I gotta tell you, I'm as dumb as a rock on these yet I have 9 Compaq units, 3 are 1850R, 6 are DL380. My intention is to utilize them for data storage, backups, and gaming. On the DL380s, it has four 18.2-GB Ultra3 hot drives, data tape, floppy, and disc on each unit. The 1850s are the ones I'll likely start with though, I just need to make sure I get the right drives. There are different speeds on these, 7200, 10k and 15k and am wondering if the higher speed units are more desireable than the lower ones. I'm pretty sure I have what I need to set up a rack for myself once I get the hard drives figured out, purchased and installed. I'll do what I can to crash educate myself, but there's what will doubtlessly be classified as stupid questions I'll have through this. Any help would be appreciated. I'll take some pics, and put them up later today.
Higher speed is definitely more desirable than lower speed for hard drives, but if you're planning on RAID 1, 0+1, 3, or 5 (I think) matched but slower is preferable to unmatched but faster, ie 2 7200 RPM drives (preferably the same model) is better than a 10k and a 15k RPM drive.
From my very limited but quickly growing knowledge, RAID is the way they are intended to be set up having contained multiple SCSI drives and I'm working through understanding the concept and applications. The racks have three servers per, four drives per server and my intent is to eventually run all three for maximum performance and storage capability. My intent is to match all drives not only in the speed department but manufacturer as well for reliability and to keep the problems down. Cost is playing into it, I can find 7200s for 48 bucks up. 15k units are running from 108 plus. The white set (top and bottom) is the one I'm starting with. From what I've gathered thusfar, it's a gen1. The second is one of the DL380s, but I haven't figured out which gen it is yet, and from what I've gathered thus far it'll be important to know for software/hardware purposes. I put the 18.2G cages in the 1850R (white) just to see if they fit. The cages I have are for the DL380 and am uncertian of which drives go in the 1850, though I did find where a configuration of 4 can be used with a Ultra2 as opposed to a Ultra3. I'll get the pics of the DL380 set today when I go to the shop, I unloaded that one and the other "parts" set there. It may well be prefferable for my intentions here being newer but I haven't nailed that down yet. I haven't powered them up yet. If I understand correctly, it's best not to with no drives in place.
Ok, so for post 6667, I find myself waiting patiently for the FedEx man to bring me the four 15k drives I picked up on eBay. So I'm abandoning the 1850R rack as a plant holder for now and spending the money and time on the DL380 G2s. Out of the six I have, four appear identical inside at a glance including the memory. The other two the only difference I see thusfar is the main power buttons, (converse instead of concave), and the ID label on the front of them is a bit different. Likely these are later or earlier models in the G2 line, I don't know. I found out how to ID the production dates earlier today on them, but haven't sat down and done it yet. Three are in a rack already wired up and the other three are loose. I'd like to mount them in the rack with the others but the screw holes have a square cut out for guide placement only for the three. Though it's aluminum it'd be such a pain in the ass to try to cut a clean square without a punch of some sort, hydraulic or even screw type neither of which I own. I refuse to half ass these. The drives I bought are used and just something to fire them up and test them, as well as I can without an OS. I'm looking into what to install to make it do what I'm looking to do. Windows seems to run circles around Red Hat from what I've read but hell, I'm sure it'd work well enough for the price. From what I've gathered x64 has moved into the spotlight for graphics and 3D work. On one hand I found where it would run on it but in another it seemed to say it wouldn't. I need a set for gaming work, the kid seems to think she may be interested in design work. AutoCad is another area of intrest to me. Maybe a PDF that loads faster. Etc. The drives are clean, so any input on what to put on 'em would be appreciated. There's so much crap that you can't uninstall I need to make a plan. [action=Wayno]cues elevator music...[/action] Questions.... Can I get a standard issue XP to run on it or does it have to be serverware? Windows Server 2003 ok if not? Contemplating Vista but it looks a little buggy yet for me. Whispers are there of the next OS already. These are set up for 18.2G drives set up with SCSI/RAID, what would putting larger drives in it, like a 36, or larger yet? Would it be a usable advantage given the system was sent with 18.2? Are they just upgrades? Are drives set to specific tasks, mail, programs, storage or does it matter since they're being formatted? Part number differences on a case that is identical to another has to mean something more than I'm finding. Ah hell, I have more, but need to get them in and flip a switch first. I'm doing all I can to absorb. *frazzle*
How many people are using these servers Wayno? SCSI drives probably aren't going to be faster (even at 15K) than 10k 150gb raptors or even 7.2k perpidicular drives, unless you truly have "server like accesses"... meaning a LOT of users.
