Server Upgrade?

[Topcat]

Re: Server Upgrade?

Bought the above board/CPU/RAM/cooler. Also nabbed a dual port Gigabit card for 10 shipped.

SSD wise I think I'll save a bit of dough and dust off the 256GB Intel. It was in my former main laptop before it got replaced and combined with my dad's identical laptop which fried a MOBO. Due to the way that SGI built the system, I think I can mod the tray the holds the rear drives to have a 2.5" spot for the SSD (no 3.5" adapter needed).

Nice! Your love of SM brings a tear to my eye! I've trained you well!

[ratdude747]

Re: Server Upgrade?

Bought the above board/CPU/RAM/cooler. Also nabbed a dual port Gigabit card for 10 shipped.

SSD wise I think I'll save a bit of dough and dust off the 256GB Intel. It was in my former main laptop before it got replaced and combined with my dad's identical laptop which fried a MOBO. Due to the way that SGI built the system, I think I can mod the tray the holds the rear drives to have a 2.5" spot for the SSD (no 3.5" adapter needed).

[ratdude747]

Re: Server Upgrade?

Here we go:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/234099727949

A bit spendier than what I would have wanted, but I think this will fit the bill. Yeah, it has a 65W i7 in it, but if I want to cut that to 35W, it'll accept a Xeon E3-1265L v4. 25W, there's the Xeon E3-1240L v3. Heck, if I only want 2 cores, they made a 13W E3-1220L v3. Will buy if eBay's site stops glitching out.

[ratdude747]

Re: Server Upgrade?

Tossing in some links to stuff I've found:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165894998623 (A bit spendy and perhaps a waste of a gaming board... but for what's included it's not bad? Even if is from Goodwill )

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165894998985 (Half the RAM as above, but quite a bit cheaper too. Same seller...)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/266101514535 (If I knew the RAM was included, this would be attractive, even with a poorly ratdude'd I/O shield)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165150859816 (an actual server board, and the included i3 CPU is only 65W TDP).

---

If dumping the whole setup, I'd like to at least have something rackmount (or less ideally, fit on a rack shelf). But, a lot of new drives, case, etc adds up... Was kinda hoping to keep the total cost under $150 (as an incremental upgrade on the existing chassis), but if this is a case of "spending a nickel on old is a nickle down the crapper", then I guess I'll keep nursing along the beast.

---

Looking at the last one some more. Maybe that's the right direction at least. They did make an i3 -T CPU for such that was 35W TDP... But that's sandy bridge. I wonder what something a bit newer would cost as individual parts (so I could drop in a -T CPU)...

[dmill89]

Re: Server Upgrade?

Being under 2tb, I'd roll with some efficient with a M.2. Wouldn't cost much.

^Something along the lines of this. At the very least I'd ditch the ton of old low-capacity HDDs for a smaller number of higher capacity ones given how cheap storage is these days, and even a relatively efficient modern CPU (like an S or T suffix I5/I7 or even a recent 15W TDP laptop CPU) will run circles around that old socket 940 system and use a lot less power and generate a lot less heat in the process.


My current "server" (mainly a NAS) consists of a used HP ProDesk 600 G3 (non-SFF) with an I5-6400T (35W TDP), 24GB DDR4-2400 ram, a 256GB Hynix PC711 M.2 NVMe SSD as an OS drive, and a pair of 6TB HGST UltraStar He6 SATA HDDs in RAID1 for storage, and a 2.5 gigabit ethernet card.


It only draws around 20W at idle and 25-40W when transferring files, and the I5-6400T has plenty of head-room if I want it to do more than just storage. It can manage 200+ MB/s (Megabytes not Megabits, though only to other 2.5G equipped devices) data transfer and only uses around 25% CPU doing it (when transferring to gigabit or wireless devices it is at <10% with the client device's ethernet speed being the bottleneck).

[ratdude747]

Re: Server Upgrade?

Time out. Looking at the pic of the PSU label (from the old server's thread), there's the nail in the newer eATX coffin:



Only 330W avaiable for +12V... *sad trombone* Yes with dual PSU's there's enough, but then it's not really redundant.

Maybe I ought to be looking at desktop ATX boards... As "vanilla" as such would be here, that's what my PSU bank can support. The 9650 card eliminates the need for PCI-X, and a dual port gigabit card plus an onboard gigabit would get me the existing 3 bonded LANs I currently use (although in all honesty, triple gigabit may be overkill)

[ratdude747]

Re: Server Upgrade?

