Dell Poweredge R240 - Barebones w/ Xeon E-2124 - $180
- Thread starter tathers
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It's a reasonably modern processor and chipset, power supply, IT-patchable RAID card. It has IPMI and works properly with ECC RAM. It seems like a far better starting point for a baremetal TrueNAS build than a lot of the garbage consumer stuff you see people using. At these prices and free shipping it seems like a pretty great deal to me.
The biggest hassle for me will be trying to figure out how to rearrange the guts into a more pleasant case; I'm resigned to 3D printing.
The biggest hassle for me will be trying to figure out how to rearrange the guts into a more pleasant case; I'm resigned to 3D printing.
They can be converted to the standard non-OEM BIOS - Google for guides
I have ~20 R240s with 942V6 X520 NICs in them, all work fine. The Dell R240 update ISO detects them and performs Intel NIC firmware updates fine.
If they come with the PERC H330 as advertised, they'll accept both SATA and SAS and will have a hot plug backplane. However there are configs that accept SATA only and/ or don't have a hot plug backplane.
Regarding BIOS: I know that you can do that, but I like to use Dell Openmanage and after dell nixed the XC730 from automatic firmware updates I decided to just go with standard Dell equipment and none of that repurposed stuff.They can be converted to the standard non-OEM BIOS - Google for guides
I have ~20 R240s with 942V6 X520 NICs in them, all work fine. The Dell R240 update ISO detects them and performs Intel NIC firmware updates fine.
Regarding X520s: I figured they'd work, and tbh that's great that they /do/ work. I figured for 135/each I'd take the chance with X520s, it's good it works and all, I was going off the official Dell specsheet. Troubleshooting weird edge cases is not something I'd like to do with my time anymore, and will pay extra for OEM validated configurations. Just my opinion tbh.
I originally thought this was a better deal than it turned out not realizing it doesn't take RDIMMS, so I bought a 16gb ECC UDIMM from A-Tech, waiting for the weekend to replace the r210ii
Thank you for replying. You are right. It would have been a better deal if it took RDIMMs. I bought one too, only because it is newer technology than the R210 II. Frankly, the R210 II has served me well. I use it as a pfSense firewall.
At least in the Gen 13 days, some OEM systems were just 100% standard, Dell-branded systems. Zero difference to a regular model, except that the drivers page stopped being updated a decade ago (only a slight overstatement) - but standard Gen 13 updates work fine.