Unraid on DELLR510


Lance1979

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Hello Everyone: 

 

Lance Here, 

 

 I finally got it set-up and running, Unraid on an DELLR510 Server. (LOVING IT!!)

Set-up: Two Evo 850 SSD for Cache(RAID 0), 6 WD Reds 8gbits for storage(RAID 5), all running through an PERC H700 (512mbits of Cache) 

2x Intel® Xeon® CPU X5650 @ 2.67GHz, 16gbits of DDR3 ECC (Max 128GB) 

 

Mostly used for Plex, but would like to add some VMs. (tired of having so many computers in my home, LOL) Thinking of adding an SATA expansion card to run my 2x SSD internally, to open up the last two hot swap bays. 

 

Would like your thoughts, and ideas. 

 

Thank you.

 

PS: B4 the Upgrade of the PERC H700

IMG_20180227_213052.jpg

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Heyas Lance,

 

Fellow Dell Server user here (T310). Looks like a nice big data rig. Is it a 8 bay or 12 bay server?

 

And let me know how the PERC H700 works for you. I decided to move to a PERC H200 (reflashed to 9211 IT Mode) so I could let unRAID build my array, have it be covered with an unRAID parity drive - and use the SMART (drive) status data to monitor my drives (example the drive temps show up in the dashboard). When I first did the unRAID build, I had all the drives be RAID 0 on the H700, then let unRAID build the array. But I realized (with some help) that if I lost a drive, it would also be a lot easier to rebuild the entire data drive array with unRAID with the H200 in IT mode, than to have to remove the drive from the H700 RAID array (you might want to read up on how to do that) and then add the new one back into the array. Doable, but not as easy as it might first appear.

 

And you know you could also run the SSD SATA drives off the PERC H700 or 200 too, although in hindsight, I'd probably want to use a couple of NVME drives on a PCIe card. (Looks like you have three slots on the riser, I have four on my motherboard). Also if you mount the SSD drives internally, do you have any molex or SATA power cords that are unused? If not, that can be an issue with Dell Servers too. They were very "thrifty" with power internally on their servers. Wait... what about the two internal SATA drive slots that the R510 is supposed to already have?! (See figure 3-2 on page 85 of the manual at https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_ser_stor_net/esuprt_poweredge/poweredge-r510_owner's manual_en-us.pdf  and you'll see there is another way to mount two internal drives in the internal bay-array)

 

Speaking of that riser - Are you going to add a graphics card for video pass-throughs on your VMs? (And do you think you want to game on this system?)  If so, look through my thread on "My Tower" - as Dell does some power limiting in their servers that can affect which video cards you might want to consider - if you haven't already. The riser PCIe slots look to be X4's, and if so - any card will be limited to about 25 watts, which will make it hard to find any kind of "gamer" graphics card. (You can see my headaches I am going through at present in this regard)

 

If you have a H700 in slot one on the riser (maybe not, as it looks like it's in it's own slot on the R510 - lucky!), and a graphics card for passthrough (like I am doing) then you might be down to your last card slot for a sata/NVME card holder... just a thought to consider. Power inside my T310 is limited (just 400 watts), and I don't have any PCIe power cords for video cards - so that means I am on a real power budget. In the end, I pulled my optical (CD) drive and the tape drive that was installed and used the molex power for additional hard drives.

 

Anyway, sounds like you've got fun ahead of you... I enjoy unRAID on my Dell Server. I couldn't beat the price or nature of the beast.

 

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Nice I have 2 Dell servers now R410 - R710 what I did was replace the CD drive with a $10 SSD insert albeit it's sata 2 still gives me the one additional drive for my cache I also ditched the PERC controller for a IT flashed HBA so SMART will pass-through to unRAID A word to the wise the R410 is not quiet by any means the R710 has a very acceptable sound level. I did some research you may be able to change that riser out for a single x16 slot those on your board appear to be x8 like my R710 or you could cut the back out of one of those x8 slots to allow a low power x16 card to be installed I've read that the PERC slot is proprietary and does not accept other cards i.e. video or add in drive cards but I have not personally tried it

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  • 3 months later...

Congrats on your R510! You're gonna have loads of unRAID FUN with it!

Concur with rollieindc: "couldn't beat the price or nature of the beast".

 

Concur with rollieindc: better to swap out H700 with H200 flashed to IR or IT mode.  H700 is HW RAID only.  Not good to have 2 RAID masters (HW RAID & unRAID) controlling same storage at the same time.  Can work but masters will inevitably fight when drive changes occur.  Based on your picture, you'll also need to swap out SAS cables with something like this: Mini SAS 36Pin SFF-8087 to 36Pin SFF-8087 SAS Data Internal Server Cable (length appropriate to your application).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2pcs-Mini-SAS-36Pin-SFF-8087-to-36Pin-SFF-8087-SAS-Data-Internal-Server-Cable-1M/183819517021?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649


NVMe SSD for spare PCIe slot (SOLVED):

 

VM, Compute, Gaming Graphics (SOLVED😞

 

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