XS23-TY3 2U 4-Node (8 CPU) Cloud Server

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OrangesOfCourse

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May 15, 2013
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is the drive happen from a array? try to use low level format tool first. (ex. ultimate boot cd)
It used to be but its been sitting empty with its brother in the other computer. I'll try the low level format and see what happens.

Hi - put sata controller into ahci mode. f2 to get to bios setup. you probably have it in raid mode. another option get intel ich10r or ich9r drivers and the windows setup disk. another thought use an ipmi mount or usb cd to do ws so hd0 = your drive
Hi Biren,

The controller was already in AHCI mode. I went ahead and added the second hard drive and set it to raid but setup will still not find it. I just downloaded the ICH10R drivers and will give that a shot.

EDIT: Tried these ICH10R Drivers to no avail: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?ProductID=3154&DwnldID=18063
 
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dba

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Feb 20, 2012
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Are you using the SATA disk ports on the motherboard or does your c6100 have a SAS/SATA mezzanine or PCIe card?

Hi guys,

I know that this must be a stupid question but I would love some help.

I just got my C6100 today and i'm trying to test it out by installing Windows Server 2012 on a SATA hard drive that I pulled from another machine. My problem is that Windows Server setup is unable to locate the hard drive. I can see the hard drive in the bios. I've tried a few Intel RST drivers to no avail. Any idea?

I got this server to play around with my home lab and learn new things. Any help would be much appreciated.
 

OrangesOfCourse

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May 15, 2013
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Are you using the SATA disk ports on the motherboard or does your c6100 have a SAS/SATA mezzanine or PCIe card?
Hi dba,

I'm using the SATA ports on the motherboard. NO mezzanine or PCIe cards in there. I have tried multiple drivers from Intel but still am unable to get setup to recognize the drives. I'm currently reformatting the USB drive that i'm install on and then creating a new bootable WS2012 USB drive.
 

MACscr

Member
May 4, 2011
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Anyone know what IT firmware we should use with the 6 port SAS mezz cards? Im hoping to be able to flash it from Omnios as well. I do at least have the lsiutil app running on it. I think it can do the flashing.
 

dba

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Feb 20, 2012
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San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
I have done a number of Windows2012 installs on the c6100. In no case did I require any extra drivers except if the boot drive was on the mezzanine card. Since you don't use a mezzanine card and have already checked that you are in AHCI mode, I suspect that either the disk or its connection is bad or the disk formatting/partitioning is not compatible with Windows. Mounting and reformatting on another Windows box would check for both of these possibilities.

Hi dba,

I'm using the SATA ports on the motherboard. NO mezzanine or PCIe cards in there. I have tried multiple drivers from Intel but still am unable to get setup to recognize the drives. I'm currently reformatting the USB drive that i'm install on and then creating a new bootable WS2012 USB drive.
 

OrangesOfCourse

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May 15, 2013
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I have done a number of Windows2012 installs on the c6100. In no case did I require any extra drivers except if the boot drive was on the mezzanine card. Since you don't use a mezzanine card and have already checked that you are in AHCI mode, I suspect that either the disk or its connection is bad or the disk formatting/partitioning is not compatible with Windows. Mounting and reformatting on another Windows box would check for both of these possibilities.
That's what i figured. I checked the drives in the other computer (win7) and formated them. I was able to add files and folders to the drive. I then installed them in the C6100 and tried the setup again. Still not found by setup. The funny part is that when it asks me to browse for drivers it lists the hard drive partitions in there... :|

I'm gonna download a fresh copy of WS2012 and try again... other than that I am out of ideas...

EDIT: I changed the USB flash drive to a new one and it works like its suppose to. :) Not using this USB flash drive to install OS's anymore...
 
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Jaknell1011

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May 14, 2013
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Just wanting to confirm, having 6 drives on one node can be done fairly easily, with the breakout cable (like the one from Meritline, as posted above), but having more than 6 drives on one node is more difficult to do. Is this statement correct?
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Just wanting to confirm, having 6 drives on one node can be done fairly easily, with the breakout cable (like the one from Meritline, as posted above), but having more than 6 drives on one node is more difficult to do. Is this statement correct?
Yes, correct. The "interposer" design that allows you to hot-swap the motherboard trays is wired for up to six drives. As long as you stay at or below 6 drives things are sweet and easy.

To go beyond six drives you need to attach a cable to the MB and snake it through the slots in the midplane holding the fans and connect directly to the backplane. If you do this you (a) lose the ability to hotswap the MB tray because you are not hard-wired to the drive backplane and (b) lose control of the activity lights on the backplane.

Neither of these problems are show-stoppers for most home/lab uses. While they are "hard", they are not real hard as far as system mods go.
 

Jaknell1011

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May 14, 2013
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To go beyond six drives you need to attach a cable to the MB and snake it through the slots in the midplane holding the fans and connect directly to the backplane. If you do this you (a) lose the ability to hotswap the MB tray because you are not hard-wired to the drive backplane and (b) lose control of the activity lights on the backplane.

Neither of these problems are show-stoppers for most home/lab uses. While they are "hard", they are not real hard as far as system mods go.
Ah! I thought after 6 drives, one would need to add a RAID card as well. Is that necessary or is it possible to run say, 9 drives off of one node without an additional RAID card? Or even all 12 drives on one node?
 

