I needed a new DAS shelf and came across a free Dell MD1200 with cables and caddies. In the process, they also gave me a PowerEdge R720. I already have UNRAID in a current system that works fine, just needed more room. The free hardware made me think I should maybe switch over and use the other hardware elsewhere.

PowerEdge R720 specs:

CPU: DUAL Intel Xeon E5-2665 2.40GHz, 20 M Cache, 8.0GT/s QPI, Turbo, 8 C, 115W, Max Mem 1600MHz

RAM: 4x8GB RDIMM, 1600 MT/s, Standard Volt, Dual Rank

PERC H710P Integrated RAID Controller, 1GB NV Cache

PERC H810 RAID Adapter for External JBOD, 1Gb NV Cache

8 hot swap bays – 2 caddies

Intel Ethernet I350 QP 1Gb Network Daughter Card + 4 port card

Risers with up to 6, x8 PCIe S lots + 1, x16 PCIe Slot

 

Current UNRAID:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 8core @ 3700 MHZ

Ram: 32GB

Motherboard: MSI Gaming x470 PLUS

GPU: GT 710 2GB

SAS Expander: SAS9211-8i

4 Port Gig NIC

 

Dockers used:

Embyserver – 6-7 concurrent streams are typical

Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, Ombi, DelugeVPN, Sabnzbd, PhotoPrism

HomeAssistant, Omada Controller, Krusader

Future: VaultWarden

 

I would need to add either a SAS-HBA with external ports or Dual Mini SAS SFF-8088 to SFF-8087 Adapter to make the MD1200 connect to the current UNRAID. If it wouldn’t make a difference or I would see less performance, I will stick to the current setup. If so, any other suggestions for the free hardware?

On 7/26/2023 at 10:46 AM, BigIron said:

Intel Ethernet I350 QP 1Gb Network Daughter Card

 

Wow, it's been ages since I heard of a daughter card.  Had one in my old 386.

 

I'm always worried about switching from one system to another without some kind of backup in place.  What I mean is that I would do one of the three following things with #1 being preferred and then #2 and finally #3 as a last resort.

1. Buy some new hard drives and build a new system.  Copy the data from one to the other so that you have two identical systems (from a data perspective).
   1. Use syncthing to keep both systems in sync.
   2. Or use Duplicati or Vorta to use one system as a backup for the other.
2. Buy a couple new hard drives and build a new system.  Copy the data from the old system to the new one.  When a hard drive becomes empty in the old system (because the data was copied to the new system) then add it to the new system so that you have more space.  Gradually all the data will "move" from the old to the new but everything will be protected by the parity drives.
3. Unplug the unRAID USB from the old system along with the hard drives and plug those things into the new system.  Away you go.  Your new system will start up with the same settings (and hard drive mapping) as the old system.