Carl’s Blog

Dell’s new(ish) PowerEdge T300 server

by Carl Farrington on Jul.24, 2008, under Computer Stuff, News & Reviews

I thought I’d take some photos and do a brief overview of the Dell PowerEdge T300 server.

I have supplied and installed a few of these to my customers, and I think it is my favourite small business machine for now.

This is a single-socket (i.e. single CPU) machine, although that single processor is a Quad Core Xeon, so it’s not such a negative point really. I have found in the past that I have gone for dual-socket servers, because they are naturally reasonably high-end rather than being more like a basic desktop, but these servers have always been left with the second CPU socket empty, and by the time you might think about adding a second CPU, those CPUs are long gone off the shelves and the price/performance of a replacement machine makes replacing the whole machine much more viable. So I am happy that this a single-socket machine – that’s perfect for the small businesses that I deal with.

For less than £600 +vat, this machine comes with a 2.5GHz Quad-Core Xeon CPU, 4gb RAM, a SAS 6iR RAID-0/1 controller card, and 2×160gb SATA hard disks configured as a RAID1.

What I do then is head off to http://www.scan.co.uk or http://www.microdirect.co.uk and buy a couple of large capacity hard drives. The machine comes cabled up ready to take up to four drives on the SAS 6i/R card. The SAS 6iR can create multiple RAID1 (or RAID0 if you’re that way inclined) volumes. So all we do is drop in a couple of 1,000gb Seagate HDDs, and create a large, cheap, mirrored storage volume.

The machine only has a single half-height 5.25″ drive bay free. There are two bays in total but the first is taken up by the DVD-ROM drive. This limits your choice of tape backup drive. The backup choices from Dell are even more limited – last time I checked they were only offering those cartridged 2.5″ SATA hard drive things. What I do is head over to Scan again, and pick up a Freecom DLT-V4 half-height 160/320gb SATA DLT drive. This completes my current favourite small business server. The Freecom drive uses SATA power and SATA data, and slots perfectly into the PowerEdge T300 like it was designed to be there in the first place. The drivers that Windows Update offers for the SATA DLT do not work properly, but Quantum’s website has working ones.

I recently did a setup like this (running SBS 2003) for a chap who works from home. In his case I used an internal Freecom 36/72gb USB DAT drive for reasons of cost and lower noise (the server was next to his bedroom). Unfortunately the PowerEdge T300 has no molex power connectors at all, only SATA power. Therefore a SATA Power -> Molex adapter is required, which is precisely the opposite of what you will have lying around. These adaptors are available for a few pounds online though. The Freecom USB DAT drive comes with a USB B to motherboard header (7/8 pin) cable. Here comes the second gotcha of the PowerEdge T300 – no internal USB headers, however, there is a USB A port on the motherboard, so you use a regular USB A->B cable but inside the server, as strange as that seems (see photo of internal USB A port on the motherboard).

The PowerEdge T300 comes with dual gigabit ethernet ports as standard, provided by a Broadcom chipset.

There are three PCI-E x8 slots, one PCI-E x4 slot, and one full length PCI-X slot which I assume would also accommodate a regular 32-bit/33MHz PCI card such as a modem, ISDN adapter or WiFi card for example. You can’t see the PCI-X slot in the pictures because it’s right below the SAS RAID card.

There are six SATA 3Gbps connectors built onto the motherboard, in case you do not opt for the SAS 6iR RAID 0/1 card or a full-on PERC 6 RAID-everything card. One of the onboard SATA ports is taken by the DVD-ROM drive.

After fitting the extra hard drives as in the pictures (four non hot-plug SATA drives total), there is one spare SATA power connector which can be used for the tape drive or whatever you fancy.

There are six DDR2 DIMM slots.

The front LCD display panel can display text of your choice, for example the company name and telephone number in case the item is stolen and ends up in a responsible person’s hands.