Jaknell1011

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May 14, 2013
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My general rule of thumb is that 150 IOPS/VM is the minimum for a low-end virtual desktop and 1000 IOPS/VM is the minimum for a small generalized server VM. Of course particular workloads may have needs different than these rules of thumbs. I'm not saying that having less IO won't be "good enough" by some measure. I use these rules of thumb to make sure that I'm not wasting other resources. For example, a quad Intel Xeon E5 file server with 200 IOPS worth of disk will "feel" almost exactly as fast as a single CPU file server with the same disk. Both might be "good enough" for a given deployment, but in the Xeon case most of that CPU is wasted.
Looking at our Primary DC (which also acts at the moment as our file server, print server, and DHCP/DNS server) during yesterday and today's peak times, we were at just under 200 IOPS maximum. These servers aren't hit very often, as our network consists of about 200 PCs, and most processing of information is done locally on teacher and student computers (almost all web browsing and use of Office, etc.). I am really just wanting to split up the workload, so as to not rely so heavily on ONE main server.

I would like to set-up (as VMs) one print server, one file server, one Primary DC, and one for DHCP, DNS, NTP, and any other random roles. Then my other servers would consist of a network monitor/helpdesk server, and perhaps 2 or 3 more application/general use servers. My thinking is if my main "do-everything" server is not even hitting 500 IOPS during peak times, and I plan on splitting that up amongst several servers, I may be able to utilize the onboard storage for both my VMs and network data.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Ah! I thought after 6 drives, one would need to add a RAID card as well. Is that necessary or is it possible to run say, 9 drives off of one node without an additional RAID card? Or even all 12 drives on one node?
It doesn't have to be a raid card - it could be a simple HBA - but yes, you'd have to do something to get more SATA ports. The MB only provides 6.

I didn't mention it mainly 'cuz it seemed kinda obvious :)
 

Jaknell1011

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May 14, 2013
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It doesn't have to be a raid card - it could be a simple HBA - but yes, you'd have to do something to get more SATA ports. The MB only provides 6.

I didn't mention it mainly 'cuz it seemed kinda obvious :)
Gotcha, I was thinking there were actually that many available ports on the node - thus the surprise. Do the nodes have RAID capabilities built in?
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Intel ICH based raid is baked it (what some call 'fake raid'). AFIK only windows based OSs have appropriate drivers available to make use of it.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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It is a good deal, near the lower end of what has come up on eBay recently. The listing is not clear but you need to find out if he's including drive trays. The pictures appear to have 4 trays and 8 dummy's.
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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seang86s

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Feb 19, 2013
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I haven't ordered a C6100 from him, but I did get a Voltaire 4036 Infiniband switch which turned out to be a good experience. Had the Make Offer option on the Voltaire auction, but would budge too much from the posted price. Maybe $20 or so max.

Anybody ever order from lextecny2012 before?
 

shindo

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May 7, 2013
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WI, USA
So maybe I'm crazy but doesn't this look like a smoking hot price for these? $690 free shipping

Dell PowerEdge C6100 2U 8x Xeon QC L5520 2 26GHz 4XNODES No HDD 96GB RAM Tested | eBay

Anybody ever order from lextecny2012 before?
It looks like a good price to me. I have not purchased from Lextecny, but I was interested in buying a C6100 from them. I sent an email asking about ordering one with a 2nd PSU and it took 3 days to get a response which said that I would be receiving a quote from a sales manager. 11 days later I still have not heard back.

I got my C6100 from pdneiman almost a week ago now, and have spoken to a number of people at MET International who have been pleasant. My C6100 did come with the sleds that did not have the cutouts for the mezzanine cards, and my sata cables didn't have a right-angle connector for SATA1, but MET has shipped me replacements for both free of charge. Do be aware, though, Peter told me that 75% of his C6100s do not have the cutouts on the sleds. MET also did an excellent job of packing to protect the machine during transit.
 

mdmedina07

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May 6, 2013
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It looks like a good price to me. I have not purchased from Lextecny, but I was interested in buying a C6100 from them. I sent an email asking about ordering one with a 2nd PSU and it took 3 days to get a response which said that I would be receiving a quote from a sales manager. 11 days later I still have not heard back.

I got my C6100 from pdneiman almost a week ago now, and have spoken to a number of people at MET International who have been pleasant. My C6100 did come with the sleds that did not have the cutouts for the mezzanine cards, and my sata cables didn't have a right-angle connector for SATA1, but MET has shipped me replacements for both free of charge. Do be aware, though, Peter told me that 75% of his C6100s do not have the cutouts on the sleds. MET also did an excellent job of packing to protect the machine during transit.
HI all, long time forum lurker first time post :D I've been looking at the C6100 threads on the forums for a while and plan to get one in next week or so. I think I missed the part where some have a cutout for the IB mezzanine cards. Is that something I should specifically ask for when going to order as well as the right angle sata connectors? Or is it not a concern.

Thanks for having a awesome community.
 

Jeggs101

Well-Known Member
Dec 29, 2010
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Welcome and yes. Ask for it specifically. pneidman is I believe the seller linked on the first post in this thread. If you don't have the IB cutouts then it will be hard to install the cards.