@tim_g said in Advice on building "storage servers" with two DL380 G7 servers:

Then get the same build, but in a 620 or possibly 420. I'm sure the price difference is minimal, maybe even less. Actually I'm not sure if those servers will allow that drive configuration.

Sadly, that assumption is way off... I just spec'd out a 720 with the exact same options and the price comes to $7,975 ($2400 more than the 520 server!)

Wait... did you change your post, lol!? I swear your first post said "720" not "620" or "420"... By the way, we need 2U... The 420 and 620 don't exist in 2U...

Dangit! The sales guy at xByte said "We don't have any 520 servers in stock, and I don't think we'll be getting any - we haven't had any in several months. They were not mass produced like the 720s were..."

@dashrender LOL, that's an upgrade for us! We're still running Server 2008 R2 on almost every server in our fleet!

Thanks for the quick replies guys! I'll just have to make sure I have it properly enabled once the server is deployed :D.

Check out my recent spec list too (I updated my previous post).

I'm uncertain about which RAID controller to go with. These are the three to choose from:

1. PERC H310 Mini Mono Controller
2. PERC H710 Controller with 512MB NV Cache
3. PERC H710P Controller with 1GB NV Cache

I'm not sure there would actually be any significant benefit in getting the 1GB NV card vs the Mini Mono...

Here's the build I'm considering now:
Dell PowerEdge R520 8x3.5 2U Rack Server (1 CPU Version) w/xByte Warranty
Intel Xeon E5-2407v2 2.4GHz/10M/1333MHz 4-Core 80W
Dell PE R520/R320 Heat Sink
Dell 4GB DDR3 ECC Reg (3)
PERC H310 Mini Mono Controller (RAID 0/1/5/10/50)
RAID 10
6TB 7.2K 3.5" 12Gbps NL SAS Hard Drive (Dell Enterprise) (8)
Broadcom 5720 Quad Port Gigabit Ethernet
iDRAC7 Enterprise
Dell 2U Sliding Ready Rails
2x Dell 750W Power Supply
Windows Svr 2012 R2 Standard x64 English
3 Year Limited Warranty

Should I consider upgrading to the 1100W PSUs for an additional $60?

@g-i-jones Glad you got it worked out!

@matteo-nunziati I don't follow what you mean for "do you can afford for offline?" and I don't know what "NBD for backup" means.

@scottalanmiller I contacted xByte directly and the guy I spoke with (Ernesto) said he wouldn't recommend refurb (an R510) because "the hardware is 6-9 years old" (I guess I shouldn't be surprised by his comment...).

I'll definitely look into the R520 - thanks for the tip Scott!

The default onboard NIC on the R520 is a "Broadcom 5720 Quad Port Gigabit Ethernet". Should I just roll with that, or should I consider upgrading that? The options to choose from are "PCIe Riser Full Height" and "PCIe Riser Half Height". I'm not sure which one I would choose :-x... (other than the "full height" and go with the "Intel Ethernet I350 QP 1Gb Server Adapter").

@matteo-nunziati It wasn't an option of 1 or 2. If you look at their product page, they ONLY sell a 2 CPU configuration (at least for the models I reviewed).

Here's what they quoted me:

• R730XD-2CPU Dell PowerEdge R730xd Server ( 2 CPU Version) (1)
• Dell PowerEdge R730xd 3.5" Chassis with up to 12 Hard Drives (1)
• Intel E5-2609v3 1.9GHz/15M/1600MHz 6-Core 85W (2)
• Dell PE R730 Normal Heat Sink (2)
• Dell 4GB DDR4 Reg (4)
• PERC H730P Mini Mono Controller 2GB NV Cache (RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/60) (1)
• Dell 4TB 3.5" 7.2K NL SAS 12Gbs HDD (10)
• Intel Ethernet I350 QP 1Gb Network Daughter Card (1)
• iDRAC8 Enterprise (1)
• Dell 2U Sliding Ready Rails (1)
• Dell 13th Gen 750W Redundant PSU (1)
• 5 Year Dell NBD Onsite Warranty (1)

Total: $6,152.00

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I got on a live chat this morning with xByte and will be getting a quote later today. Can't hurt to at least see what they have to offer and get a price ;).

@kris_k If I could convince them, that'd be great. But the likelihood of that is slim :(... They refuse to buy from ANYONE, OTHER THAN Amazon :-x....