The server is available with the option of Hot-Plug/pullout hard disks. I have not encountered this configuration though. It also looks like the machine has the option of dual/redundant power supplies, since the rear is labelled “1″ and “2″.

As usual with Dell’s servers, everything is extremely well put together and designed. There are no little hairdrier chipset or CPU fans, just large slow-turning fans and lots of properly designed ducting panels to allow good proper airflow. This is what I like most about Dell’s servers, for this kind of money everything is spot on.

Some pictures. This is my first attempt at a blog so I apologise for rambling on and not laying things out in a clear and conscise manner. I may come back to do some editing later :)

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58 Comments for this entry

  • Mark Woodroof
    August 18th, 2008 on 12:22 pm

    Hi Carl – I was interested to read your blog. Do you have any comments on how noisy this server is? Thanks. Mark W (Portsmouth, England)

  • admin
    August 18th, 2008 on 2:15 pm

    Hi Mark.
    The server is not too noisy at all. When first powered up, the fans go crazy for about 10 seconds, then they slow right down. If the side panel is removed it very quickly starts to sound like a 2000watt vacuum cleaner! I suppose this means it has the potential to be very noisy if kept in an unusually hot place, but none of my customers have complained, and they all have them located within regular office space, and in one case under the secretary’s desk, rather than in a dedicated server room.
    I have another one sat next to me now, and the noisiest part of this one is the DLT drive seeking on the tape when first powered on.

  • Graeme
    October 3rd, 2008 on 5:22 pm

    Hi Carl – I was also very interested to read your blog. Mark has asked the question that was particularly concerning me as I have a Poweredge 2600 at home and it is just too noisey so I was thinking of replacing with a T300 instead. Your post has helped me make up my mind. The thoughts on tape streamers, expanding capacity are also very useful. Thank you. Graeme (London)

  • Bruce
    October 17th, 2008 on 11:04 am

    Hi Carl, thanks for a good review. I have just bought one for my company, with the addition of the “full-on PERC 6 RAID-everything card” with 4 drives set up as RAID6. However, I want to add another drive to use for the OS, but I don’t think I can add another drive as it stands. Could I add a second controller & attach the drive to it?

  • Carl Farrington
    October 18th, 2008 on 8:42 am

    Hi Bruce. The Perc 6i has two SFF8484 connectors which can run four SATA drives each, so that’s a total of 8 drives no problem. You can create multiple arrays too, or just run the OS disk as a single disk.

    You would need an additional SFF8484 -> SATA cable. I bought one from this place once: http://www.span.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=28_1211&products_id=14072. Alternatively, just run the extra drive off the motherboard’s SATA connectors. No funny cables required then.

    You’d may need some power-splitters too since the T300 is a bit short on spare power connectors.

    Where are you actually going to put the extra drive though? The T300 (non-hotplug) will only physically fit four drives. I’ve never seen the hot-plug configuration, but Dell still state 4 drives max. I suppose you could find a way .. maybe the floppy bay, or a 5.25″ -> 3.5″ adapter and stick it in the 5.25″ bay under the DVDROM drive.

  • Bruce
    October 18th, 2008 on 8:21 pm

    Thanks for the instructive reply, Carl – the Dell rep had told me “You can’t use more than 4 drives”, so I assumed the RAID controller disabled the SATA connectors on the MB. Maybe she meant fitting them in. I’ll try using one of the MB connectors, with a power splitter, and Bob’s your uncle.

    Don’t know where I’ll put the drive, as I’m thinking about implementing your SATA DLT drive tip too!! It may be an interior duct tape job, please don’t tell my bosses …

  • Carl Farrington
    October 19th, 2008 on 7:45 pm

    I think she must have been referring to the physical limit of 4 drives in the chassis. The PERC or SAS Raid controller doesn’t disable the onboard SATA ports, as they’re still used for DVDROM, Tape drive, RD1000 cartridge backup etc. However, I think that in the BIOS all unused SATA ports are disabled, otherwise the BIOS complains that it didn’t find a device on there. So you’ll need to go into the BIOS and just enable the port that you plug in to.

