We've been seeing a lot of these (or similar models) here on the forums ... they are not standard Dell models; they are special make-ups - made by Dell, for some company, to their specifications. They seem to be based on Dell's "cloud" servers (this one the C2100 or C6100), as they have very similar specs and look/feel. They have good specs, but just know going in that you will get no documentation or support (including drivers and firmware) from Dell. If you buy it, buy it as a generic/white-box server and not as a Dell.
Gotcha. No support is kind of a big deal. I don't want a service contract or anything, but no drivers/firmware/documentation is kind of scary :). I have 10 days to think about it... the hardware is cheap enough for sure, and I might be able to get it to work, but it'll be a gamble. Thank you for the quick and informative reply!
Hm, that's not too big of a deal. These are just for my home lab anyway, not a true production environment. The loss of OSMA isn't a big deal as I don't even use it with my PE2950II (can't seem to get it to work on ESX 5). The drivers shouldn't be a big deal, I agree. I would assume I wouldn't even need to worry about firmware. I might've just convinced myself to get one! Again, thank you for your information and help - I appreciate it.
For drivers, it seems to use pretty standard stuff, so it shouldn't be a big deal ... you most likely can just use the drivers for the C2100/C6100 servers, as they use much of the same hardware. Going directly to Intel, Broadcom, ASpeed for drivers should fill in any gaps.
No downloads are listed for OMSA (OpenManage Server Administrator - server management software) for the cloud servers, so you are unlikely to be able to manage/monitor the server in the same way you may be used to doing with standard Dell servers.
It's actually not castrated as far as I can tell - it's a complete motherboard.
Of note... if you're planning on running these as ESX hosts, they will *not* support IOMMU. The chipset on that motherboard does not support it. Otherwise they are stellar for that.
Otherwise, great machines. The seller on eBay who currently has them listed will just sell chassis + backplane + PSU + HDD trays for $150! It's a killer looking case too, and you can't beat that price on that. I'm heavily thinking of getting another "bare" one like that and dropping a different motherboard/CPU/RAM combo in it for a more modern capable ESX host.
I'm also debating on getting one of these, but worry that it might be too loud. Since you have one of these units, can you provide the sound level when powered on? Thans!
For what it's worth, I ended up gutting mine and putting in a newer motherboard and processor. These chassis will accept Extended ATX and ATX motherboards at least. Might even do micro-ATX (mATX), but I don't have one around to test fit, and I don't know the mounting layout of mATX off the top of my head. Mine's now running "just" a quad core AM3+ system w/ 16GB of RAM, and acts as an ESX host, primarily passing through a PERC H700 to a VM running my NAS. There was *nothing* wrong really with the gear it comes with. I just wanted IOMMU (AMD-V or VT-d), and the chipset that comes with did not support that.
It bounces around under load of course. When I have mine running full tilt with a heavy ESX load it's over 55dB. When it's mostly idle it's between 40 and 45dB. I measured this with the server outside of any kind of enclosure (just sitting on my desk) about 2' away from me. So, they're kind of loud... I would not want one sitting by me all day every day :).
I have a 2950 II, and it's about even with that, for what it's worth. I measured it with a dB meter on my android phone too, so I'm not entirely sure how accurate it is.
Losing IOMMU can be a big deal. If you want to pass that PERC to a VM, you will not be able to. If you're just going to use it for local datastore though, it'll be fine. I wanted to pass the H700 and a 6/i through to a VM, so I need IOMMU. You can probably get at least $150 for the RAM alone with the right buyer. FBDIMM DDR2 is expensive stuff. The procs... maybe $10 each if you're lucky. The motherboard that is included has on board RAID as well, but good luck getting a cable through the backplane to your drives xD.
Oh, for what it's worth also... mine did *not* come with a PCI riser card. I didn't give it a good shot, but when I did a dry fit of my 6/i on the new board, the lid didn't seem to fit correctly. So keep that in mind if you are going down this road. Here is a link to the riser board I ended up buying:
(I hope that isn't against rules to link that here...)
As soon as I'm comfortable with the stability of this system, I'll likely turn off the 2950 and sell it. This is just a home lab, so I don't need the power that the 2950 has (dual quad core (E5345), 16GB RAM, redundant PSes etc. etc.). I'm pretty sure the AM3+ has more processing power anyway, being that it's 5 years newer. I should benchmark the two just to see :P.
I might take that chance and pull the trigger on this if idle is around 40-50dB. The seller said sound is like a PE1950, but wanted a 2nd opinion. I currently have a whitebox tower that have 10 hotswap drives which is really quiet, but want to stick with rackmounts since I also have a Dell PE1950 as a ESX host. Then after some thought decided to try and combine everything in one box. Not sure what the performance hit would be without the IOMMU, but might worth it to just stick with the $299 price and keep the MB w/CPUs and 32GB RAM (might worth $150 alone). I can probably move the Perc5i from my whitebox over for RAID since the unit does not come with a RAID controller.