Just the household thusfar, but it may change in the future to where I am hosting for family/friends outside of the abode. My main concern is redundant data backup while learning about what makes it all tick. Really more of an educational experence at this point. Lord knows there's a long way to go in that department. I'm studying whatever data I can find about operations, limitations, variations, and abilities for these things. I'm hoping to avoid any slowdown or hit as the article describes to the performance in this endevor. I'm also looking to setting them up as just plain old redundant PCs networked with specific data on specific machines, ie, gaming on one, movies on another, music, household operations like lights, HVAC, water consumption, running solar sets, camera operations, and a few other things. Not sure where it'll end up yet, I need to get them fired up and see what my options are. The system is already SCSI ready so that's pretty much why I'm running with that ball. It was set up with 15k drives so I saw it as that's what it's set up for so why not use them. With the exception of a couple of semesters in PC repair a few years back I didn't get much schooling to learn all of the nuances, it's just a toy so far, unless I get good enough to make something financial work out of it which would be a plus. Media handling is one area I'm shooting for, transcribing from one data source to another like pics and family movies made to disc or VCR. As I progress I hope to learn, that's the goal more than anything at the moment. As I learn my options, I want to make the experence fun and share it with the kid. I've never dealt with servers outside of being a client. Gotta start somewhere.
Unless you're getting Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat no longer exists. It's designated successor is Fedora Core, currently at release 5, IIRC. If you're going to do hosting for anyone who's not a Windows server guru, spare them some pain and put some flavor of Linux on there. AutoCAD is Windows-only, but you don't need a server for it. Some flavor of Linux; I'd go with FC5. Only in Windows XP will probably work. WinServ2k3 is one of the better Windows variants. Don't do Vista. Just upgrades You can do that, but you don't need to if you don't want to. Heh.
Ok, drives are in unit one, I fire it up and it works. Put the drives in another one and it wouldn't fire up completely, an evident DOA at the moment. I put them in the third set and it fires up. ROM-Based Setup Utility, Version 2.00 C.2002 The first unit was set up for nt4.0, unit 3 is set up for Windows 2000. The option is there to change it. I'm psudo indecisive on a course of action, though Win2k3 will likely be the choice when it's done. It's looking for a boot disc, of which I don't have of course. I set up a logic drive and set the array at RAID 5 on these discs. *sigh* Back to the web for more input.... [action=Wayno]goes into Johnny 2.6 mode, Johnny Five's retarded cousin...[/action]
Some of the older boxes had specific manufacturer OEM installation disks that was hard coded in the firmware - basically you could only slap a copy of Windows that you got as an OEM from the manufacturer. I assume it's recognizing the drives during bootup? F8 IIRC should take you into a Compaq/HP software RAID, make sure the drives are set up there. I'd recommend raid 5, striping with parity. It provides faster throughput on the controller while also giving some data integrity - it's faster than mirroring (Raid 1), though not as secure. Raid 1 pairs each disk with another one, and makes writes to both at the same time. Raid 5 put several disks together, and uses an algorhithm to stripe data across all the disks. So in your case you make a 4 disk raid 5 array, 3 disks are useable, 1 is a spare. Raid 1 would mean 2 disks are primary, with 2 backups. Raid 0 just means they are all together, there's no redundancy. I honestly never heard of anyone using raid 3. Anyway, I'd verify the RAID setup first, then if you still have problems you my need another OS. You could also try flashing the bios to a newer version - if it has old OS copyright issues that could clear it. Also, see if you can get your hands on a Compaq Smart Start CD - it's a bunch of utilities for managing your servers, including dynamic raid alteration, stress testing and diag utilities. BTW, for all intents and purposes these guys are just athlon or intel boxes - outside of the SCSI drive config which might be new to you, while they are called servers they are functionally normal PCs. Happy to help if you have any problems.