    Regarding locating the drive.. looking back at my pictures, I think you might get away with using the floppy bay. Good luck anyway :)

  • Bruce
    October 19th, 2008 on 10:54 pm

    Thanks again … BTW, if you want to write me an email, I’m doing some things at this company in terms of using open source alternatives to M$ standard practice that I think you’d be interested in, and I’d like to get your opinions as well.

  • Adam
    October 22nd, 2008 on 12:18 pm

    Hi Carl

    A question on noise again I’m afraid. I made the mistake of buying a PE2900III server for my home business and it sounds like concorde throttling up. It has around 7 fans and dual PSUs (which are the main source of the noise). It’s going back for this reason.
    I like the T300 as it has 4 drive bays but wondered if you’d used the T105 or the new T100 which look more like workstations. I’ll be working in the same room as the server so wondered how the T300 compares noise wise to say a standard workstation? How many fans does it have?
    Thanks
    Adam

  • Carl Farrington
    October 22nd, 2008 on 12:55 pm

    Bruce, I’d definitely like to hear what you’re doing. As for my opinions on such matters, well, it’s not an area I have much real world experience in other than a few Linux firewalls/routers, and using Linux at home. I want a FOSS future, but I haven’t made much progress towards anything on the server side yet. I have FreeIPA working nicely here, but there’s little in the way of application support (i.e. single-sign-on), and there’s no client-side caching yet (due in FreeIPA v2), so it would be a nightmare with mobile users/laptops.
    I’ll drop you an email anyway. Thanks :)

  • Daniel Sinclair
    October 22nd, 2008 on 6:24 pm

    Hey Carl, I bought a T105 only to find it won’t accept 3rd party RAID controllers. So I then bought the SAS 6iR controller as an upgrade online only to discover that although it’s exactly the same price Dell don’t ship the cables and fan they fit if you have it fitted at the factory. People should beware of this!

    In any case, I want to put 4 HDD in there for a RAID0+1 configuration. I can get one HDD in the floppy bay and a fourth in the DVD bay. Unfortunately, this is an unsupported configuration and I think the cables Dell supply only support two drives.

    So I was looking at this generic cable;
    http://www.span.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=14072

    The supplier raised a question however that the controller card might need a “side band” cable, whatever that is.

    Is there anything special about the Dell cables on your SAS 6iR card that you know of? Do you think this should work? Or is there a Dell part number on your cables that I could use to order another set?

  • Carl Farrington
    October 23rd, 2008 on 8:49 am

    Hi Daniel. I hadn’t heard of “sideband” in this context up until now, but apparently it is (quote) “actually a fifth connector that is meant to connect directly into the backplane and can be completely ignored if you aren’t using one.”. It’s used for LEDs, status lights on the backplane etc.

    So you don’t need one, as you don’t have a backplane. I hope that’s right.

  • Jörgen Hedin
    October 27th, 2008 on 2:24 am

    I’m jst looking to buy a server and I’ve got a bit interested in the T300. Excellent blog Carl.

    I’d like to ask you if you know the difference of having for example 8Gb of RAM as 4×2Gb or as 2×4Gb. The pricing is a bit different. Is there one option that is “better” than the other?

    Best regards

  • Carl Farrington
    October 27th, 2008 on 9:26 am

    Jörgen, I think it’s just a matter of how many empty slots it leaves you for future upgrades, since there are only 6 slots in total it might be better to go for 2×4gb unless the price is much higher.

  • Paul Gannon
    October 29th, 2008 on 12:05 am

    Greetings! Just googling around when I found your blog here (which just happens to be quite possibly the only source of T300 pictures on the entire internet).

    I was wondering, and I hate to bring up the subject of noise again- but do you have a comparison to approximately how loud this unit really is? Maybe a sound recording or even a video with some sort of reference (ie, keyboard typing or something) in the background?

