Dell R720XD - what software should I install - Windows or ???

[John2019]

Okay, don't flame me too hard.
Kinda new to all this. I have been running a Lenovo TS140 with Windows Server at home for a few years, but it is limited in its power.

I lucked into a Dell R720XD, 64Gb Ram, 2 of E5-2640.
I want to use it at home to run Blue Iris for my security cameras, Plex for media, backups for photos and home videos, etc.
What software should I be installing? I have read so many guides etc, but I am just more confused than ever.
I figure I should just use Windows Server again, I kinda know that, it should just work, right?

If I want to go to Freenas, I will need to buy another card as I have a PERC H310 mini?
Then there is talk of hypervisors etc?

What are the benefits of going that more complicated route?
What other questions should i be asking?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

[vl1969]

IMHO, if you have a license for Windows server I would use it.
That is, windows server with hyper-v as host and run everything else in VMs.
But if you going to run all in vm
Why not go with Proxmox host?

It is light in hardware so you have more resources for the actual software you want to run.
Except for blue iris, most other apps run under linux just fine. Maybe even better.
Plex works great in linux.
Or checlout Emby.

 

[John2019]

Okay, thanks.
I got the system running, and can log into IDRAC.

I have updated to Bios 2.7.0, and the other updates it recommended.

I can see the two drives I have added so far, but having removed 2 of 4Gb 1333MHz memory cards and installed 8 of 8Gb 1600MHz cards, I can see them all, and the system says they can run at 1600, but only runs them at 1333. Am I missing some setting I need to adjust?

I hunted for settings, I reset everything, I powered down, unplugged etc and it never runs them at 1600.
Tonight I might take 6 of them out and see if it can run 2 at 1600?

Any other suggestions?

 

[vl1969]

Are this the only ram in the system.
If there are others it will run as the slowest chip in the system.

 

[John2019]

Yup, only those 8 sticks in the machine, plus 16 empty cards in the unused slots.

I just saw a comment on using "Optimizer" mode, so I am off to research that now.

Additional info, system reports each as single rank, voltage is 1.5V.

Modules are in sockets A1-A4 and B1-B4, i.e. all the white ones.
CPUs are 2 of E5-2640 @2.50 GHz

 

[John2019]

Oooooohhhh, rats.

It looks like v1 of the E5-26x0-2640 range of Xeon's only support memory speeds up to 1333, you need a 2650 or above to support 1600 - a limit if the Intel CPU, not the memory or the motherboard (other than overclocking) etc.

Oh well, I only paid $20 more for the ram and the next 64Gb can be the cheaper version.

A big prize to Dell and Intel for not making that very clear in any publicity documents

 

[John2019]

Interestingly enough, if I enter the service tag on the Dell site, it reads the current configuration, and also supplies the original configuration when sold. This says the system had E5-2620 v2's in it then, so I think I am good to run v1 and v2 processors, on this motherboard, although checking prices, perhaps I will limit to a couple of 2690 v1s if/when I upgrade. That should still be enough for a bump in CPU benchmarks, and open up the full speed of the 1600 RAM.

I am thinking I will use the H310 to setup a Raid 1 of my 500Gb Intel SSD, install Windows on that, then have a tiered parity drive with two more SSDs and some spinning HDDs for the data storage. Should be enough for home use. I have a vFlash card as well, to aid with recovery, and will do backups to external drives.

I tried installing on one drive, then mirroring it within disk management, but not sure I had everything covered there and I feel the H310 will likely give me a greater chance of recovery of the OS drive. And it should read a bit quicker than the single drive option.