Rc-help Server Build

Tony

Staff member
If you have been on the Twitch Live Streams (www.twitch.tv/rchelpdotcom You Should Totally Follow Us!) then you know we are in the process of building a server thanks to the awesomeness that is NIC (aka @Delininja). This is a huge project for us as it is going to open up a LOT of functionality not only for me here at the house with file management, but also for the website as a backup server and for the live streams since it will be hosting a restream server.

We ended up ordering a Dell r710 server with 6 3.5" drive bays. It only had 4gb of RAM and a single quad core CPU, but the thing here is it is expandable. So in the upcoming days from ordering it, we started placing orders for more items.

First item, and most important was the RAID card. The Perc6i card that is in the server can only handle a max of a 2TB drive. Well I have 8TB drives so that wasn't going to work. Does it see them? YUP! But it only shows 2TB drive space. Yea, that's not going to work! So we ordered the H700 raid card. Well, the first one that I ordered ended up not getting shipped. He sent me a message asking me if I knew it wouldn't fit the r710, the cables were too short. I said no, I didn't know that, he never put it in the description... so yea, canceled that order. The new card and proper cables should be here this coming monday.

Second item was 2 drive trays. The server was shipped with some damage. The mounting ears were damaged and the two drive blanks were damaged. I sent a message to them and they agreed to a $30 refund. Just enough to pay for the new drive trays (and a little more lol). These will allow me to fill out the front of the server with drives. Yes, we are going to have some storage space which is going to be NICE!

Next item is RAM. 4GB is enough to turn the server on, but not much more than that. So we ordered 48GB of RAM. This will get us started. It is 6 sticks of 8GB and with a total of 18 RAM slots, I have room for expansion lol. I can put a total of 144GB in this server (that is all it can handle) and eventually I will have it full up. eventually...

This server was also shipped without the shroud that goes over the CPU's and RAM. This is important if you are going to run this server hard so with the refund on the server from the damage, not only did I order those drive trays, but I also ordered the shroud so that the fans can blow directly over the RAM and the CPU's to keep them nice and cool.

Speaking of the fans, this one, being a single quad core CPU server, had one fan missing and had a blank put in its place. So I ordered that fan. It's just a drop in replacement and I can put it in at any time since it's orange (hot swappable). For those that don't know, that means you can unplug and plug them in while the server is running and nothing will happen. Well, I received the box today that was supposed to have the fan in it, but I opened up the box and what I found was NOT a fan. It was a NIC lmao. A single port NIC. I sent a message to them and they are shipping me out a new one on Monday. So I get a free NIC out of this deal lol.

Speaking of NIC's, we also ordered a 4 port Intel Gigabit NIC for the new pfSense server that is going to be housed in a VM on this server. Yea, a bit of overkill for a router, but hey, I'm tired of replacing them hahaha.

The next item we are upgrading is the CPU's. Or well, CPU (singular). It has a single quad core HT CPU. That is 4 cores 8 threads. It will get me by for a while, but I know I'm going to over work it eventually. So I ordered two 6 core 12 thread X5660 Xeons. Yea, I think this will work for this sever lol.

Since it only had a single CPU, I had to order a new cooler for the second CPU. This is self explanatory, it cools the other chip, so I ordered it.

The final thing that I ordered for this server was an iDRAC which stands for Integrated Dell Remote Access Card. I ordered the enterprise edition that has a port that comes out the back. For $7, I figured it was a good purchase if I can figure out how to use it. It does have a "Management" port in the Riser 2 card, but I can't get it to connect. I would rather have one that is made for the board and has a dedicated plug on the MOBO. This iDRAC allows you to adjust settings and whatnot while the server is off, on, in sleep mode, whenever. It will be fun to play with anyway.

This server also came with dual PSU's even though I will only be using one. I will not be pulling a lot of power from this server, and these PSU's work way more efficient at higher loads. So taking one out will put all of the load on one PSU so the efficiency of the PSU will be higher than a dual unit. In Theory anyway lol.