    I’m planning on dumping one of these units in my home office (next to my bedroom- and the walls aren’t insulated) beside to my Mac Pro (which is dead silent). I can’t for the life of me figure out if it’s going to be as quiet as a Mac Pro, louder, way louder, somewhere in the vicinity of a 747 taking off- Dell doesn’t say and Dell Sales aren’t too helpful ascertaining the loudness of technically a server system.

    And also- have you dealt with these machines in the Redundant PSU configuration? I’d ask the same question if you have- is the redundant unit louder or quieter (??) then the non-redundant unit? Dell doesn’t say if the PSU fans throttle with temperature or not.

    Cheers.
    -PG

  • Carl Farrington
    October 29th, 2008 on 8:34 am

    Ah, the noise question again :)

    I am about to order another one and will attempt to do some noise recordings when it comes. That’s about the best I can do as I don’t have one here at home.

    Will probably be about a week away.

  • Paul Gannon
    October 29th, 2008 on 9:13 am

    Yes, that noise question again :) .

    There’s very little information about this box on the internet in terms of what it does IRL when plugged in and running in a live environment. For $2500, you can get a *really* nice T300 that makes a damned tempting deskside system for dev work or anything headless… If only I could figure out how loud it is.

    I really want to buy one of these machines, the only thing I’m holding off on is the noise levels. So if you don’t mind, I’ve got two super-generic quick questions…

    1) Does the box throw off an obtrusive, “Look at me I’m powered on” sort of noise? Or is it something you could stick under your coffee table and guests would never notice it or the noise it makes (if any)?

    2) Could you compare the noise it makes to a smaller workstation (your average whitebox Core 2 Duo or something)? Quieter or louder?

    3) Did you notice if the Power Supply fan (even in the non-redundant unit) throttled with heat load as well- did it blend in with the rest of the system, or was it the loudest part of the computer (running at a constant speed)- etc?

    I’m just really leery of having Dell ship me a 70lb box (which costs $125 in S/H on top of everything), plugging it in, and having it suck up the household kitty or something while pushing papers around my office, and then having to ship it back to Dell because “It’s way too loud”…

    Cheers.
    -PG

  • Aaron Seet
    January 19th, 2009 on 7:02 am

    Hey Carl,
    interesting. I bought a T300 late last year, and my casing is different from yours. The four drive bays that are attached to the RAID controller are hot-swappable, and released from the _front_ (after the front panel is detached).

    The blue plastic disk carriers illustrated in your photos and attached from the side seem to be an older design that I long had with an aging PowerEdge SC430 server. I actually prefer this design since it is simpler and those carriers are _part_ of the server. The hot-swap design that I have only came with two carriers for the existing two disks; the other two bays do not have the carriers so I have to buy _from_Dell_ additional disks in order to get the carriers.

  • Aaron Seet
    January 19th, 2009 on 7:07 am

    @Paul Gannon,
    Yes the fans are loud. Do not ever be deceived a server will have “quiet” fans. Servers are meant to be placed in a server room or data centre and not in a bedroom or quiet office. They are totally designed to keep the server hardware cool and not to build a peaceful working environment for office staff.

    This kind of server is best kept in an isolated room away from people who cannot stand humming noises.

  • Carl Farrington
    January 19th, 2009 on 6:41 pm

    Hi Aaron, the T300 is available as both hotswap and non-hotswap, so you would needs carriers and interposer boards for your drives. It’s not a case of older vs newer design. I just bought two more T300s last week which are both non-hotplug and both exactly as in my photos.

  • Carl Farrington
    February 13th, 2009 on 9:26 am

    The price of these machines recently shot up here in the UK. Possibly a result of our ruined currency.
    Anyway, the price has sort of come back down again, on account of the fact that you can now buy it with a dual core processor instead of a quad core one. Ho hum.

