Built my first Xpenology Server

[84TAVeRT]

I picked up a Juniper SA2500 for $20 and wanted to do something cool with it. 

 

Specs: 

Celeron 440 (upgraded to Q6600, because I already had it)

1gb DDR2 (upgraded to 4gb)

80gb internal drive (upgraded to 320gb, boot drive for testing)

 

I can mount 3 x 3.5" hard drives in the unit and an SSD for caching.

 

I plan to migrate my jun loader usb to a CF card to utilize the built in port.

 

I used Jun 1.02b with DS3617xs DSM 6.1-15047

 

You need to add both network ports. Using just one, the network would time out during initial setup.

 

I was unable to get the 1.04b bootloader to work, most likely due to cpu requirements.

 

I was hoping to be able to add a 10gbe nic, but so far that is a non starter.

 

Thanks,

Chris

[Filo301]

Loader from cf card may not work, it needs vid&pid. If you have free pci-e(at least pcie 2.0 and x2) you can add 10gbe nic. DSM 6.2 and newer wouldn't work because old cpu. As i know, it isn't ideal hardware for xpenology. I'm new here so don't listen to me😀

[jensmander]

10Gbit in this system? Made my day 😂 Even with one SSD drive you won’t be able to get maximum speed out of this box.

[flyride]

10Gbe is transformative.  Two SATA SSD's in RAID1 can burst to 10GBe speeds, and most NVMe drives can fill a 10GBe pipe with one device.

 

Economically getting to 10Gbe was one of the main reasons that I personally went to XPEnology in the first place.

Edited September 26, 2019 by flyride

[84TAVeRT]

Ok, I figured out that I have 3 unused usb ports inside the unit. I can add an internal usb for booting.

 

How does the VMware boot work? Is it somehow using a virtual usb drive?

 

Thanks,

Chris

 

 

[jensmander]

1 hour ago, flyride said:

Two SATA SSD's in RAID1 can burst to 10GBe speeds, and most NVMe drives can fill a 10GBe pipe with one device.

 

To get close on 10Gbit RAID0 would be the choice for S-ATA3 devices, not RAID1. Whatever - I wouldn't use or invest in such equipment for 10Gbe or NVMe. It's just funny.

Edited September 26, 2019 by jensmander

[flyride]

Actually mdadm is able to use all the RAID1 members to improve throughput.  See https://superuser.com/questions/1169537/md-raid-1-read-balancing-algorithm

 

SATA3 max bandwidth per drive is 600Mbps.  Assuming 80% efficiency rate for mdadm, that's still possible 960Mbps burstable.  10Gbe max throughput is 1280Mbps.  So it's pretty close with a minimal hardware investment.  Certainly much better than the 115Mbps maximum we can get from 1Gbps Ethernet.

 

EDIT: I realize your comment about equipment is referring to OP.  Lack of SATA3 capability makes 10Gbe in this particular case not very useful.

Edited September 26, 2019 by flyride

[84TAVeRT]

well the pcie ports on this thing are non-standard. even just plugging in an extension to the port causes it not to power on at all. My guess is that they have one pin shorted to ground so that you cannot use third party devices.

 

I am trying to find the pinout for the addon modules, but no luck yet.

 

Thanks,

Chris