My "simple" AIO server

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Navy_BOFH

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Aug 2, 2013
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I started my life in IT as self-learning and side-projects, with a Dell R710 being a crown jewel of my lab at the time. When I moved I sold the server and downsized to a small PC as a server and a Drobo for RAID storage. But the itch has returned - and even working in a data center hasn't scratched the itch!

If you look at a couple of my previous posts, I was hoping to start this build as something "simple" and "unobtrusive"... which went out the window quickly when I realized the motherboard I bought is ATX sized... but 90 degrees rotated from normal. My goal to have everything in something like a Node 804 went out the window which meant I now said "well I might as well go all-out now!"

The specs of the server now sit as:
  • Supermicro X10SLH-LN6TF
  • Xeon E3-1241v3
  • 32GB PC3-12800E RAM (8x4GB)
  • Supermicro SC835 chassis
  • Supermicro CSE-M14-B 4x2.5" Drive Rack
  • NVIDIA Quadro P620
  • LSI 9280-8i SAS controller (Was PERC H200)
The motherboard was the wrong size but luckily the SC835 fit the bill for the board size and features I can get out of it. I chose the LN6TF because 1) 10GBe sounded nice for future networking expansion, and 2) the plan is for pfSense to run on this with pfatt as well to get U-Verse playing nice. Adding the mobile drive caddy in the 5.25" bay meant all 8 3.5" bays can be used for HDDs and I can now have my VMs and cache somewhere else. The LSI handles the 3.5" bays and the onboard SATA for the 2.5" bays. Almost perfect! Even a SATADOM port left over if I choose to run UNraid via that method instead of the internal USB 3.0 port on the motherboard.

For storage I still have 5x Seagate Constellation ES 4TB drives however two are showing "warning" status in the Drobo. I am hoping the Drobo is just overreacting, and I plan on grabbing 3 more drives to fill all 8 bays. The goal is to eventually move to larger drives as the library grows. For caching I grabbed two Intel S3510 240GB drives that should be enough for some write cache once everything is bulk-transferred off the old system and for the VMs/Docker containers. But with two bays left I can always add more.

The Processor, RAM, and GPU were chosen for Plex transcoding and streaming for a handful of friends while running the usual suite of Plex services. I have settled on UNraid because I wanted something that "just works" especially when dealing with vCloud and Hyper-V at work all day long. This server will be hosted at a friend's house since he had the space and the need for a pfSense router replacement - while my house is limited on space and needs my (soon to be) lab for learning.

The SC835 was my compromise because I wanted a tower setup but this came at the right price. Over all though I ended up with WAY more equipment since I now have a X8DT6-F with dual Xeon X5650 processors sitting around, along with a Dell Precision T1700 i7 and a Drobo 5D that will all be taken out of service soon enough... hence the "simple" that has now spiraled out of control!

I am happy to be getting back into the home server show though! The next build should hopefully be even more exciting.
 

Navy_BOFH

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Aug 2, 2013
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Also forgot - thanks to the awesome resources on here I also grabbed the FAN-0074L4 fans to get some of the noise down, an active CPU cooler (Supermicro recommended), and a single PWS-920P-SQ and a PSU blanking plate for the second PSU since this is not a "mission critical" type server and having redundant PSUs in this case was... overkill. Hopefully the noise stays down while heat is still taken care of. While I live the bachelor life - the friend hosting the server has a Wife Acceptance Factor to worry about!
 

Navy_BOFH

Active Member
Aug 2, 2013
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Update:

This is an embarrassing post for an IT Operations Engineer to make - but I will also say I do all this at home so I can learn these situations which almost ALWAYS end up being something at work which makes me "the dude with random tech bits" - so win some... lose some...

The server physically came together splendidly and looks great with all Supermicro components - looks like it belongs in one of my DCs just as much as any customer hardware.

Down side - I have recently learned that with SFF-8484 (for the CSE-M14) that there is in fact a forward and reverse breakout cable to SATA. I was using a forward breakout... I needed a reverse. I have one on order now. Unfortunately I figured that out around the time that I offloaded both a Supermicro AOC-SAS2-H8IR and a PERC H200 that I thought I no longer needed... and ordered an LSI 9260-16i which will NOT do HBA mode from my research and thus needs to come out.

So current plan is now a PERC H310 flashed to a LSI 9211-8i IT Mode, and the SFF-8484 reverse breakout for the SATA ports on the board not being used.


On the software end:
unRAID installed on a 16GB USB stick attached to the motherboard's internal USB3.0 port. Everything boots... except now I do not see the onboard Gigabit LAN nor the other two pair of Intel X540 10GBe controllers at PCIe addresses 05:00 and 06:00. I am seeing the pair at 04:00 which are detected in the OS. So now to figure out where the BIOS or OS is not happy, since the premise of using the board is to have those NICs for pfSense.

On a semi-related note... I would love to get rid of this LSI 9260 since it is now an insulting reminder of my stupidity!
 
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RP386

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Jun 11, 2020
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Update:
Down side - I have recently learned that with SFF-8484 (for the CSE-M14) that there is in fact a forward and reverse breakout cable to SATA. I was using a forward breakout... I needed a reverse.
That's interesting. on your travels did you by any chance find out if the same applies to SFF-8087 to SFF-8643? Looking at acquiring a couple to hook up an Icydock MB998IP-B.