  • Carl Farrington
    February 20th, 2009 on 9:38 am

    I am going to post up a video of the T300 starting up later today, so that people can hear how noisy it is/isn’t.

  • John
    February 25th, 2009 on 2:05 pm

    Hi, Carl. Thanks for the review, pix, and video with sound. You seem to be the only complete source I’ve found for info off of the Dell site!

    I’m looking to get a T300, and fill it with drives rather than go with the Dell configuration. (Then Linux install, with soft RAID on the 3 aftermarket drives.) So I’d like to ask what is probably an extremely stupid question…

    Dell lists 4×1TB as the max for the internal SATA controller, and you mention getting 1 TB aftermarket drives. I’m partial to Seagate, but I only have a choice of getting 750 GB or 1.5 TB drives right now.

    So the possibly stupid (at least naive) question: is the internal SATA controller limited to 1 TB drives, or is this simply a “limit” caused by what Dell offers for drives in its configuration page?

  • Carl Farrington
    February 25th, 2009 on 11:23 pm

    Hi John. Thanks for the positive feedback, it’s always very much appreciated. Unfortunately I don’t have any 1.5TB drives to try in the T300 that I have here with me. I would be quite surprised if the system BIOS and/or SAS6/PERC6 card’s BIOS weren’t able to deal with 1.5TB drives though.
    It might be worth looking at the release notes of the T300’s BIOS updates to see if there’s any mention of hard disk size limitation changes, although I think you are probably on the money with your thoughts that it’s simply a case of Dell only offering drives up to 1TB in size.

  • Carl Farrington
    February 25th, 2009 on 11:34 pm

    I’ve had a look John, and the BIOS update release notes don’t mention anything about hard disk capacity changes, but I suspect you’d be fine anyway. If you do buy the T300 and some 1.5TB drives, please report back so that others searching can find the answer.

    Here are the release notes:

    DELL INC.
    BIOS RELEASE NOTES

    System: Dell(TM) PowerEdge(TM) T300
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Version: 1.3.0
    Release Date: 08/15/2008

    *Support New Intel Xeon(R) E0 stepping CPUs.
    *Support 16GB SUB Key Boot capability.
    *Fix NIC Broadcom 5722 performance low issue.
    *Update with new version MRC support.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Version: 1.2.0
    Release Date: 04/07/2008

    *New CPU Intel Xeon(R) E3113 C0 stepping supported
    *Fixed the system will be restarted when you press the item of “CPU Information” in BIOS setup menu
    with 1.86GHz single core CPU.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Version: 1.1.1
    Release Date: 02/20/2008

    This release is the first customer release.
    _____________________

  • John
    March 6th, 2009 on 12:33 pm

    Thanks for looking into the BIOS release notes, Carl. I hadn’t thought of that. (And I’ve been busier than expected for the last week or so.)

    I just placed an order for the system yesterday, I’ll definitely post back here once I know about the larger-capacity drives.

  • Harris Ts
    March 20th, 2009 on 3:28 am

    Nice post! I also considering to buy Dell T300 to replace my web server. After reading your post, I think I will place the order soon on Dell website. Thanks for your usefull information!

  • AMP Electric
    April 17th, 2009 on 5:56 am

    HI,

    I just had this server installed in our office. Is there an option that I may access the server, files VIA remote (Interent Connection)? Unfortunatley I travel alot and purchased this because Dell stated that I would be able to accomplish this option. When I had my IT guy install this he stated that there are some compadability issues being that my laptop has XP and the server has windows 2008 server with a mixed breed between XP & Vista. Do you have any feed back? Thanks for your time.

  • John
    April 23rd, 2009 on 9:51 am

    After a bit of delay in getting our server set up (had to put it on hold for another project), I’m back to report.

    I ordered a basic T300, with only a single 250GB drive. I haven’t replaced that drive yet (good enough for a boot drive), but I added three OEM Seagate 1.5TB drives. Everything works a charm – and now we have 2.7TB (RAID 5, formatted) to play with!

