[HamWAN PSDR] Any suggestions for a good shallow-depth server?

[Jeff Francis™]

  Over the years, I've bought several very shallow servers from Weird Stuff
in the Bay Area.  Haven't been in there in a few months, but they're kind
of the "dumping grounds" for Bay Area tech companies that are either
growing or have gone bankrupt.  Always great deals on routers, servers,
switches, etc.  Might be worth a visit to the web site or a call (or better
yet, spend an afternoon wandering around in person).


On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 1:32 AM, Bart Kus <me at bartk.us> wrote:

>  Hi Scott & Bryan,
>
> The list of Supermicro model #s always makes my head spin.  :)  Not a bad
> suggestion though.  Perhaps I should study their tome of models.  That
> RAID, BTW, is "fakeraid".  But I do like the integrated IPMI and support
> for more modern CPUs.  Then again, I suspect after it's fully stocked with
> hardware (CPU, RAM, HDs) I'm gonna be back to a $700 DL320e type of box.
>
> After I wrote this email, I realized that the KVM with virtual media is
> actually more important than RAID.  If a drive fails, you can KVM in and
> configure the BIOS to disable the drive and re-install whatever you need at
> that site onto the next drive that's working.  Still doesn't help when a
> single sector goes bad though.  You still lose/corrupt data then.
>
> Thanks for the tips though,
>
> --Bart
>
>
>
> On 5/26/2015 12:17 AM, Scott Honaker wrote:
>
> SuperMicro has a series of small servers with RAID and IPMI support.  I
> have a couple of them running at DEM with solid state drives.  Here's an
> example.
>
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101384&cm_re=1u_barebones_server-_-16-101-384-_-Product
>
>  Scott N7SS
>
> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 11:53 PM, Bart Kus <me at bartk.us> wrote:
>
>>  Hi all,
>>
>> I've been trying to get my grubby little hands on a server for East
>> Tiger.  The physical layout of that site demands we use a shallow depth
>> (1/2 depth) server.  There are surprisingly few servers out there that are
>> both shallow and offer some kind of hardware RAID and KVM control with
>> virtual media.  I've identified a couple:
>>
>>    1. Dell R210 ii
>>       - 1U
>>       - 1CPU (E3-12##v2 series)
>>        - Max 32GB RAM
>>       - 2HD (non-hot-swap)
>>       - Stock H200 RAID controller is poopy (no BBWC/FBWC, no option to
>>       enable HD write cache), but it can take an H700 controller.
>>        - KVM not typically installed, but inexpensive DRAC6 cards
>>       available ($15)
>>       - Kind of expensive for what it is
>>        2. HP DL320e G8
>>       - 1U
>>     - 1CPU (E3-12##v2 series)
>>         - Max 32GB RAM
>>     - 2-4HD depending on chassis (hot-swap)
>>     - Stock B210i RAID controller is poopy (no BBWC/FBWC), but it can
>>       take a P222 controller.
>>         - KVM via iLO4 integrated standard
>>     - Expensive
>>
>> Given the timing, I've gonna deploy a server I have in stock, but it's
>> really awful:
>>
>>    1. Rackable based on Intel S5000PSL motherboard
>>       - 2U
>>       - 2CPU (really old Xeon 5148)
>>       - 16GB RAM installed (32GB max, FBDIMM required)
>>       - 4HD (hot swap)
>>       - NO RAID controller, and no room in the chassis to install one
>>       either.
>>        - NO KVM (there is an add-on, but it's $170.  It may or may not
>>       fit the chassis.)
>>       - "Free!" since it's in my inventory and I'm trying to either sell
>>       the servers off or put them to good use.
>>
>> Since this is going up on a mountain top inaccessible for 1/2 the year,
>> it's really nice to have the KVM ability in case something goes wrong or
>> you need to do troubleshooting (just had to use KVM today to work on some
>> of our ESXi hosts), and the RAID is nice in case a drive dies or develops a
>> bad sector.
>>
>> Anyway, do any of you have any suggestions for any other small servers I
>> may not have considered yet?
>>
>> --Bart
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
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-- 
-=jeff=-
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