Dell PowerEdge 6600

[bored4long]

I saw this on CraigsList for a good price and was wondering if it would work for unRaid. Please let me know if it is worth buy for $125 as my server.

 

Power looks to be overkill. Would I be able to pull some of the CPUs, Memory, and PSUs to reduce power consumption? I wouldn't use the raid card (obviously) or the backplane.

 

Intel CPU: Quad XEON MP 1.6GHz 1MB Cache

RAM: 8GB of ECC DDR Memory

Floppy: 1.44 Floppy Drive

CD-ROM

Hard Drive: 8 x 36GB 10K SCSI Hot Swap Hard Drives

Backplane: 1 x 8 Bay 80Pin SCSI Hot Swap

RAID: PERC3 onboard RAID w/128MB of Cache

NIC: Integrated 10/100/1000 NIC

Software: No Software is included

Power Supply: 3 x Redundant Power Supplies

[Rajahal]

While $125 is a good price, I really don't see a lot of point to this hardware in an unRAID environment.

 

1) The SCSI hard drives are small, power hungry, and will be expensive to replace.

 

2) The only way to get SATA drives to work with this would be by using the 10 PCI-X slots or single PCI slot.  Both are older, depreciated technology.  With the right SATA controller cards it should work, but I'm always against putting money into older technology when there are cheaper, newer options available.

 

3) As you said, the CPU, RAM, and PSUs are way overkill for unRAID.  While you could likely reduce it down to one of each, there's no guarantee that the motherboard will allow it.

 

I vote no on this hardware.  While it is cheap, you will end up spending a lot more money and potential headache on getting this all to work with unRAID in an acceptable fashion.  Put that $125 towards more modern hardware and you'll be happier in the long run.

[bored4long]

Thanks for the quick reply!

 

What about scrapping all the guts (maybe part out on ebay) and using the case with my current micro-ATX mobo, hard drives and psu. Possible? I was hoping it could be a cheap alternative to the Norco 4020...

[lionelhutz]

I don't believe you would be able to use the hot-swap bays at all on that enclosure since they are SCSI and not SATA.

 

You can put together all new hardware for a basic 6 to 8 drive server for about $300 excluding hot-swap bays.

 

So, I too would vote no for that hardware unless the hot swap bays could be used with SATA drives which might make the enclosure useful.

 

Peter

[Rajahal]

Agreed, too much trouble for not enough reward.  Tell us what you have already and we can offer you some better upgrade paths.

[bored4long]

I'm not looking to upgrade my hardware. I just like the case. Eventually I will want a better mobo if I exceed the drive capacity of my current mobo. But I think 10GB data will hold me over for a while.

 

Current setup:

Biostar TA880GB+ mobo (GigE, DDR3, 6 onboard Sata)

Semprom 140E

2GB RAM

Hitatchi 7200 rpm 2TB parity

2x Seagate 5900 rpm 2TB data

Corsair 430 watt PSU

Antec Sonata 2 case

 

I was thinking it would be fun to yank everything out of the 6600 rackmount case, and put my equipment in. I have a dremel.

[lionelhutz]

Well, if you think it'd be fun and unique and you want to do it then go for it.

 

I've spent extra cash on something just because it was cooler than other similar things or just because I wanted it. For example, I spent more than I needed on my mini-ITX HTPC build and did some slight customizing to the case but it works really well for me and it's very quiet (only 1 x 120mm Scythe fan in there).

 

Peter

[Rajahal]

If this is a fun garage project, then have at it, and post pics!

 

If you want a new case that will be reliable and easy to implement, then this is definitely NOT the way to go.