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

[shindo]

HI all, long time forum lurker first time post 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.

It's a concern if you want to use an IB mezzanine card (the cutout) or a PCI-e card (the 90-degree connector). Yeah, you can buy 90-degree SATA cables, but the original bundle fits a lot nicer than a normal SATA cable will. You could always dremel the sled to make a cutout, I suppose, but I think asking first is an easier solution.

 

[s0lid]

Anyone else encountered this problem:
Win7/2008R2 just bsods at boot when installed to SAN using QLE2460 cards.
Newest bios and BMC firmware, no local storage as i've removed the SATA backplane.

 

[gtallan]

I can verify that the forward breakout cable from Monoprice combined with the original cable works to connect six disks to one node (4 on Monoprice, 2 on original). While the Monoprice cable is a bit longer than necessary, I had no problem finding a place to tuck the excess without impacting airflow as far as I can tell. I much prefer the $10 price point to what I've seen for the V91FW.

Thanks for confirming. The V91FW cable doesn't even seem to be available anywhere...

 

[Jaknell1011]

Does anyone have a lower end HBA they can vouch for? I plan on running all 12 drives to 1 node, and using FreeNAS RaidZ2 to create 2x 6 drive vdevs in one large pool for all my storage. I don't need RAID in the card as I am utilizing FreeNAS. Any recommendations are appreciated.

 

[Patrick]

Does anyone have a lower end HBA they can vouch for? I plan on running all 12 drives to 1 node, and using FreeNAS RaidZ2 to create 2x 6 drive vdevs in one large pool for all my storage. I don't need RAID in the card as I am utilizing FreeNAS. Any recommendations are appreciated.

Are you thinking lower end than the IBM ServeRAID M1015 which is a LSI SAS2008 based card?

 

[swflmarco]

Looks like pricing dropped ~$100 for both the 96GB & 196GB chassis recently. I just picked up a 128GB chassis for the price of what we paid for the 96GB chassis a few weeks ago.

 

[Jaknell1011]

Are you thinking lower end than the IBM ServeRAID M1015 which is a LSI SAS2008 based card?

That looks like it will do the trick nicely. Thanks!

 

[Biren78]

Looks like pricing dropped ~$100 for both the 96GB & 196GB chassis recently. I just picked up a 128GB chassis for the price of what we paid for the 96GB chassis a few weeks ago.

Is the 128GB a XS23-TY3? Never seen one with 128GB.
4GB * 3/ CPU = 96GB
4GB * 6/ CPU = 192GB
8GB * 3/ CPU = 192GB
8GB * 6/ CPU = 384GB
( 4GB + 2GB ) * 3/ CPU = 144GB

How'd you get 128GB?
128GB

 

[sloop]

Looks like pricing dropped ~$100 for both the 96GB & 196GB chassis recently. I just picked up a 128GB chassis for the price of what we paid for the 96GB chassis a few weeks ago.

What is/was the price you got it for?

 

[Fzdog2]

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.

For anybody that has emails in to ebay@lextecny.com, I talked on the phone with him and they don't check the email so just call them.

He said they are currently running that special price and if you 'Buy It Now' it comes with free rails and 4 drive trays.


Has anyone configured these for vSphere iSCSI boot?

 

[mulder]

PowerEdge C6100 BMC Firmware 1.32 Update
Dell US - PowerEdge C6100 Drivers & Downloads -> Under 'ESM' tab
Released: 5/23/2013

Fixes:
- Internet drop symptom while BMC sync system time with BIOS for every 24 hours.
- SOL can't be actived when set SOL timeout to 0.
- Fix [BMC] Unable to send ctrl-break on C6100 through SOL.
- Improve IPMI LAN session security strength and eliminate potential vulnerability.

 

[Patrick]

PowerEdge C6100 BMC Firmware 1.32 Update
Dell US - PowerEdge C6100 Drivers & Downloads -> Under 'ESM' tab
Released: 5/23/2013

Fixes:
- Internet drop symptom while BMC sync system time with BIOS for every 24 hours.
- SOL can't be actived when set SOL timeout to 0.
- Fix [BMC] Unable to send ctrl-break on C6100 through SOL.
- Improve IPMI LAN session security strength and eliminate potential vulnerability.

Nice find! Mind cross posting that here? http://forums.servethehome.com/proc...707-dell-c6100-xs23-ty3-firmware-updated.html

 

[mulder]

Hi Patrick,
Post added.

Regards,

 

[biggles]

Hi there,

Received my C6100 XS23-TY3 the other week and started installing it today. Unfortunately it refuses to install ESXi. No matter if I'm trying 4.1 U1, U2 or U3 or 5.1 it stops when trying to load the network module. The most common message is "No network found" or "VMFS module load failed". Anyone got a good image or a suggestion what to try?

 

[biggles]

Well, this was a false alarm. After testing, retesting, adding drivers to the ESXi installation disk etc etc, I decided to test different BIOS settings. I turned out I had disabled the network card. I thought I just had disabled PXE-booting, but it was the network cards. Doooh! So, move along, nothing to see here...

 

[briancl]

Anyone play around with the command line tools for managing bios settings, BMC?

Dell PowerEdge C Server | System Management

http://www.poweredgec.com/files/Best_Practices_for_System_Management_in_the_Hyperscale_Cloud.pdf
http://www.poweredgec.com/files/PowerEdge_C_System_Management.pptx

 

[knknif]

So I'm not sure if this is the right place to post my question, but I figure ill give it a shot. It's been a while since I've frequented forums but I know people tend to get upset at constant repeat posts from new users, and I feel like this might be one of them haha. So anyway, here it is:

I'm a young geek, looking to mess around with some servers for curiosity and educational purposes (more specifically i want to delve into the world of VMs and what not, and the 6100 caught my eye. I was doing some research on it and see nothing but good things. I found a website that has a TY3 with he following specs:

8 x L5520's
96GB RAM (4x24)
4 x 250GB 7200rpm HDD's
Refurbished!

So the price tag is $884 (with a 10% discount) = $795, with free shipping.

Does that seem like a fair price? Too high, too low? Good deal? I bought a 2950 on an impulse buy and found out later I overpaid a bit. Nothing too crazy but I could have done better for the price, and I don't feel like making the same mistake. I've got a few extra bucks to throw around, but $800 is pushing it in the first place, and to end up regretting this purchase would really hurt.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Fzdog2]

Same price on ebay with free shipping:
Dell PowerEdge C6100 2U 8x Xeon QC L5520 2 26GHz 4XNODES 4X250GB 96GB RAM Tested | eBay

I got in last week at $690 which does not come with the 4 hard drives, but the listing has 0 remaining. Maybe try calling and asking.
http://forums.servethehome.com/proc...u-4-node-8-cpu-cloud-server-28.html#post15991

 

[knknif]

So I guess my next question then would be, should I buy through the following website:

Deep Discount Servers | Dell PowerEdge C6100 XS23-TY3 | Refurbished Servers | Lowest Prices

Or that eBay seller. Not a huge difference but if someone can vouch for one or the other. I'm probably going to go through Deep Discount though because they, at least claim, that it is refurbished.

 

[knknif]

Scratch that, just saw in the ebay listing that it is refurbished also.