obnoxious_tuba :
I have acquired a Dell PowerEdge 1900 server. I have wanted to familiarize myself with servers for my courses in school, so I figured this might be a good place to start.
When I turn on the server, it seems unbearably loud. On videos I've watched on this server, it appears that they calm down on the noise significantly after about 3 seconds into powering it on, however, mine never does.
The hardware inside is configured correctly, and the server is running 4GB ram. I can't imagine that this is correct.
Any pointers or advice on this server would be greatly appreciated
obnoxious_tuba,
I'm going through a similar leaning process with a Poweredge 1600 that was given to me. Servers are important to know something about and I've avoided learning about them long enough. Plus the price was reasonable- or so I thought at first.
The price of this server was to extract the files from the 76GB RAID 5 (3X Seagate Cheetah 15K SAS) and this ended up taking over 20 hours. The system was so noisy, had to put in a bathroom and run monitor, keyboard, and mouse cables under the door.
This process was hilarious looking, to those who saw it or received the photos, but a painful way to discover why servers are always in separate rooms- they are hideously noisy, though newer ones are quite a bit better as the components become more power efficient. The Poweredge uses DDR2 RAM (up to 1333) and it runs increadibly hot- I've seen DDR2 667 go to 95C. Servers run constantly and a lot of the time at full speed, so they need a lot of air to protect those expensive Xeons and all that RAM. There are motherboards that can mount 8X Xeon E7 CPU's- (that can cost up to $7,000 each) and then add 4TB of RAM, so that with all the disks, a tremendous amount of heat is generated. So, if you're going to experiment with a server at home, consider a remote or enclosed, dust- free and cool place to keep it and still be able to hard wire it, though WiFi might work just to play it.
And, If I might suggest, open it up, clean everything, reseat the RAM and cards, and record the specifications of everything. Then, go to dell.com and download the manuals and the latest system BIOS and the firmware and BIOS for the PERC RAID controller:
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/poweredge-1900/research
At first, I'd avoid changing any basic configurations, especially the PERC RAID controller as these run a separate BIOS and if the configuration gets messed up, the server won't start to be able to troubleshoot easily. But, you can get a hub, cables, network cards, and set up a LAN. I have a 24-port bub, but my plan is to try this with 2-3 secondary systems around here and see what happens. I'm too much a beginner to network my main work computer at first. I suggest too, that you have access to the OS disks in some form and it's instructive to have a look and see what's on these. It's a lot like Windows, but the whole world of the network protocols, and mapping, drives, setting up nodes, RAID's and VM's is command prompt oriented and like a foreign language. I was incredibly intimidated at first, but when you break it down, it's ultra-logical and is just plugging things in and getting the relative location of each thing recognized.
There are, as you've seen, a lot of how-to videos to learn about servers, and a friend who works for an A/E firm told me about a MS site that lets you setup and configure a virtual servers . He says you can do anything you want, including make terrible mistakes and you just start over. I'm going to try it.
Cheers,
BamibBoom
My potential network:
HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 six-core @ 3.7 /4.0GHz > 16GB DDR3 ECC 1866 RAM > Quadro K2200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > Logitech z2300 > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440) > Windows 7 Professional 64 >
[ Passmark Rating = 4918 > CPU= 13941 / 2D= 823 / 3D=3464 / Mem= 2669 / Disk= 4764]
Dell Precision T5500 (2011) > Xeon X5680 six -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz, 24GB DDR3 ECC 1333 > Quadro 4000 (2GB ) > Samsung 840 250GB /WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card> Linksys WMP600N PCI WiFi > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (1920 X 1440)
[ Passmark system rating = 3339 / CPU = 9347 / 2D= 684 / 3D= 2030 / Mem= 1871 / Disk= 2234]
HP z420 (2013) > Xeon E5-1620 four core @ 3.6 /3.8GHz > 24GB DDR3 ECC 1600 RAM > AMD V4900 (1GB) > Seagate 500GB > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi
[Passmark system rating = 2372 / CPU = 9001 / 2D= 712 / 3D= 1353/ Mem= 2261 / Disk= 712]
Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB DDR2 667 ECC> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys WMP600N WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 and Dell 19" LCD > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit >
[ Passmark system Rating = 1859, CPU = 8528 / 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]
Dell Precision 390 (2006) (Revised): Xeon X3230 quad-core @ 2.67GHz > 8 GB DDR2 ECC 667 > Firepro V4900 (1GB) > 2X WD 320GB >Linksys WMP600N WiFi > Dell 24" > 1920 X 1200 > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
[ Passmark system rating = 1458, CPU = 3699 / 2D= 431 / 3D=1350 / Mem= 885 / Disk=552]
Dell Dimension E520 (2006)( Revised): Core2 Duo E6700 dual core @2.66GHz > 4GB DDR2 667 > GeForce GT440 (1GB GDDR5) > 2X Dell 19" LCD > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
[Passmark system rating = 1219, CPU = 2024 / 2D= 457 / 3D=978 / Mem= 828 / Disk=576]
HP Elite m9426f (2007) Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz > 8GB DDR2 667 > AMD Radeon 6650 > Seagate 750GB > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit > Dell 17" LCD
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