So at this time, that is where we are at with the server build. I have been wanting one of these servers just for these reasons for a few years now, and now I have one. It will definitely be put to good use. And thanks again to @Delininja for allowing me to actually do this! Dude is a legend!!!
 

murankar

Staff member
This server is about to power a small company. That's a ton of sever for you. I doubt you'll max it out any time soon. The only thing that you might out grow is the memory and defiantly the storage . Especially if you start to host your own videos.
 

Tony

Staff member
You are right, it is a lot of server for what I'm doing. But you did have one thing wrong, I can max this server out if I wanted to lol. I have this little surveillance system called ZoneMinder that likes to hog resources. Pair that with my cameras and yup, I could peg every needle on this thing.

Memory is definitely the first thing that I will be looking to upgrade. I will have 6 sticks tomorrow, but it will hold 18. I will have 48gb, but it will hold 144gb. It's always good to have more than you need. CPU, I just found the x5690 and it looks pretty sweet. Might test out an x5675, not sure yet. For now though, I have this X5660 which will do the job great.

As for drive space, I can upgrade that at any time, and when I do outgrow what I can do here, can you say JBOD? hehe.

As for hosting videos, never going to happen.
 

murankar

Staff member
Adding security can be a bit of a strain. Hell I can peg out your server if I wanted to.

Can't to see how this turns out
 

Tony

Staff member
Yea, the security is where pfSense is going to come into play. One thing I'm going to have to learn is how to assign ports on the NIC and how to tell them where to go and when. Still confusing to me, but I have never done it so... It will be fun.
 

Tony

Staff member
It's always something. I will get everything today except for the raid card cables. Without those, I can do NOTHING.
 

Tony

Staff member
And the RAM, Cooling Shroud, iDRAC and H700 RAID Card are all here. No friggin cables.... This is being stretched out as far as it possibly can!!!!!!
 

Tony

Staff member
I could start mounting everything, but I was going to do it on a live stream since this was purchased from "the people". I have installed the drive cages, but that's it. The rest is sitting here waiting on those damn cables to show up....
 

Tony

Staff member
Oh, just checked shipping and it shows it has arrived at my local post office that delivers to my house. So, everything going as planned, I should have them today and be able to do a stream tonight setting it up. That is, IF I can get this office put back together.
 

Tony

Staff member
Well I have gone and done it now.... Found a good deal on a Xeon X5675 6 core 12 thread @3.06ghz for $30 shipped. These chips are known to overclock on air to over 4.0ghz. I am going to be installing this into my old clapped out computer (i7 960) in hopes I can get a couple more years out of it.

I have been looking at some bench marks on this little upgrade, and what I'm seeing is quite positive. 4.0ghz at about 65c and it doubles the cinebench score on a bad chip. On a good chip you are looking at something like double plus some.

so why am I doing this? Because it's better in almost every possible way. I was going to do this with a table to compare side by side, but the formatting was off so we will do this the old fashioned way.

The i7 960 is a 45nm process running at 3.2ghz. It is a 4 core 8 thread CPU. It has a max boost frequency of 3.46ghz. it has 8MB of Cache and has a TDP of 130 watts. I have successfully overclocked this chip to over 4.0ghz, but because I was on air, it was pretty hot. I'm on water now, but with what I do (video editing, live streaming...), I actually need the extra cores more than I need the higher base clock. Max memory for this chip is 24GB and the max voltage is 1.375v

The Xeon X5675 is a 35nm process (will run cooler in most cases) running a base clock of 3.06ghz. It's a little lower than the i7 960, but it has a boost clock of 3.46ghz, exactly the same as the 960! It is a 6 core 12 thread CPU, so that boost clock will completely destroy the 960 even without over clocking! The X5675 has 12MB of Cache and a TDP of 95 watts. This means it will run cooler, faster, and with less energy than the 960! Max memory for this chip is 288GB (yea, that's right lmao) but does have a lower max voltage at 1.350v.

