Dell PowerEdge T130 as workstation.. Noise?

[ElCoyote_]

Hi All,
I'm planning to get a Dell Poweredge T130 to replace my previous DIY fanless Home Server
(More on that one here: Coyote's Blog: The little server that could).

The reasoning behind this was:
- I need more than 32GB ECC RAM with decent Xeon cores (Yes, I run OpenStack nodes)
- I need to host more than 1 HD inside the case (the previous build was too crowed)
- I need something better than ASRock's MegaRAC console (the ssh session doesn't let do you anything at all).

I have kinda settled on the Dell Poweredge T130 to which I'll be adding:
- iDRAC Express with dedicated NIC (I need the remote console and ssh sessions)
- 64GB ECC RAM
- LSI MegaRaid 9271-8i (taken from my T410)
- An NVidia Quadro of some kind.
- An USB sound card (servers don't have audio outputs)

Has anyone gotten the T130 before? I'm a little concerned with the noise levels.
I'd be replacing the fan with better Noctua fans I'd guess but I was wondering how the 'unmodified' server felt (noise-wise).

Thanks for reading,

Vincent

 

[ElCoyote_]

Replying to my own question. There's an excellent source of environmental specifications for Dell 13th Gen servers at this URL:

http://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/...e-Acoustical-Performance-and-Dependencies.pdf
The T130 appears to be a quiet server and my T430 isn't bad either..
Regards,
Vincent

 

[Patrick]

@ElCoyote_ - not sure how I missed this. They are not so bad at all. On the ASRock Rack side, have you used IPMItool? That is usually much more helpful with IPMI if you just want a text console.

 

[ElCoyote_]

Thanks Patrick,
Yes, I am most likely going a T130 when prices drop around black friday in november.
As for AsRock, it was fine until I tried to do anything useful from the ssh session (which is the only thing I can reach from the outside world).
With an iDrac-capable server, I can get a console, power on/off the server, change the boot device, disable components, all from an SSH session.
IPMItool is a fine tool but only when you're on the LAN, not from the other side of the world
I'm probably going to mod the T130 a little and see if I can go all-passive for the cpu fan.
My T430 on the other hand isn't so bad either with the default fan but I may have to mod it a little when Summer comes back.
Thanks,
Vincent

 

[wildpig1234]

The 290w psu on t130 doesn't scream for any quadro. also not many pcie slots. I smell weak WS..more along line of overpriced budget pc.

 

[KioskAdmin]

Can't the ASrock do SSH? You can SSH into SMC IPMI.

 

[EffrafaxOfWug]

Can't the ASrock do SSH? You can SSH into SMC IPMI.

If it's anything like mine (E3C226D2I), it's only a pretty unhelpful BusyBox instance. Out of the box it gives the impression of being completely useless ("help" lists a load of useless commands), but if you can explore around a bit and discover some of the usual tools. Filesystem is readonly though so there's little scope for hackery.

effrafax@wug:~$ ssh admin@wug.ipmi
admin@wug.ipmi's password:

BusyBox v1.13.2 (2015-01-21 22:25:17 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

$ help

Built-in commands:
-------------------
        . : [ [[ alias bg break cd chdir continue echo eval exec exit
        export false fg hash help jobs kill let local pwd read readonly
        return set shift source test times trap true type ulimit umask
        unalias unset wait


$ ls /bin
Rmount      catv        cp          dmesg       grep        ln          mknod       mv          ps          run-parts   stty        uname
ash         chgrp       date        echo        hostname    login       more        netstat     pwd         sed         sync        vi
busybox     chmod       dd          egrep       ip          ls          mount       ping        rm          sh          touch
cat         chown       df          false       kill        mkdir       mountpoint  ping6       rmdir       sleep       umount

$ ls /usr/bin
[            clear        du           gawk         killall      nslookup     ssh-keygen   test         top          wget
[[           cut          expr         getent       killall5     readlink     stunnel4     tftp         tty          which
awk          diff         find         head         last         rsync        sum          tftpd        udpsvd       who
basename     dirname      free         inotifywait  logger       sort         tail         time         uptime

