Home Server Questions - lots of questions....

[LIGISTX]

The only thing a little sketchy.... After I ordered these drives, I read on Reddit this company may have been selling used drives as new.... Well, they are prestige. Like, I don't even know how you would get them this clean. There isn't a spec of dust on em (at least the one I opened so far, server came with wrong screws so can't screw then into the bay sliders). But after reading that stuff in Reddit and a few other forums I am assuming these drives as used until proven otherwise. The comments also said somehow these guys are whipping the SMART data, although usually "on time" or something was still there. I will clearly be running them through their passes and checking all smart data.

Also, they came sealed like this. In my normal consumer hard drive in boxing experience they are usually folded all nice origami style and then have a piece of yellow tape holding the bag closed. The ones I have had that came sealed usually have a tab thing you can easily rip, these bags REQUIRE scissors to open. To me that is just a little strange, but I have never purchased enterprise drives, nor ever had an HGST or hitachi, so maybe I am just being paranoid?

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[Stux]

but I have never purchased enterprise drives

Still not sure you have ;)

I would strongly suggest looking at the SMART data... check that the poweron hours is zero, check no tests have been run, and if they have been run, that they haven't been run in the 10,000+ hours range.

8750 hours or so per year.

 

[LIGISTX]

Still not sure you have ;)

I would strongly suggest looking at the SMART data... check that the poweron hours is zero, check no tests have been run, and if they have been run, that they haven't been run in the 10,000+ hours range.

8750 hours or so per year.

Well. After doing a lot of research, if these drives are what they claim to be, they are enterprise drives. But, I am just not sure if they are new, and the fact they can apparently fake (modify/wipe) smart data is a bit disconcerting. But yes, I will run the smart checks etc and post it all here to see what y'all think. If they don't seem to be knew, I'll figure out what to do.


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[Mirfster]

But, I am just not sure if they are new, and the fact they can apparently fake (modify/wipe) smart data is a bit disconcerting.

Yeah, there are plenty of questionable places that can wipe SMART Data. It is not as hard as one would think. There are even videos on how to do so.

As far as the sealed drives, plenty of mine have come that way; but I do buy used. You are correct that in the past drives from the manufacturers would often times have the bag folded and a sticker sealing the top flap. Been so long since I bought brand new that I am not sure if they still come that way.

Side note: Anyone can seal those bags with simple heating devices; like using a flattening iron.

 

[LIGISTX]

Side note: Anyone can seal those bags with simple heating devices; like using a flattening iron.

Yea, sealing them is very easy. I have a bag sealer... But once I get the server up and running (they sent me the wrong hard drive screws!!!!!) I'll pop em in and start testing stuff.


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[Robert Trevellyan]

My brand new WD Reds had one of those little notches that makes it easy to tear the top off the bag.

 

[LIGISTX]

One more question, I remember reading not to use registered ECC ram, why is this?

Reason I ask, the server I purchased came with kth-pl313lv/8g which is registered ECC.

Is this a problem?


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[Spearfoot]

One more question, I remember reading not to use registered ECC ram, why is this?

Reason I ask, the server I purchased came with kth-pl313lv/8g which is registered ECC.

Is this a problem?

No problem. FreeNAS doesn't care what kind of ECC memory you're using; what's important is that your memory meets the requirements of your motherboard design.

 

[LIGISTX]

No problem. FreeNAS doesn't care what kind of ECC memory you're using; what's important is that your memory meets the requirements of your motherboard design.

Right. I understand freenas won't care, I just remember reading not to get registered DIMMS, although I am not sure why.

I assume as long as the system works as intended (maybe the reason for the recommendation is to reduce confusion or potential hardware incompatibility...?) it should be just fine. So far all I have done is booted the system and it boots without issue. Will be stress testing the hardware soon. If it passes all the stress tests, guess the RAM doesn't have an issue in this mobo ;).