I originally was going to go with a PE2950 for the extra storage, but then decided against it because my whitebox storage is still working nicely for me. So instead, went with a PE1950 Gen3 when I found one for a decent price of $75 locally with all the goodies. This was before I found this Dell storage unit and it has been sending me subliminal messages "buy me - buy me" for the past month :). From what your said about the IOMMU, I guess it's a bad option for me to go with since I want to combine the ESX host and storage into one. An idea crossed my mind maybe possibly finding a used Dell C2100 system board (~$350 is what i found) to replace the Gigabyte that came with it. This might turn a budget storage device to become over priced. If manage to get the chassis without the MB/CPU/RAM for $150 and the C2100 MB/CPU/RAM for around $500 would make this a good bundle consider a C2100 would go in the $thousands.
I need something stable as well so I can use this as my lab and as the main family media storage unit for Plex or XMBC. This is definitely one of the best chassis out there for the price if compared to Supermicro and others. I guess if I can't use the chassis as is for ESX, then I'll probably just install Freenas 8.2 on it and use it mainly as a iSCSI unit.
Would be nice to see how your setup turn out.
I have a 2950 II, and it's about even with that, for what it's worth. I measured it with a dB meter on my android phone too, so I'm not entirely sure how accurate it is.
Losing IOMMU can be a big deal. If you want to pass that PERC to a VM, you will not be able to. If you're just going to use it for local datastore though, it'll be fine. I wanted to pass the H700 and a 6/i through to a VM, so I need IOMMU. You can probably get at least $150 for the RAM alone with the right buyer. FBDIMM DDR2 is expensive stuff. The procs... maybe $10 each if you're lucky. The motherboard that is included has on board RAID as well, but good luck getting a cable through the backplane to your drives xD.
Oh, for what it's worth also... mine did *not* come with a PCI riser card. I didn't give it a good shot, but when I did a dry fit of my 6/i on the new board, the lid didn't seem to fit correctly. So keep that in mind if you are going down this road. Here is a link to the riser board I ended up buying:
(I hope that isn't against rules to link that here...)
As soon as I'm comfortable with the stability of this system, I'll likely turn off the 2950 and sell it. This is just a home lab, so I don't need the power that the 2950 has (dual quad core (E5345), 16GB RAM, redundant PSes etc. etc.). I'm pretty sure the AM3+ has more processing power anyway, being that it's 5 years newer. I should benchmark the two just to see :P.
Like I said, I ended up just dropping an AMD3+ motherboard and proc in mine (8 core CPU on order now to replace quad core one haha). But if you're looking for rock solid stability, I would go with Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron system. You can put together a new one for about $500 ($150 for a socket 1155 board {pick one that doesn't require FBDIMM or ECC}, $210 for a Quad Core Xeon to drop in it, $150 for 32GB of RAM), and drop it right into this case... all said and done, you're in for $700 total ($200 for chassis + PSU + backplane + HDD Trays + shipping, $500 for hardware) and have a rock solid performer for ESX :). That was the path I was going to go down, but I'm perfectly happy with workstation grade hardware in place of server grade, so I saved myself a few bucks (My total for mobo/ram/cpu was $300)... and the AM3+ boards with 970/990 chipsets, and all FX processors support IOMMU, so I gain what I needed.
Hope that helps you somehow. If you want to discuss more, I'll gladly talk your ears off :D
I guess going with a desktop setup would be sufficient for what we use it for. My whitebox with a quadcore 2.8 and 8gb of RAM can handle 5VM right now without a problem. Going with a newer board would also future proof the setup for at least a few years. If I really want to be cheap, I can always move the guts from my whitebox over to this Dell chassis. Your info definitely open this up to a lot of possibilities.
Like I said, I ended up just dropping an AMD3+ motherboard and proc in mine (8 core CPU on order now to replace quad core one haha). But if you're looking for rock solid stability, I would go with Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron system. You can put together a new one for about $500 ($150 for a socket 1155 board {pick one that doesn't require FBDIMM or ECC}, $210 for a Quad Core Xeon to drop in it, $150 for 32GB of RAM), and drop it right into this case... all said and done, you're in for $700 total ($200 for chassis + PSU + backplane + HDD Trays + shipping, $500 for hardware) and have a rock solid performer for ESX :). That was the path I was going to go down, but I'm perfectly happy with workstation grade hardware in place of server grade, so I saved myself a few bucks (My total for mobo/ram/cpu was $300)... and the AM3+ boards with 970/990 chipsets, and all FX processors support IOMMU, so I gain what I needed.