$ ls /sbin
MAKEDEV            halt               init               ip6tables-save     lsmod              reboot             start-stop-daemon
depmod             ifconfig           insmod             iptables           mii-tool           rmmod              sysctl
ethtool            ifdown             ip6tables          iptables-multi     modprobe           route              udhcpc
freeramdisk        ifenslave          ip6tables-multi    iptables-restore   mount.nfs          runlevel           vconfig
getty              ifup               ip6tables-restore  iptables-save      mount.nfs4         shutdown           watchdog

$ ls /usr/sbin
chroot        dhcp4.script  dhcp6c        inetd         mkfs.jffs2    ntpd          rsyslogd      sshd
cron          dhcp6.script  flash_erase   logrotate     mtd_debug     ntpdate       slpd          telnetd

$ ls /etc
actualcert.pem        group                 logrotate.conf        pam_radius_auth.conf  rc8.d                 slp.conf
actualprivkey.pem     host.conf             logrotate.d           passwd                rcS.d                 slp.reg
adjtime               hostname              modules               protocols             reservedusers         slp.spi
core_features         hosts                 mtab                  public.pem            resolv.conf           ssh
core_macros           hosts.allow           network               rc0.d                 restoredefaults.sh    stunnel
cron.d                hosts.deny            nsswitch.conf         rc1.d                 rsync-excludes        sysctl.conf
crontab               init.d                ntp.conf              rc2.d                 rsyncconf.sh          syslog.conf
default               inittab               ntp.stat              rc3.d                 rsyslog.conf          timeouts
default_group         ioctl.save            nwhelperapi.sh        rc4.d                 samba                 unload.7
defconfig             ld.so.cache           pam.conf              rc5.d                 security              unload.8
features              localtime             pam.d                 rc6.d                 services              wide-dhcpv6
fstab                 login.defs            pam_ldap.conf         rc7.d                 shadow

$

Edit: I've just found that the ASrock BMC has a copy of ipmitool lurking in /usr/local/bin which might get you halfway there:

$ /usr/local/bin/ipmitool
IOCTL to get IP failed: -1
No command provided!
Commands:
        raw           Send a RAW IPMI request and print response
        i2c           Send an I2C Master Write-Read command and print response
        spd           Print SPD info from remote I2C device
        lan           Configure LAN Channels
        chassis       Get chassis status and set power state
        power         Shortcut to chassis power commands
        event         Send pre-defined events to MC
        mc            Management Controller status and global enables
        sdr           Print Sensor Data Repository entries and readings
        sensor        Print detailed sensor information
        fru           Print built-in FRU and scan SDR for FRU locators
        gendev        Read/Write Device associated with Generic Device locators sdr
        sel           Print System Event Log (SEL)
        pef           Configure Platform Event Filtering (PEF)
        sol           Configure and connect IPMIv2.0 Serial-over-LAN
        tsol          Configure and connect with Tyan IPMIv1.5 Serial-over-LAN
        isol          Configure IPMIv1.5 Serial-over-LAN
        user          Configure Management Controller users
        channel       Configure Management Controller channels
        session       Print session information
        sunoem        OEM Commands for Sun servers
        kontronoem    OEM Commands for Kontron devices
        picmg         Run a PICMG/ATCA extended cmd
        fwum          Update IPMC using Kontron OEM Firmware Update Manager
        firewall      Configure Firmware Firewall
        exec          Run list of commands from file
        set           Set runtime variable for shell and exec
        hpm           Update HPM components using PICMG HPM.1 file
        ekanalyzer    run FRU-Ekeying analyzer using FRU files

There's evidence of bits of SmashCLP lying around (like this entry in /etc/group:SmashCLP:x:533:admin) but no obvious way to do neat SSH thingies.

 

[ElCoyote_]

Yes, I sadly found out about the useless busybox too.. Nothing useful there..
Not even a 'poweron /system1' or 'console com2'.

Vincent