But then for upgrade paths latter, do I NEED to put registered ram in? I assume so. And would it have to be the same exact model of RAM? I'm used to desktop applications where you can mix and match ram pretty much at will.


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[Spearfoot]

Right. I understand freenas won't care, I just remember reading not to get registered DIMMS, although I am not sure why.

I assume as long as the system works as intended (maybe the reason for the recommendation is to reduce confusion or potential hardware incompatibility...?) it should be just fine. So far all I have done is booted the system and it boots without issue. Will be stress testing the hardware soon. If it passes all the stress tests, guess the RAM doesn't have an issue in this mobo ;).

But then for upgrade paths latter, do I NEED to put registered ram in? I assume so. And would it have to be the same exact model of RAM? I'm used to desktop applications where you can mix and match ram pretty much at will.

All of this is completely determined by the design of your motherboard.

 

[joeschmuck]

what's important is that your memory meets the requirements of your motherboard design.

Ditto.

If the motherboard requires registered ECC RAM, that is what you need, don't let any other conversation change your mind.

 

[LIGISTX]

All of this is completely determined by the design of your motherboard.

Ditto.

If the motherboard requires registered ECC RAM, that is what you need, don't let any other conversation change your mind.

So, it looks like the mobo supports either option. For max memory support registered is required, which makes sense. From my understanding a registered stick of ram simply has a register on it which takes some load off the ram controller, which would make sense that would open up a larger amount of RAM as a supported option.

Just can't mix and match them I assume, which makes perfect sense.

The RAM isn't on the supported list, but, not much ram is :/.

The mobo is a supermicro X8DTE I believe (BIOS shows X8DT6/X8DTE).


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[gpsguy]

While you mobo may allow either, many do not.

Some users don't look at the mobo's QVL and then pick random memory (often registered) that isn't compatible with their motherboard.

Just can't mix and match them I assume, which makes perfect sense.

 

[Stux]

I just remember reading not to get registered DIMMS, although I am not sure why.

The intel Avoton needs unregistered ECC ram.

This is unusual.

ECC ram is server ram is normally registered

 

[LIGISTX]

So, the hard drives we got where used. The only one I popped into the server had over 24,000 hours on on time according to SMART.... Also I have all of our random spare drives in there and running short SMART test on them now. Will long test them over night.


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[LIGISTX]

Also. Here is the SHORT smart test for all these rando drives. Is that useful? Or just wait till I have the long results tomorrow?

http://pastebin.com/zvy6nALK


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[danb35]

ECC ram is server ram is normally registered

Only if you assume that "normally" you're going to be using an E5-class CPU or greater. None of the E3 boards/chipsets, AFAIK, support registered RAM; they all require unregistered/unbuffered.

But the motherboard manufacturer will specify what's needed. The X8DTE seems somewhat unusual in that it will accept ECC or not, registered or not, but the capacity is 4x higher with registered ECC.

 

[Stux]

Only if you assume that "normally" you're going to be using an E5-class CPU or greater. None of the E3 boards/chipsets, AFAIK, support registered RAM; they all require unregistered/unbuffered.

But the motherboard manufacturer will specify what's needed. The X8DTE seems somewhat unusual in that it will accept ECC or not, registered or not, but the capacity is 4x higher with registered ECC.

Thanks for the correction :)

But really, the trick is to use ram which is compatible with your system

 

[joeschmuck]

Also. Here is the SHORT smart test for all these rando drives. Is that useful? Or just wait till I have the long results tomorrow?

http://pastebin.com/zvy6nALK

Many of those are bad drives. ID 5, 197, and 198 with anything but a zero is not good.

 

[Stux]

Well, it might be worth running the drives into the ground if you want.

If you run badblocks it should clear up the pending/unreadable sectors. The drives will still have begun returning errors, but the Beauty of ZFS is that doesn't really matter. The problem is a dying drive is often a slow drive.

Basically the 3 or 4 drives which have serious errors should be replaced/retired.