At this stage, it seems in my best interest to spec out what they're willing to pay for, and present them with THAT info.

@kris_k Sorry, typo on my part (I had RAID 10 on the brain since I was talking about wanting to do RAID 10 on the big array).

Unfortunately, my company is very tight with money, so they don't want to buy new. They only intend on buying whatever parts I need in order to upgrade these servers (all from Amazon.com).

The lock screen is and can be different. I have our stations setup to use a custom image for the lock screen, and a custom image for the desktop wallpaper.

I apply the lock screen very similar to the way you do:
A custom image located here:
C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds\backgroundDefault.jpg

AND using an accompanying registry key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background]
"OEMBackground"=dword:00000001

I apply the wallpaper like this:
A GPO (settings "enabled"):
Computer Configuration \ Policies \ Administrative Templates \ System/Group Policy \ "Configure user Group Policy loopback processing mode" = Enabled (Merge)

User Conifguration \ Policies \ Administrative Templates \ Control Panel/Personalization \ "Prevent changing desktop background" = Enabled

User Conifguration \ Policies \ Administrative Templates \ Desktop/Desktop \ "Desktop Wallpaper" = Enabled (C:\Windows\lmi_deskwall.jpg / Wallpaper Style: Stretch)

My last two cents: The registry value needs to be set to "1" in order to force the custom lock screen image.

I'm not sure why, but our two DL380 G7 servers have two different part numbers O_o... (583914-B21 and P01227). I'm assuming (and hoping) that these two servers both take the same exact parts.

Each server is currently configured with two 146GB SAS drives in a RAID 1 setup (running Windows Server 2008 R2).

We'd like to upgrade these to be storage servers for all of our backups, so the initial thought is that we'll remove the optical drive from each and install the additional 8-bay SFF drive cages and populate all of the drive slots (the original two drives will still host the OS, and the remaining 14 drives would be pooled into one big RAID 10 array; on each server).

Each server currently has a P410i and a P411 controller cards installed (not sure if that's a factory default setup, but it appears to be). Each server also has two 460 watt PSUs.

I have some questions:

1. Is our intended setup possible? If so, is it possible to use our existing raid controllers? Would we need to order any sort of additional "riser board" or "expander"?

2. Which parts would we need in order to achieve our goal? For instance, if we want the PSUs to be fully redundant, would we need to buy larger ones in order to provide enough power for all of the hard drives that will be installed? Would two 750 watt PSUs suffice? (part number 599383-001) I'm also assuming we'll need the backplane board (507690-001) and the SFF 8-bay drive cage assembly (496074-001), but I'm not sure if we also need the hard drive backplane power cable (496070-001) and/or what other cables we'll need (or if the drive cage or backplane board come with cables).

Thanks so much for whatever info someone is able to provide!

If you're looking for something free, does this fit the bill?
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/folder_changes_view.html

The IP is finally holding steady! Thanks for the feedback guys!

@stacksofplates Yep, sorry, I should've replied back about that previously. network manager is not running; it's not even installed ("nmtui is currently not installed" is the message I got when I tried running it). I also checked to see if a service with the name "dhcp" in the name was running; can't find anything.

@Dashrender Yep, that's how ours is setup, but I've never seen a DHCP lease cause an issue like this :-S. And yep, I completely deleted the DNS entry and verified that the deletion replicated through all servers. That's what had me so confused initially (I kept wondering how the heck it could keep coming back from the dead!).

I'm kind of all across the board, lol.

(underscores) Sometimes I'll use them (when I know it'll make things easier in the long run), but other times I won't (because it won't matter for certain circumstances).

(capitals vs lowercase) Sometimes I'll name a folder with all caps, other times I won't. And I'll actually use a combination sometimes (because I like the way certain folders will catch my eye by having the first part of the folder named with all caps, and the second part with a combination (ex: "SERVERS_-_Logs_and_Events"))

(numbers and symbols) I have a separate hard drive that is dedicated to data, and I have a numbering system for the folders. Here's an example:
!IN
!OUT
#TEMP
000 _____________________________________________
001 - SHUEY
002 - TEAM
003 - PROJECTS
004 _____________________________________________
005 - Apps
006 - Scripts
007 - Software & Driver Repository
008 _____________________________________________
(etc...)

Well, after all the things I've done since starting this thread, the IP is holding steady as the correct static IP it should be. I'll double-check one more time on Monday morning, but I have a feeling it's good to go now.