Hope that helps you somehow. If you want to discuss more, I'll gladly talk your ears off :D
theflash1932
9 Legend
•
16.3K Posts
1
July 19th, 2012 10:00
We've been seeing a lot of these (or similar models) here on the forums ... they are not standard Dell models; they are special make-ups - made by Dell, for some company, to their specifications. They seem to be based on Dell's "cloud" servers (this one the C2100 or C6100), as they have very similar specs and look/feel. They have good specs, but just know going in that you will get no documentation or support (including drivers and firmware) from Dell. If you buy it, buy it as a generic/white-box server and not as a Dell.
Selta
1 Rookie
•
22 Posts
0
July 19th, 2012 10:00
Gotcha. No support is kind of a big deal. I don't want a service contract or anything, but no drivers/firmware/documentation is kind of scary :). I have 10 days to think about it... the hardware is cheap enough for sure, and I might be able to get it to work, but it'll be a gamble. Thank you for the quick and informative reply!
Selta
1 Rookie
•
22 Posts
0
July 19th, 2012 11:00
Hm, that's not too big of a deal. These are just for my home lab anyway, not a true production environment. The loss of OSMA isn't a big deal as I don't even use it with my PE2950II (can't seem to get it to work on ESX 5). The drivers shouldn't be a big deal, I agree. I would assume I wouldn't even need to worry about firmware. I might've just convinced myself to get one! Again, thank you for your information and help - I appreciate it.
theflash1932
9 Legend
•
16.3K Posts
0
July 19th, 2012 11:00
For drivers, it seems to use pretty standard stuff, so it shouldn't be a big deal ... you most likely can just use the drivers for the C2100/C6100 servers, as they use much of the same hardware. Going directly to Intel, Broadcom, ASpeed for drivers should fill in any gaps.
No downloads are listed for OMSA (OpenManage Server Administrator - server management software) for the cloud servers, so you are unlikely to be able to manage/monitor the server in the same way you may be used to doing with standard Dell servers.
Dynamitry
2 Posts
0
August 14th, 2012 07:00
Sorry to bump, but if anyone else Googling around about this units probably find his way to this page...
Inspecting the only images appear on the eBay sells, those FS12-NV7 and CS24-NV7 units look to me like Gigabyte barebone servers.
Visually the mobo looks identical to one found in Gigabyte's GS-R1233-RH (castrated GA-3CESL3-RH board is my guess).
Selta, have you got one of these in the end? Can you confirm that this units has some Gigabyte signs?
Though it's not real Dell, I want one for my home lab too...
Selta
1 Rookie
•
22 Posts
0
August 14th, 2012 08:00
Yup, gigabyte indeed, here's the exact motherboard in these:
www.gigabyte.com/.../product-page.aspx
It's actually not castrated as far as I can tell - it's a complete motherboard.
Of note... if you're planning on running these as ESX hosts, they will *not* support IOMMU. The chipset on that motherboard does not support it. Otherwise they are stellar for that.
Otherwise, great machines. The seller on eBay who currently has them listed will just sell chassis + backplane + PSU + HDD trays for $150! It's a killer looking case too, and you can't beat that price on that. I'm heavily thinking of getting another "bare" one like that and dropping a different motherboard/CPU/RAM combo in it for a more modern capable ESX host.
Dynamitry
2 Posts
0
August 15th, 2012 10:00
Thanks for the info Selta.
My idea was to use that box with Openfiler for doing NAS or SAN as shared storage for my ESXi home lab.
Really good price for the chassis indeed. I will talk to that seller I guess, and grab one or two :-)
Thanks again.
Nismo-x
5 Posts
0
August 17th, 2012 09:00
Hi there,
I'm also debating on getting one of these, but worry that it might be too loud. Since you have one of these units, can you provide the sound level when powered on? Thans!
Selta
1 Rookie
•
22 Posts
1
August 17th, 2012 10:00
For what it's worth, I ended up gutting mine and putting in a newer motherboard and processor. These chassis will accept Extended ATX and ATX motherboards at least. Might even do micro-ATX (mATX), but I don't have one around to test fit, and I don't know the mounting layout of mATX off the top of my head. Mine's now running "just" a quad core AM3+ system w/ 16GB of RAM, and acts as an ESX host, primarily passing through a PERC H700 to a VM running my NAS. There was *nothing* wrong really with the gear it comes with. I just wanted IOMMU (AMD-V or VT-d), and the chipset that comes with did not support that.
Selta
1 Rookie
•
22 Posts
0
August 17th, 2012 10:00
It bounces around under load of course. When I have mine running full tilt with a heavy ESX load it's over 55dB. When it's mostly idle it's between 40 and 45dB. I measured this with the server outside of any kind of enclosure (just sitting on my desk) about 2' away from me. So, they're kind of loud... I would not want one sitting by me all day every day :).
