Just Purchased a used 2950

It has dual quad CPUs at 2ghz. Only 8gb ram and 3 73gb sas drives. I will add some sata drives I have laying around. Also ordered the idrac5 from eBay since cheap.

Never really messed with Dell servers as far as setting one up. Planning on using it for learn and maybe updating my MCSE 4.0 cert to current one since have something to play with.

After use for home server or NAS something. I have a FreeNAS box now I use for my home theater storage.

Someone told me I just need to download the Dell Server Upgrade Utility disk and that's all I need. Haven't found current version. Also is ther other stuff should be installing like openmange?

It has PERC5i controller.  I do have an extra IBM M1015 in IT mode laying around. My FreeNAS server uses one so I got 2 in case needed more drives later.

You don't need any utilities just bung in the windows installation cd.  However perhaps its best practice to run Systems Build and Update Utility

(edit: If you don't use the system build utility you will have to configure the disk (raid) in the bios as the system boots)

www.dell.com/.../drivers

Under "systems management" Don't know how it would work with an evaluation copy of the OS. In fact every driver you need (and a lot you don't) are there.

However I think you are best installing it from cd and then just blasting it with all the firmware and driver updates from the above link.

The 2950 is a noisy machine.

One more thing, I think the 2950 was the last generation to support SCSI disks, what is the controller?

perc/lsi 5/4/3 (you will see it as the system boots.

You will need a DVD drive, not CD - 2008 and later come on DVD. This system also will boot to USB flash drives for OS installation without optical media.

I don't believe SBUU is "best practice". It is simpler these days to just install the OS and the few drivers that 2012 R2 doesn't have. You should update the system firmware though (BIOS, ESM, PERC, NIC's, etc.), as some of the inbox drivers for 2012 may not work with really old firmware or may be buggy. It works fine with eval software.

You should always have OpenManage Server Administrator installed.

The 2950 was the first Dell generation to support SAS/SATA.

So if someone can point me to all files I need and should install that would be GREAT!

I am planning on installing Windows Server 2012 R2.  I would like it to be close as stock as would come from Dell so I can see how there software and utilities work.

I most admit since buying this server as used and not knowing what all came installed or should be is a little overwhelming for me to figure out.  I am willing to learn but being new and finding anything on Dell site seems little difficult. 

FYI: System has 2 quad core 2ghz CPUs and 8gb of RAM.  Right now has (3) 73gb SAS drives in RAID5.  I did get the (3) extra hot swap caddies but no drives right now.  Also I ordered the idrac5 since was cheap on ebay but not here yet.

So with all that please help a Noob out.  I will be using this server to learn more about Windows 2012 and work on some certs.

First, the PERC does not support non-RAID, so Windows will not see any disks to install to until RAID is configured. This is done is the CTRL-R utility during POST. If it came with RAID 5 configured, I would wipe it out and configure it anew. Delete the VD, then create a new one. Be sure to check the Advanced and Initialize boxes during creation of the VD.

Second, boot to the 2012 media and install. 2012 has drivers built-in for the PERC, so you won't need to add drivers during the install. If you have problems, you may need to update your firmware first. You can go ahead and install your DRAC before installing Windows (iDRAC is for later systems only).

Once installed, most of the drivers will probably work "out of the box", but Dell has an update for the Broadcom NIC's that you should probably install:

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=7FJCW

You will need to install OpenManage Server Administrator:

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=V1JDD

Run to extract the files, then run C:\Openmanage\windows\setup.exe. Choose Custom and make sure Storage Management is installed. Add yourservernameoripaddress:1311 to IE's Intranet zone. This will also take care of the drivers for the DRAC that will show as uninstalled in Device Manager.

Then you should be ready to go.

One thing you might consider doing where you are "training/learning" is creating a 2-disk RAID 1 and a 1-disk RAID 0, then create a Windows image backup to the RAID 0, so you can mess up your Windows installation and be abl

FYI installed Windows server 2012 R2 Std

The openmanage doesn't seem to work.  I installed it like said.

During the check I get this:

The installer has detected that the HTTPS listener is not configured for Windows Remote Management. You can either configure the HTTPS listener before installing Remote Enablement, or install Remote Enablement now by selecting the "Custom" installation screen and configure the HTTPS listener later. See the "Remote Enablement Requirements" section in the Server Administrator Installation Guide for information on configuring the HTTPS listener. Note: Remote Enablement is required to manage this system from a remote Server Administrator Web Server and is applicable only for those systems that support Server Instrumentation. Click here to configure HTTPS Listener for Windows Remote Management.

Do a repair install. Do NOT change any of the defaults. Did you change any Windows settings after installing Windows? Installing OMSA is normally EASY.

Just setup remote desktop so I can remote in. Turned on ping and did windows updates.

You can skip it ... it doesn't need to be installed.