Is DELL PERC H310 ok? And other upgrade dilemma

[Vivent]

Long story short, I need to replace two disks, one of which is starting to fail and the other is not mine. I thought my server could use a little bit of an upgrade anyway. I'll split this post into 3 topics, for each of which I have a solution. I just want to get some feedback from more experienced users.

 

Current Server:

• i5 6600 on H170 with 16GB RAM
• HDDs: 2x4TB Seagate Terascale, 1x4TB Hitachi HGST, 1x1TB Samsung 2.5"
• SSD: 256GB Hynix (M.2 from laptop)

 

1. Storage:

For disks, I plan to buy IronWolf drives. Two 8TB for parity and two 4TB to replace the old disks. I would also like to organize my drives a little bit, so I thought to plug the HDDs into an HBA/RAID controller and the SSDs (of which I have one for now) into the MOBO. I tried to research controllers a little bit (just one day), and for now I found it a little bit confusing. However, I found one video where a guy said something that HBA is pretty much equal to IT mode, so I found an offer on a DELL PERC H310 (03P0R3) with a note in the description that "it has been flashed to work as HBA controller". Does that mean it should work out of the box? I'm planning on buying two of these.

 

2. Case:

As for the case, my question is kind of silly. I'm moving to a new place where I don't really have a place for a server, so it will stay in my bedroom (I don't mind the noise). I found a really nice rack shelf/table (19'') in an audio store, but it doesn't have a place for rails. My question is: Do you think I can mount the case with front screws only, or should I get a proper rack cabinet? I'm thinking about this because this "audio rack" looks like actual furniture.

 

3. Power Supply:

Currently, I have a SilentiumPC Vero M2 600W (Bronze). It has 49A available on the 12V rail (single). Will it be sufficient for 5 HDDs (with plans to make it up to 10) and a few (2-3) SSDs? Regardless, I plan to upgrade it to something like SeaSonic SSR-750PX, but if it would be possible to postpone it, then it would save me some budget now.

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, Vivent said:

DELL PERC H310

I have one of these flashed to IT mode and it works great in my Unraid server. 

 

1 hour ago, Vivent said:

"it has been flashed to work as HBA controller"

Yes, that should mean it is in IT mode.  The PERC H310 is an LSI 9211-8i clone and is normally a RAID controller but IT firmware turns it into an HBA card.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Hoopster

[Vivent]

Thank you for such a quick response 😊. As this was my biggest dilemma, I'll mark your response as the solution.

 

But if anyone can answer my second and third questions, I would be grateful 😉

[Hoopster]

On 4/16/2023 at 5:00 PM, Vivent said:

Currently, I have a SilentiumPC Vero M2 600W (Bronze). It has 49A available on the 12V rail (single).

Should be fine for 10+ HDDs/SSDs depending on other components in your server. 

 

I have a 600W SFX power supply in my server currently; 50A on single 12V rail.  Right how it is happily powering 6 HDDs, 3 SATA SSDs, one NVMe M.2 SSD, and the Dell H310 with plenty of power to spare.  My CPU has an iGPU so no separate GPU is in the server.  My backup server is similarly configured and has a 450W power supply

 

Look at your hard drive active and idle power specs.  I use 8TB Western DIgital NAS drives and they use 7-8W in active read/write, ~5W when idle and <1W when sleeping. Peak usage they require about 1.8 Amps.  My case has an 8 HDD and 4 SSD capacity and I am sure I would have no problem powering everything at capacity with a 600W PSU.

 

On 4/16/2023 at 5:00 PM, Vivent said:

I found a really nice rack shelf/table (19'') in an audio store, but it doesn't have a place for rails.

Is there some way to fashion a shelf in the rack for the server to sit on?  HDDs are heavy and you plan to add more.  I would personally not trust it could be supported long term by just the front screws.

Edited April 18, 2023 by Hoopster