Selta
1 Rookie
•
22 Posts
0
August 17th, 2012 13:00
I have a 2950 II, and it's about even with that, for what it's worth. I measured it with a dB meter on my android phone too, so I'm not entirely sure how accurate it is.
Losing IOMMU can be a big deal. If you want to pass that PERC to a VM, you will not be able to. If you're just going to use it for local datastore though, it'll be fine. I wanted to pass the H700 and a 6/i through to a VM, so I need IOMMU. You can probably get at least $150 for the RAM alone with the right buyer. FBDIMM DDR2 is expensive stuff. The procs... maybe $10 each if you're lucky. The motherboard that is included has on board RAID as well, but good luck getting a cable through the backplane to your drives xD.
Oh, for what it's worth also... mine did *not* come with a PCI riser card. I didn't give it a good shot, but when I did a dry fit of my 6/i on the new board, the lid didn't seem to fit correctly. So keep that in mind if you are going down this road. Here is a link to the riser board I ended up buying:
www.plinkusa.net/web2U-2R_Express16X.htm
(I hope that isn't against rules to link that here...)
As soon as I'm comfortable with the stability of this system, I'll likely turn off the 2950 and sell it. This is just a home lab, so I don't need the power that the 2950 has (dual quad core (E5345), 16GB RAM, redundant PSes etc. etc.). I'm pretty sure the AM3+ has more processing power anyway, being that it's 5 years newer. I should benchmark the two just to see :P.
Nismo-x
5 Posts
0
August 17th, 2012 13:00
Thanks for all the info Selta!
I might take that chance and pull the trigger on this if idle is around 40-50dB. The seller said sound is like a PE1950, but wanted a 2nd opinion. I currently have a whitebox tower that have 10 hotswap drives which is really quiet, but want to stick with rackmounts since I also have a Dell PE1950 as a ESX host. Then after some thought decided to try and combine everything in one box. Not sure what the performance hit would be without the IOMMU, but might worth it to just stick with the $299 price and keep the MB w/CPUs and 32GB RAM (might worth $150 alone). I can probably move the Perc5i from my whitebox over for RAID since the unit does not come with a RAID controller.
Thanks again for your info!
Nismo-x
5 Posts
0
August 17th, 2012 19:00
I originally was going to go with a PE2950 for the extra storage, but then decided against it because my whitebox storage is still working nicely for me. So instead, went with a PE1950 Gen3 when I found one for a decent price of $75 locally with all the goodies. This was before I found this Dell storage unit and it has been sending me subliminal messages "buy me - buy me" for the past month :). From what your said about the IOMMU, I guess it's a bad option for me to go with since I want to combine the ESX host and storage into one. An idea crossed my mind maybe possibly finding a used Dell C2100 system board (~$350 is what i found) to replace the Gigabyte that came with it. This might turn a budget storage device to become over priced. If manage to get the chassis without the MB/CPU/RAM for $150 and the C2100 MB/CPU/RAM for around $500 would make this a good bundle consider a C2100 would go in the $thousands.
I need something stable as well so I can use this as my lab and as the main family media storage unit for Plex or XMBC. This is definitely one of the best chassis out there for the price if compared to Supermicro and others. I guess if I can't use the chassis as is for ESX, then I'll probably just install Freenas 8.2 on it and use it mainly as a iSCSI unit.
Would be nice to see how your setup turn out.
Selta
1 Rookie
•
22 Posts
0
August 17th, 2012 19:00
Like I said, I ended up just dropping an AMD3+ motherboard and proc in mine (8 core CPU on order now to replace quad core one haha). But if you're looking for rock solid stability, I would go with Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron system. You can put together a new one for about $500 ($150 for a socket 1155 board {pick one that doesn't require FBDIMM or ECC}, $210 for a Quad Core Xeon to drop in it, $150 for 32GB of RAM), and drop it right into this case... all said and done, you're in for $700 total ($200 for chassis + PSU + backplane + HDD Trays + shipping, $500 for hardware) and have a rock solid performer for ESX :). That was the path I was going to go down, but I'm perfectly happy with workstation grade hardware in place of server grade, so I saved myself a few bucks (My total for mobo/ram/cpu was $300)... and the AM3+ boards with 970/990 chipsets, and all FX processors support IOMMU, so I gain what I needed.
Hope that helps you somehow. If you want to discuss more, I'll gladly talk your ears off :D
Nismo-x
5 Posts
0
August 18th, 2012 20:00
I guess going with a desktop setup would be sufficient for what we use it for. My whitebox with a quadcore 2.8 and 8gb of RAM can handle 5VM right now without a problem. Going with a newer board would also future proof the setup for at least a few years. If I really want to be cheap, I can always move the guts from my whitebox over to this Dell chassis. Your info definitely open this up to a lot of possibilities.