Tag Archives: VMware

Building a 2U AMD Ryzen server (Hardware configuration + ZFS settings)

I recently had the need to build a 2U Server for home and LAN party usage. Since AMD Ryzen is now offering a very interesting 8 core CPU with plenty of PCIe lanes I decided to use a Ryzen 1700x. The server is running Proxmox and is even using GPU passthrough! This post will host the first video and some configuration details that are harder to convey in a video. A second video and post with more information about some hardware and the GPU passthrough will go up after this.

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Home Server/Storage/Lab Setup Part 1.2 – x: Flashing an LSI 9211-8i/9220-8i / Dell Perc H310 / IBM M1015 to LSI IT firmware

Don’t have enough ports available in your (Storage/ESXi) server? Even though modern motherboards come with 6 onboard port now a days, maybe it’s not enough for you. Or you are using a little bit older hardware and don’t have enough 6G ports (Only important to SSD’s really). A quick and easy way is adding a PCIe based storage controller. And while True Hardware RAID can be good to have, on lower end controllers it’s often more of a hindrance then a benefit. Especially when using something life software RAID or ZFS.

This guide will show you how to flash an LSI 9211-8i or 9220-8i / Dell Perc H310 / IBM M1015 to LSI IT firmware. IT stands for “Intergrated Target”. This way the disks get presented to the OS is a raw form, much like your motherboard ports would do. This enables complete control, SMART data for your OS and Power Management such as spindown. It will also help you if you encounter the “Failed to initialize PAL” error while flashing.


Continue reading Home Server/Storage/Lab Setup Part 1.2 – x: Flashing an LSI 9211-8i/9220-8i / Dell Perc H310 / IBM M1015 to LSI IT firmware

Home Server/Storage/Lab Setup Part 3 – x: ZFSguru Hardware and Layout (ZFS using FreeBSD)

This third part will be a hardware and design overview of the Storage server that I am using. This server combines a NAS with some secondary functions for me such as SabNZBd, Sickbeard, Couchpotato, FTP, CrashPlan, etc. I know that kind of taints it’s pure function (serve me storage) but since I used a pretty hefty machine for it, all seems to be working quite well and since this is not a company installation I believe the otherwise wasted CPU power can be put to good use! This article will be one of the most complex because it will hold the configuration I made and also partially the reasons why.

Continue reading Home Server/Storage/Lab Setup Part 3 – x: ZFSguru Hardware and Layout (ZFS using FreeBSD)

Home Server/Storage/Lab Setup Part 1 – x: The General Setup

This will be a series of posts about the renewing and current setup I have done upgrading my home Server/Storage/Lab setup. I will go into the hardware I decided to use, and also a bit of the reasoning behind it. Included will be some tips and tricks and maybe the articles will help you make your own setup!

 
Setup Requirements:

Continue reading Home Server/Storage/Lab Setup Part 1 – x: The General Setup