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Can I use a Dell R710 PowerEdge server to run XPEnology?


jgaltone

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I have a Dell R710 PowerEdge Server with the following:

 

  • • Perc 6i Raid Controller
    • Broadcom NetXtreme II 5709c Gigabit Ethernet

 

I do not see the raid card or NIC on the compatibility list.

 

Can anyone recommend a raid card and network option that would work in this computer?

 

I am hoping that I can get this server working with XPEnology without having to spend $400+ on additional hardware.

 

Thanks.

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I have a Dell R710 PowerEdge Server with the following:

 

  • • Perc 6i Raid Controller
    • Broadcom NetXtreme II 5709c Gigabit Ethernet

 

Lan adapter is supported since last version, but wait the upcoming release as it if lot of bugs.

Your storage controller is based on a LSI controller which is supported.

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Sorry, I do not understand which version of the software you are referring to. Can you please tell me which version of the software is stable and recommended?

 

I also have a Dell H700 Raid Controller. This is faster than the Perc 6i and I was hoping to use it when I re-purpose the server for XPEnology. Do you know if this is also based on an LSI controller and compatible with XPEnology?

 

Thanks.

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  • 1 year later...

Hi jgaltone,

 

Let me know when you test with the R710. I have an R710 with 6 drives. I initially installed jun's mod for 6.0 and it worked great. I even did an update which worked flawlessly.

 

Later I decided to test the jun's alpha software for 6.1. I booted it fine and it found the server, I proceeded to update it and then it did not boot any more. No problem since this was expected and we were warned not to do it.

 

I decided to just do a 6.1 force install.

 

I was able to do this on a small dell desktop computer, so I was confident.

 

Since then, neither the new nor the old boot drives even find the server. It's as if the NICs are not being found. The activity lights are blinking. I did a test install of FreeNAS 10beta and it worked flawlessly. So I know the server is OK.

 

So if you do get yours running, please report back which boot img you are using. I need to figure out how to test the NetExtreme NICs with jun's mod.

 

BTW, I created 6 RAID0 VDs in the H700 controller so synology could see all the disks and create the RAID.

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I have not attempted to upgrade to DSM 6 yet. I will try to give it a try soon and I will let you know if I have any luck.

 

Are you running DSM 6 on bare metal or virtualization? I am currently running DSM 5.2 on bare metal but I would like to move to VMWare ESXi when I upgrade to version 6.

 

Sorry, I have not kept up what's new...what does "jun's mod" mean? Can you please provide a link?

 

Regarding the RAID settings. I am letting the Dell H700 raid controller handle the raid and I just let the Synology treat it as a single drive. I did this for performance reasons...but I did not do any direct comparison to see if it is actually faster. (Our Xpenology is being used to create a redundant backup our genuine Synology.)

 

I had read somewhere that it was not a good idea to use multiple individual virtual disks and then combine them into a raid using other software. (Sorry, I can't find the original source where I read this but I think it was in the FreeNAS forums.)

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I tryed to install DSM 6.1 with Jun's loader on my R710 and it doesn't work.

 

The hard disks will not be activated and the Ethernet doesn't work. (No IP address)

 

Maybe i have to try with XPenology DSM 5.2

 

I put an Intel NIC in my R710 and no still no like with Jun V1.01 or V1.02.

 

The NIC work for this one: jun-baremetal-uefi-arcao-v2.img

 

But the hard disks were not found :sad: I have 6 RAID0 setup.

 

Test is fun, but the R710 takes so long to boot that it takes all the joy out of it.

 

I verified that the old 5.2 still works, finds both the NICs and the drives.

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Just did vid/pid and serial and time to show menu in conf.

Bios is set to boot from usb.

perc 6i set raid 5 with six drives.(shows as disk 4th sata)

 

What loader are you using?

 

I guess he is using Jun's Loader 1.01

 

Running r710 with no issues here.

Juns 1.01

 

But he wrote, that he have an PERC 6I RAID Controller. I have an "external" RAID controller (PERC H700) I will test if it works and i will tell you.

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Just did vid/pid and serial and time to show menu in conf.

Bios is set to boot from usb.

perc 6i set raid 5 with six drives.(shows as disk 4th sata)

 

What loader are you using?

 

I guess he is using Jun's Loader 1.01

 

Running r710 with no issues here.

Juns 1.01

 

But he wrote, that he have an PERC 6I RAID Controller. I have an "external" RAID controller (PERC H700) I will test if it works and i will tell you.

 

I use Jun's Loader 1.01 (DSM 6.0.2)

 

You have to create an RAID volume at the (Hardware) RAID controller. (e.g. RAID 5)

 

Then the disk(s - all RAID disks you created in Hardware RAID config) will be detected from DSM and you can run the installation. In the DSM disk manager i choose not an RAID (because only one big disk will be shown). Use "basic" instead. The "failure security" will be handled from your Hardware RAID controller.

 

There you go.

 

 

It works! Very nice :smile:

 

Thank you very much @Salah @Polanskiman

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I use Jun's Loader 1.01 (DSM 6.0.2)

 

You have to create an RAID volume at the (Hardware) RAID controller. (e.g. RAID 5)

 

Then the disk(s - all RAID disks you created in Hardware RAID config) will be detected from DSM and you can run the installation. In the DSM disk manager i choose not an RAID (because only one big disk will be shown). Use "basic" instead. The "failure security" will be handled from your Hardware RAID controller.

 

There you go.

 

 

It works! Very nice :smile:

 

Thank you very much @Salah @Polanskiman

 

Was the updated ramdisk of any use?

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  • 4 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/13/2017 at 10:26 PM, painkiller895 said:

Has anyone been able to use the Jun's 1.02b loader to run the R710 yet ? If so what are you using DS3615 or DS3617 please advise.

 

 

I'm waiting for an answer on this as well.

After booting the boot loader I can't find the machine on my network.

Edited by o0kawa0o
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21 hours ago, Terabyte said:

I have had both 15 and 17 running on a R710 using ESXi 6.5. If your 710 has a Braodcom network card, you may have some trouble with bare metal.

I have DS3617 running on EXSI 6.5 as a virtual machine, it works well.  I want to install it on bare metal how do you setup the controller to work or pass thu ? So it can see my 8  2.5 1 TB hard drives ? Braodcom network card , can anyone make a boot loader that will work with this? Say they got it working with 5.2 and 6.0

I'm going to try and see what happens, I'm updating my R710 to the latest firmware and see what gives.  Keep ya updated...

 

Edited by painkiller895
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Ugh...Jun's thread regarding his loader for DSM v6.x is up to 3,696 replies.

 

I am about to try and get DSM v6.x to work on one of our Dell R710's as a virtual machine running in ESXi. Can someone that has done this successfully (please provide links) to the exact installer or disk image you installed? If you used one of Jun's disk images can you please be very specific as to which one.

 

Can you also please share what updates you have been able to install after you got the initial installation up and running?

 

I see that the latest version of ESXi is no longer compatible with the Dell R710. It would also be great if you could tell us what version of firmware you are running on your R710 an which version of ESXi you have installed.

 

Thanks.

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