Dell PowerEdge T130 for ESXi 6.x

[TheSwede86]

Hi!

Thinking about buying a server which I've had as project for quite some time now.
My main reason for buying a server would be to experiment and learn more with networking which I've studied but sadly did not get a lot of hands on experience with during my education.

So what I'm thinking of running is some sort of Pfsense+Snort/Suricata+Squid solution and then perhaps Remnux or other VM:s in regards to malware analysis / network analysis. Other then that and just to retire my old NAS (Asustor AS5004T) I'm thinking of running SAB+Sonarr+Couch and Plex or Emby on an Ubuntu-client or server which will act as an HTPC. Thinking of either VMSphere / ESXi or Proxmox as hypervisors.

I've actually got a HP Microserver Gen8 sitting unopened beside me but then I need to find a E3-1230 v2 Xeon CPU which is not the easiest and then the machine would be limited to 16GB.

I am instead thinking of a Dell PowerEdge T130 with an E3-1230 v5 and to buy 1*Crucial 32GB Kit (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2400 ECC UDIMM (CT8102837). The T130 includes a Dell PERC H330 RAID-card which I otherwise needed to add to my HP Microserver Gen8 build as well. The iDRAC function of the T130 looks like a nice feature as well.

The formfactor (Mini-Tower) seems quite nice too since I don't want a big server and would pref. have something smaller.

The only thing is that I already have 4*4TB WD RED which I will be connecting to the RAID-card and then thinking about running 1*250GB or 1*500GB 2,5" SSD to host the VM's but the configuration options for the T130 seems to be either:
"Chassis with up to 4, 3.5” Cabled Hard Drives and Embedded SATA"
or
"Chassis with up to 4, 3.5” Cabled Hard Drives".
Now I'm thinking that the first option would be the one I need (to connect the SSD to the internal SATA-port and run the HDD's of the RAID-card) but when I select it I get a configuration error in regards to the chosen RAID-level. Even if I select either of these:
"C1K - No RAID with Embedded SATA, Cabled Chassis (min 1 max 4) " (default option)
"C2K - RAID 0, S130, Cabled Chassis (min 2 max 4) "
"C3K - RAID 1 for S130 (min 2 max 2)"
I still get an error. The T130 comes with 2*1TB HDD's per default so all of those options should be valid.

Am I doing anything wrong here?

Any suggestions in general and help would be appreciated.
I am in Sweden so if you have great deals on Dell's US website or Newegg for instance I'm afraid I can't use those

Best Regards / Karl, Sweden

 

[DavidRa]

In my experience the Dell config tool is inadequate, inaccurate, often broken, and requires everything be consistent - you chose a RAID card, so you MUST have RAID; and since you have a specified RAID level you must order the appropriate number of disks. You should be able to click on the configuration error to go to the right place to change things, but I find that only works 50% of the time too.

 

[TheSwede86]

In my experience the Dell config tool is inadequate, inaccurate, often broken, and requires everything be consistent - you chose a RAID card, so you MUST have RAID; and since you have a specified RAID level you must order the appropriate number of disks. You should be able to click on the configuration error to go to the right place to change things, but I find that only works 50% of the time too.

Thanks for the tip.
Yeah as soon as I change from "Chassis with up to 4, 3.5” Cabled Hard Drives" to "Chassis with up to 4, 3.5” Cabled Hard Drives and Embedded SATA" an error message appear saying "The selection - PERC H330 RAID Controller is incompatible with RAID-configuration". Which is very weird according to me since the default RAID-option is "
C1K - No RAID with Embedded SATA, Cabled Chassis (min 1 max 4)" *sigh*.

I've emailed Dell pre-sales support but I don't get my hopes up.
Asked them among other things if there is onboard SATA to connect in order for me to connect my SSD to it and if there are any additional 3.5" or 5.25" drive bays where I can mount that SSD (with 3.5">2.5" or 5.25">2*2.25" adapters) in.

Other then that does what I want to do make sense with the Dell PowerEdge T130?
Any better choices out there (which are available in Europe / Sweden)?

 

[coolrunnings82]

I too want to know if they put SATA 6G ports on the motherboard finally. The T11o II didn't have them, it just had 4x SATA 3G ports which is pathetic. I love my Dell servers but on the lower end tower servers, they pretty much assume you're getting an HBA or RAID controller if you want acceptable disk performance.

 

[Evan]

It's always a safe assumption that they don't and you need a HBA.
Don't dell have something like 'HP quickspecs' that has the info ?