Building a Souped-Up PowerEdge R430!

I'm new here, semi new to IT, new to Dell servers and servers in general. I'm not sure if this forum operates in a similar fashion as say, a more traditional forum layout for any given topic/subject/hobby. For example, I'm big into cars. And for every vehicle I've owned, I'm always active on whatever respective forum(s) are available for the vehicle platform. Myself and others sometimes create something like an ongoing "build thread" if you will, of their vehicle(s). Up to date with modifications, upgrades, pictures, you name it. I was hoping/wondering I'd find something similar in the tech world. Maybe like, people setting up total "home-labs". Or in this case, looking to document a small journey to maximize power and performance out of this R430 server I just got. 

Let's just say I'm fairly new to servers. I've never worked on or with them, professionally or otherwise. Don't get me wrong, I understand their purpose and the general philosophies behind them in any organization. But I've certainly never owned one or tried to do any kind of custom, home-lab setups. So please, bear with me, be patient if I say or ask something dumb. I know the interwebs can get downright hostile sometimes to n00bs.

This post/thread isn't going to be a question of WHY and morals and principles and money and philosophy. It's more about the "HOW" and technical details. I just acquired a refurbished Dell PowerEdge R430 for basically free. At work, we have PowerEdge servers, including a few R410s (unbelievably ancient, I know). I've already added a bit of RAM to a few of them as they were also running on unbelievably low totals (i.e. 16GB). So, I've played around a bit in the BIOS. But sheesh man o man, the BIOS of a server makes your little home desktop PC BIOS seem like child's play....

The BIOS alone on this Dell almost calls for a certification or a course dedicated just to it I think sometimes lol! I am still trying to understand and learn all the iDRAC and stuff like Lifecycle Controller etc etc. It's a bit overwhelming but exciting.

Again, please don't ask me why or question my rationale or how I'm looking to spend my money, but I want to beef up this R430 I have. Pretend money is no option. Pretend you're playing with house money. Pretend it's a stranger on the internet's money. Pretend I don't want to spend this imaginary unlimited amount of money on a more modern or different better server and have only the intention of souping up this ancient 8ish year old PowerEdge R430 to the max. 

In doing my research, some things aren't exactly clear to me. Or, I'm asking the wrong question. Or, no one has tried it or if they did, they didn't document it or post online about it anywhere. Why would they, I guess? Lol cuz anyone who's interested in doing something like this FOR FUN is a techy-nerd like me! I know I'd sign up to read someone else's "_______ Server ABC123______ Build Series" thread if it existed. 

• Hard drives: I'm trying researching, trying to fully understand the difference between SAS, SATA, and the capabilities and limits of my SATA III connection max of 6Gbps with an SSD for example. I pulled the cover off my R430 and don't think I have a "back plane" plate. The cables for the drives are just sorta loosely in their respective areas. So yea, no hot swapping there lol. In fact, even just changing them out in general looks a little more of a PITA since AFAIK you have to pull the server out, take the main cover off the top, then you can access the push-down-tab on the drive caddy from the inside and slide/push it out.
  • I want to go with SSDs for every bay. I was thinking some "Enterprise" grade 2.5" SSDs from like Samsung or Crucial, 1-2TBs each. I've never played around with RAID, but I think I'd like to do a RAID 10 so I can get the speed increase + reliability/backup failure protection. But these are 3.5" drive bays, so get the 2.5" to 3.5' adapter and slap those bad boys in huh?!
  • Or would it just be better to try and find some larger 3.5" capacity spinning mechanical drives? Every SAS hard drive I find seems to only spin at 7200 RPM, so I don't know how or what that translates into Mbps via SAS vs say, an SSD that is advertised to read/write 560/520 via a SATA connection that maxes out at 6gbps. Sneaky tricky marketing things going on!
    • Oooo, the owners manual is pretty great lol. This info is helpful but also more confusing to my brain at its current stage of wrapping itself around server tech....
  • What the heck is/are "Nearline SAS" drives! lol. All this talk about hot swappability, but my R430 looks like it was gutted before I got it. The CD/DVD caddy tray is gone, the area that LOOKS like where a backplane should or would be is gone.... 
     

    

• RAM: I'm surprised to learn the max this baby takes is 384 GB with a dual CPU configuration. I mean, one of our servers at work is an R540 and I believe maxes out at 1.5 TERAbytes of RAM.... lol. Then again, I can't even think of a use case for 384 GB of RAM, can you? I think I can stick with 64 or 96 (6 sticks of 16). 
  • But what kind of RAM is suggested? Obviously ECC, I know that. And I'd like the fastest speed with lowest latency/response time. But should I be rocking RDIMM or LRDIMM? Looks like the fastest I can get is 2400mhz *cough* MT/s...
• CPUs: I think I got this one covered myself. I am eyeballing a pair (dual) of E5-2699 v4. That looks like the biggest/baddest/best/beastly/most powerful processor the R430 can use. Yes, I see how slow the base is at 2.20Ghz and turbo'ing up to 3.60ghz, but 22 cores / 44 threads. Times two. Mmmmmm....

So, there's absolutely no way whatsoever you can use a M.2 SSD to PCIe adapter on the R430 for booting/OS purposes, right? At least that's what I've gotten so far from the collective wisdom of the internet. If so, too bad, I was hoping to do a dual M.2 RAID config for speed/OS . 

Speaking of OS deployment etc, I really need to learn about all this iDRAC and Lifecycle Controller stuff. It looks really cool and neat and useful, but there's a lot I don't fully understand or know how to utilize. Yesterday, I was just trying to install Windows Server 2019 via the ISO/USB Media Creation tool method. I know how to do that lol. But it got hung up at one point, something about the Drivers, I think? "No signed device drivers were found. Make sure that the installation media contains the correct drivers, and then click OK".

I don't know what I'm missing. The Drivers & Downloads page on Dell's Support section for this R430 server is pretty long! I'm not complaining about that - rather have lots of drivers and software/firmware than not. But I don't know about some of the .ISOs and stuff to do with Drivers... I obviously can't burn that kind of ISO to a USB drive via Rufus and boot it - it's "not that kind of ISO". I tried that lol. So, what, we unzip/unpack 'em with WinRAR or something and then what, just drag and drop, load em on a USB stick? I don't get it.

The list goes on and on.

Once I figure how how to get a OS on here, that'll be a start. I ordered 4 drive caddy's with the 2.5" to 3.5" adapter option, so once I figure out whether I should run a few "Enterprise" grade 2.5" SSDs on a SATA backplane (if that's a thing) OR, maybe some 3.5" drives that spin at 10,000 or 15,000 RPM on a SAS backplane (?). Oh but then I need to figure out what is going on with the PERC or RAID card I have? And how to use iDRAC and Lifecycle to the most of its abilities. 

Increase RAM from 8 or 16, whatever it is right now. Find a low profile, semi decent video card possibly too. If I can find one that will fit. This most likely will be used for media stuff sometimes and also prefer better display output options besides onboard VGA.

Thanks in advance!