One (hopefully) minor issue: My PSU backplane only gives one 12V motherboard plug (an 8 pin)... but most newer eATX board require either a 4 and an 8 or 2 8's.

Might be able to make an adapter... if my PSU's are up to the task. The quad opterons above are 115W TDP each; the old dual opteron 285's I have now are only 68W TDP. The PSU's themselves are rated for 550W, but the system is also powering 16 (up to 18) 7200RPM spinners. Hopefully the idle power draw is less... as so far this is looking like more power draw. Maybe the RAID'd SSD route has merit after all... even if it's less "impressive" and costs more initially.

[ratdude747]

Re: Server Upgrade?

Another thing I found:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265788983739

Only thing there is that I'd want to keep my PCI-X cards since it only has 2 PCIe. Which would make my preemptive 9650 buy a bit premature.

Or better yet, from the same seller:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265823125970

32GB of RAM and has plenty of PCIe. While that means swapping cards (one of which I've already bought), that gives me more options using more modern hardware. Unless there's an objection, I'm thinking that's a deal. Funny enough it's still AMD.

[ratdude747]

Re: Server Upgrade?

Being under 2tb, I'd roll with some efficient with a M.2. Wouldn't cost much.

You mean dump the entire system and software RAID something?

The M.2. idea was for the boot drive. Not the entire storage system.

[Topcat]

Re: Server Upgrade?

Being under 2tb, I'd roll with some efficient with a M.2. Wouldn't cost much.

[ratdude747]

Re: Server Upgrade?

How much storage capacity do you need?

I currently have 1.75 TB in a raid 10 (14x 250GB 7200RPM HDD). Of which I think maybe 1TB is used (a lot of it is another member's datasheet collection that I acted/am acting as a spare backup of).

---

Doing some digging... and look what I found:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175274862240

"has 24GB installed, but only detects 20GB". Bad RAM? Not sure if that's worth the gamble. Obviously I'd need to put on some dynatron (or similar) coolers.

[Topcat]

Re: Server Upgrade?

How much storage capacity do you need?

[ratdude747]

I'm pushing 5 years on my current server and I'm thinking it may be time for some sort of an upgrade.

The main issue I'm having is random ATA errors locking the system up at the most inopportune times. Probably the PATA to SATA adapter (I have a few more NOS ones on the shelf I could toss at it) but honestly I'm thinking an old "early" socket 940 board is a retro rig in 2023 and ough to be retired.

The question for me is how much of an upgrade should I shoot for? The main issue I have to deal with is if I keep my chassis, the backplane is 16x SATA. Not SAS. And if I want to keep my data, I either need a board with PCI-X (for my 3ware 9550 card) or I need to get a 16 port 9560 card (which is basically a 9550 in PCIe). The latter is doable... I know I found one once and thought about buying it (but didn't)... but I can get one for $30 used (and move over my BBU). Edit- Went ahead and bought the card. $30 isn't much these days...

But after that, I have some options to play with. Anything newer will have PCIe, so I don't necessarily need to keep my boot drive (which is currently an ancient 80GB SATA 7200RPM clay pigeon). If I'm not mistaken, I could use an M2 to PCIe adapter and run an NVME boot drive? Anybody done this before? Do such support MBR, or would I need something new enough to support GPT/uEFI? Otherwise, I have a few SATA SSDs kicking around (a low-end 120GB PNY and a 256GB Intel 5400s).

Currently I don't need a ton of computing power... unless I ever go back to running a Minecraft server or do anything else exciting. For what I currently do, the existing twin dual-core 940 setup works when it's not getting ATA errors. But it's a power hog to some degree and and is getting antiquated.

I may start looking around fleabay to see what I can find. Preferably something relatively cool running (No FBDIMMs, etc.). And probably supermicro eATX (as that's my thing and what I know will fit an work).

All of this said, If I found another 3U/4U file server on a newer chassis, I'd be open to a migration. But it would likely be more expense as I'd need all new drives and the like. The nice part of my current setup is that even though it was a pre-built SGI "rackable" system, it was built with enough off-the-shelf parts that it's in effect a barebones that can run practically anything I want with 2U/3U coolers and ATX connectors.