I know a lot of you will not understand this (Randy excluded lmao) but in a nutshell, the Xeon is going to boost to the same frequency as the 960, but do it on 2 more cores and 4 more threads. I can over clock the Xeon to almost double the performance of the 960 and if I want to install more memory, I can.

Is this the intended use of the Xeon X5675 CPU? Absolutely not. It is made for a work station, not a computer that is constantly booted up and down every day. Not a computer that just does general tasks. But when I need the power, When I need that reliability, it will be there. And for $30, I think this is going to be one hell of an upgrade. Pair that with the new server and I should have one kick ass network going on here lol.
 

Tony

Staff member
So.... Last night was a very long night with this server. We did live stream it on Twitch (Twitch) but it's not worth watching. Something is wrong with my desktop computer and it is causing streamlabs to go nuts and max out the CPU, which in turn makes the video buffer and freeze. I ended up having to restart it a couple times last night.

So on to the server debacle.... We worked on this thing for HOURS!!! The issue we are having is this server has a BIOS version of 0.0.1 and from what we have found, there is no way to actually update this server because there are NO files that old. You have to do this in steps. And we tried every step!

Today is another day though, and rdsok found a file that might just work. I'm waiting for the live stream to make the file and see if we can get it to work.
 

Tony

Staff member
After fighting with this thing for a bit (over a day lol), I finally got it working. Ended up having to create a DOS bootable drive and putting an EXE file on it. But, when running that EXE file, it would fail. Why did it fail? Because the BIOS that was on the server was a CUSTOM BIOS!!! That is why it had the version 0.0.1. So I ended up having to do a /forcewrite or something like that in order to force it to take a new firmware. Annoying as hell! But, I was able to update it from 0.0.1 to 6.1.0. Then, I was able to normally update it from 6.1.0 to 6.6.0.

Once I had the BIOS updated, I stuck the new CPU in the server. You know, the ENTIRE reason for updating the BIOS... And yea, it worked lol. No boot looping, it just worked.

I did try to put the second CPU in the server, but it sent a request for the 5th fan, that is missing, to turn on so it tossed an error. I decided to just remove the CPU and leave it out. If I need it, I have it. If the current one dies, I can replace it with one on hand.

So the server is up and running. It is pulling 133-140 watts of power at idle. I have not stress tested it yet though.

Oh, and I did reach out to the company that sold me the server and told them about all of the issues. They offered a full refund IF I would sent just the drives back (4 450GB SAS Drives). With what all is wrong with this thing, I think I might just take it. Because this has been a nightmare to get up and running.
 

RandyDSok

Well-Known Member
Seeing the BIOS update, despite the slight on edge feeling of needing to force it, was a big relief. Needing the server management updates ( iDrac and others ) are my next concern, primarily that they mention needing prerequisites but didn't take the time to actually list them, forcing you to try to update in order to find out what they even are.
 

Tony

Staff member
Well, I did update the iDRAC in the first stream. But it is missing some features. Could be because this is a v1 720, I'm not sure. I don't even know if it is a v1 to be honest, don't know the difference. And now that the BIOS is updated, there is really no reason to use the iDRAC other than to power on and off the system remotely. Mainly powering it on like I just did in fact lol.

The server is out of the office and is in my "server closet". I REALLY NEED A RACK!!!!!!!!! Two Dell servers, Two 48 port switches, they take up a LOT of room in that little closet. Would be nice to have them in a RACK!! lmao.
 

RandyDSok

Well-Known Member
I can see there are other things of higher priority ( since you plan to use them ) that can be addressed now. Things like the pFsense, Zoneminder setup/config, a restream server come to mind since they've been mentioned. The iDrac wouldn't be my priority at this time although I do consider it important since it's going to always running in the background despite you only using it for a few of it's features. My primary concern with it has to do mostly with bug fixes and security updates... although having access to new features is usually a good thing also.

As for the server rack... no real suggestions there since buying new is cost prohibitive. Robert just kept his ears open and eyes on the reseller sites ( eBay, Craigslist etc ) and eventually found one that someone was upgrading from.
 