  • Mike Renna
    April 28th, 2009 on 1:53 pm

    So its a bunch of months since your detailed, informative review. Still like the machine? I have to get 2 machines for a small accounting firm. I liked what you said because of the low noise – these were supposed to be going into the boss’s office so they had to be quiet. to hedge my bets, I suggested moving these to a large storage room which he agreed to. so sound is not critical at this point, but overall, any preference for a different tower server for small businesses?

    THANKS!

    Mike

  • Carl Farrington
    April 30th, 2009 on 8:18 pm

    Hi Mike. I still like them. I just installed one in another office and the customer is very pleased. He also commented that it was very quiet – they had an older low-end PowerEdge there that was much noisier.

    I think customers appreciate the fact that it looks like a proper server too. Compared to the older SC1420s and what not (those that basically look like regular Optiplex towers), these look much more purposeful.

  • scott
    May 12th, 2009 on 9:21 pm

    Thank you for this resource Carl! I have pretty much decided to get a T300 based on your review.

    I want to follow your set up and get two 2 TB drive set up RAID 1. I have no experience setting up RAID and was surprised when I clicked the RAID 1 option (C6- Add-in PERC6i controller, 2 non hot-plug Hard Drives – RAID 1) to be informed I would need to purchase
    PERC 6/i SAS RAID Adapter, PCI-Express, Internal priced at £230.00.

    £230 is a significant kick in my financial teeth. Did you go with this option or is there a cheaper source.

    Thank you again for the review and any suggestions regarding RAID!

    Cheers,

    Scot

  • Carl Farrington
    May 12th, 2009 on 10:53 pm

    Hi Scot. For RAID1 you can use the SAS6i/R adaptor, which is £73 I think. You need to be picking the other RAID 1 option (C4- Add-in SAS6iR (SAS/SATA controller), 2 non hot-plug Hard Drives – RAID 1).

    That’s how I spec them.

    cheers,
    Carl

  • scott
    May 13th, 2009 on 10:03 am

    Thanks Carl. Would you consider going with two SATA drives to save expense? If so, what controller would you purchase?

  • John
    May 22nd, 2009 on 3:26 pm

    Scott: if expense is your primary concern and you’re planning to install Linux, try soft RAID.

    If you end up using SATA drives, I highly recommend getting OEM Seagate drives (OEM for price, and Seagate for its 5-year warranty). I set up my T300 with three 1.5TB drives (see my posts above).

  • tom
    June 4th, 2009 on 6:45 pm

    Hey Carl, I was hoping you could give me a hint on how to change the lcd display. I worked on it a little pretty unsuccesfully and I was hoping you might be able to give me a quick fix.
    Thanks in advance. :)

  • Carl Farrington
    June 4th, 2009 on 9:13 pm

    Hey Tom, it’s in the BIOS under Security -> NMI Display or something -> Custom -> set text to whatever you want.

  • kev
    June 21st, 2009 on 6:48 pm

    Hi Carl,
    Just wondering if you could point me in the right direction. I received a T300 yesterday, and when powered on initially got a memory config error. I opened it up and reseated the memory and the error went. However, I’m now getting an intermittent system beep, eg nothing for 5 mins, then 10 seconds of beeping. I’ve ran the management console but it reported no errors. Temperatures are all good. There’s nothing in the event log either. Any idea how I investigate this problem?

    Thanks,
    Kev

  • M.Biagi
    June 22nd, 2009 on 6:37 pm

    This is Biagi calling you from Brazil. I will soon buy a new server for our NY office and was looking for some xtra info and picures. Thx for your help. – M.Biagi

  • Steven
    July 1st, 2009 on 6:15 am

    Hi Carl! Thanks for posting info on the T300. In all your experience, have you ever tried to to get a 3rd party video card to work in the PCI-x slot? We are trying to hook one of these up for dual monitor support and are running into problems.