Well, these were government servers, from an AFB med facility so it may well be the case, I have no idea what the gov specs/requirements were. I get to the screen pictured below and when I make a choice it just more or less looks for a boot disc on F1 and F12. F9 gives me the ROM-Based Setup Utility, (V 2.00 a 2002 Compaq), which offers OS selection, Serial #, Embedded COM Ports A, Integrated Diskette Controller, Numlock Power-On State, Embedded NIC ports 1&2 PXE support, Diskette Write control and then Diskette Boot control. OS options: NT4.0 2000/.Net Linux Unix OpenServer Solaris NetWareSMP, then non SMP OS/2 then with SMP Other OS This unit is set for 2000/.Net. From my understanding, XP is the same base as 2000 and should work but I'm leary to spend a buck fifty on something that may not run. Processors are a concern, I want to make sure it's adiquate to handle it but IIRC these are 133MHz. XP was calling for faster processors. Frankly I don't know if having two 133s would be adequate and I'm looking into it. I'm wondering also if a processer upgrade will work and to what limitation. While I'd love a Core2 duo set x2 (x64!) I'm thinking that's just a bit outside the range of limitations on this G2 or a stack of them. 2000 will soon, if it hasn't already, follow 95, 98, and ME on the non supported train and if I'm going to set it up I'd like to have something that even if it is OEM it'll have updates. I'd like to set up something that will get the job done as well as possable for as cheap as possable within the limits of the hardware. I'd love to put a quad in it, but this Gen won't support that much from what I'm gathering from specs and manuals I've managed to come across. It has dual PIII processors, 1.266GHz, 512KB Cache x2 1280MB Memory When the discs I put in were clear, I did set it up for RAID 5. IIRC I did set it for strips but I'm not 100% on that, but pretty sure I did. First it set up a logic disc. I looked for a preffered placement for it and set it on 0 disc slot after not finding something I was reading on placement last week to verify that was the best spot. Disc arrangement may have changed when I went through testing units 1, 2, and this one 3. Probably should have maintained the order but I was kinda experimenting with the RAID 5 ability to find it whatever slot the logic disc hit. Perhaps this is why unit 2 came up psudo DOA, I don't know. I have more discs coming in later and will check it again when I have some clean ones. Another thing is two drives match as the same but two are different part numbers and actually look different. All are Compaqs and matched speed at 15k. I figured a drive is a drive especially since they were wiped but I know there are variants and I'm still educating myself on the differences and the impact that has on their operations. See, I'm trying to figure out the BIOS function and it's importance to the system setup. I'm coming up with P24 in this one's setup page, but at the moment it's a bit Greek. That's tops on my educational agenda today. I can, it's online. There's a process described to download it and burn it to disc and that'll be something else I'll see if I can get done today/tomorrow. My laptop will burn, Mama Dell has a floppy in it so hopefully I have what I need for the deed. See, that's what I'm looking for in the end, just a sweet PC setup, but racked with many, many drives and capabilities. I'll list what I want to end up with as soon as I see what my limits are. All help is most appreciated sir. Thank You.
Yeah, a lot of the ones I've run into with that issue are government versions. If it was me, I'd get my hands on on of the Student versions of XP for testing - that's a basic version with no security or validation. It's pretty much the blankest slate that XP offers, and could bu useful as a test platform - if it doesn't accept that, then yeah, there's something hardcoded into the bios. The other issue I've seen with that is it will allow for a complete new installation, but not an upgrade - though it sounds like you blew out the previous partitions originally, yes? If not, that's the way to go. Delete the logical volume, the RAID, and recreate to make sure you get a fresh install. On HP/Compaqs, ROM-based setup utility and bios are pretty much the same thing IIRC - BIOS is a ROM chip with system settings, which then access an EEPROM or flash memory which is adjustable. Actually I don't think this setting matters anymore - I've seen Compaqs set to windows running Linux just fine. But yeah, I concur that 2000/.Net is your best option. This part I don't get - the processors are 133 MHZ. If you are talking about the bus speed on the motherboard or the DRAM speed, I could see it. Hell, I think you'd have to go back to a 286 to have a 133 MHZ processor installed. That sounds right. No, this gen server won't support quad processors, but honestly, you aren't going to be doing anything even remotely close to require them from the sounds of it, especially if you are just playing games and using them as file servers. I imagine if you wanted to use it as a web server with a large database backend, or maybe some massive CAD program that requires a lot of hits to the math coprocessors, but that's about the only 'home' uses I could see that really needs that tech. As far as games go, 1.26 GHZ could limit you on some of the current high end games - current requirements are 2.0 GHZ or so. So it might be worth investigating if the motherboard is upgradable. The Manual for the DL380s is here if you haven't found it already: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/UCR/SupportManual/TPM_203844-001/TPM_203844-001.pdf Well, what you probably want to do is create a single RAID 5 set with all 4 of your disks. This is the best combination of data safety and speed for your setup. This would create a single logical disk with all 4 of your drives in it, with a usable logical drive size of 3 of the 4 disks. You can partition that logical disk any way you want then (ie break it up into different subunits, each with different drive letters) though as your disks aren' t really all that big I'm not sure it would give you any advantage in performance. It sounds now like you might have a couple of different RAID sets created from your description. Make and manufacturer doesn't matter for this, that's fine. The fact they are all 15K is good - that's fast, if you had a mixture of speeds it would work but default to the lowest speed for the set. And that tends to create more miswrites has been my experience. But Seagate, Digital Western, whoever, the important thing is they are a brace that are all the same size and speed. P24 is the ROMPAQ family for DL380 G2s. What you need to do is check the date of that version you have - latest one is 5/01/2004. That I imagine is the last update, as the DL380 family has gone from Generation 2 (yours) up to G3, G4, and now G5. But there shouldn't be any problems with running XP under that firmware - it's a supported OS. Peachy. Good luck! See? And Faisent doesn't believe I ever use my powers for good! LOL. I'm not an expert on these guys by any means, but I've kicked around them some at work, so if I can help I will.