Tony

Staff member
There are other things I use the iDRAC for. One major one is looking at power usage. Not only does it tell me the wattage that it is currently pulling, but it also tells me the kwh that the server has used. This is a great way for me to keep track of what it is costing me every hour/day/week/month.... Awesome feature.

pfSense: This is proving to be a little more complicated than I thought. I have installed it, I have played with it, I have setup the wan and lan ports as well as ports that pipe directly to the server (so the server has internet) as well as to the iDRAC, all from one card. Will it stay this way? Absolutely not, I can use those other ports for better things, and that is why I have a 48 port switch lol. But it was fun. It's the security that I'm worried about. There are a TON of articles, blogs and videos out there on what to do, I just need to set down and watch them.

ZoneMinder: I worked on that thing for hours tonight and yea, there has to be a better solution. I'm looking into it, but it is not at the top of the priority list, yet.

The RCH Backup Server is a high priority, I just need to figure out how to do it. The setup is pretty much install CentOS and call my buddy to write his code to it. The hard part is working around this damn dynamic IP address. Most servers don't like going to a URL, they want IP addresses. And unless I want to pay $20/mo just for a static IP, I will have to keep looking.

My Plex server is doing awesome though lol. I'm watching it right now and the CPU is not going over 7% lol. 4% utilization on the memory.

Just wish I had a way to run this thing a little cheaper lol.
 

Tony

Staff member
Just put a real load on it from Plex, 50% and it's pulling 161 watts. 30 watts to run Plex with heavy encoding. Not too shabby.
 

Tony

Staff member
Alright, so one thing that Randy is worried about is updating the iDRAC (integrated Dell Remote Access Controller). I said I didn't really care about that, but in reality, I do lol. So when I woke up this morning, I fired up the iDRAC and looked at the version. 2.92 which came out Jan 31 2019. That is what I have on the server, er, iDRAC. So I think I have the most up to date iDRAC that I can get, but it still doesn't have the functionality that I want on it. Maybe I need a different one to get what I want out of it.... I have the iDRAC6 Enterprise if anyone wants to look. It has to go into a Dell R710 server and it needs to be the Enterprise edition since I don't want to port it through an onboard LAN port.
 

Tony

Staff member
Further research shows, in order to get that one menu that I was looking for within the iDRAC, I would need the iDRAC7, I have the 6. so I'm basically facing into the wind and I have had too much coffee..... If you get my analogy.

As for installing the "Lifecycle Controller" onto the server, well I'm not in a much better boat there either. I have unRaid installed and below is a list of supported OS's. Yea, not looking good for me.....

  • Windows Server 2003 x64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Red Hat Ent Linux 4
  • Red Hat Ent Linux 4.6
  • Red Hat Ent Virtual3
  • Red Hat Linux 6.2
  • Sun Solaris
  • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Suse Linux ES 10
  • VMware ESX 4.0
  • Novell SuSE Linux ES 11
  • Citrix XenServer 6.2
  • Citrix XenServer 5.6
  • Red Hat Ent Linux 5.2
  • VMware ESXi 6.0
  • Red Hat Ent Linux 4.5
  • VMware ESX 4.1
  • VMware ESX
  • Novell SuSE Linux ES 10
  • BIOS
  • VMware ESXi 5.1
  • VMware ESXi 3.5
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Red Hat Ent Linux 4.7
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • VMware ESXi 4.0
  • VMware ESXi 4.1
  • Windows Server 2012
  • Citrix XenServer 6.0
  • Citrix XenServer 6.1
  • VMware ESXi 5.0
  • Windows Server 2008 x64
  • SUSE Linux ES 12
  • Citrix XenServer 5
  • Citrix XenServer 6.5
  • VMware ESX 3.5
  • VMware ESXi 5.5
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5
  • Red Hat Ent Linux 5
  • Windows Server 2008 x86
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Red Hat Linux 7.0
 
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