    Any advice?

    Thanks!

  • chris
    September 1st, 2009 on 7:10 am

    Hi Carl,

    Gr8 post this is. I’ve got a T300 with 2 250gb hard disks on raid 1 and one 1tb extra hard disk that i need to add to the server. It’s hot swappable server so i have connected the second hard disk but my OS is not picking it up. I want it to be non raid so I can use this for a stroage drive.. any ideas in where I need to set this up..thanks

  • Carl Farrington
    September 1st, 2009 on 9:50 am

    Hi Chris. I think you just set the drive as JBOD or similar, but I would expect the RAID controller to do this by default anyway ..

    If you have connected the disk to an onboard SATA, then you simply need to enable the respective SATA port in the BIOS.

  • Carl Farrington
    September 1st, 2009 on 9:51 am

    Steven: Sorry for late reply! I haven’t tried I’m afraid, but I have a suspicion that the PCI-E slot is x8 only, not x16.

  • Carl Farrington
    September 2nd, 2009 on 8:10 am

    John: Thanks for reporting back on the 1.5tb drives. I missed your post before. Thanks very much :)

    If anyone’s interested, I have been using the RD1000 drives with SBS 2008 quite a bit recently. They work rather well except for occasionally refusing to eject (in use but not in use if you know what I mean). I have a nice backup script setup that uses wbadmin to \\server\rd1000. There’s a post about it on here somewhere. I still like LTO and DLT drives, but there’s no native tape support in Server 2008. I buy Tandberg RDX cartridges for the drives, rather than have Dell supply them.

  • Don Brookes
    September 3rd, 2009 on 3:10 pm

    T300 Question. I am considering buying this machine and had a question. I am not real familar with RAID controllers. I am thinking about getting the SAS6iR RAID Controller with the 2 250GB drives setup with RAID Level 1. Once i get the machine i want to add 2 more drives as a separate logical Array. I want this one for backup. This is similar to the post a few up, but i want my backup to be mirror. Can this Controller handle more than 1 Array like this?

  • Don Brookes
    September 3rd, 2009 on 3:16 pm

    oops, I forgot a question. Carl, I listened to your video/audio file that you had done on the T300, very nice that you did that. My T300 would be in the same room about 10 feet from my desk. I like it somewhat quite, but a low hum of a machine would be just fine. Would you say it’s more like that and could you work in the same room with it?

  • Carl Farrington
    September 3rd, 2009 on 5:38 pm

    Hi Dan. The SAS6iR can indeed handle multiple virtual disks. I have configured a few now with 2x 250gb RAID1 as supplied by Dell, and then 2x 1000gb supplied by me, as an additional RAID1 mirror. The non-hotplug variant of the T300 comes cabled up ready to take two more drives on the SAS6iR card.

    I think the noise will be fine.

  • Vaclav
    September 10th, 2009 on 9:08 am

    Hi Carl, thanks a lot, your write up is a big help for us new to servers who think of getting into it. I am about to order T300 and as Dell doesn’t ship outside US and I like their deals, I want to use mail forwarding co. to get US shipping address and it would be handy to know roughly how heavy the machine is so I know what to expect on shipping rates from the mail forwarding company.
    Also reading Steve’s inquiry about video card, I intend to run Proxmox and WinXP as KVM container and in that case if I access it from another PC on my LAN it will be the video card in that console machine that would matter, not the one you got in T300, right? Might help Steve as he obviously intends to hook monitor hooked directly to T300

  • Printman2000
    October 1st, 2009 on 3:30 pm

    Thank you so much for this post. I am currently migrating from SBS2003 to SBS2008 (on a T300).

    I received two discs, one call Dell Management Console and one called Dell OpenManage Software. Can you tell me what these are?

    I do want to be able to monitor the SAS6iR RAID from within Windows. Will one of these do that for me?

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