2017 alternative to Lenovo TS140 / Dell T20

[YLLYXZMZ]

And it looks like you can also do coupon code OVY165739 to get another $10 off, so $189 with free shipping although I now realize I have to pay tax. :) @gpsguy did you ever get this machine set up? I could imagine getting several of these for different clients if it turned out to be good equipment. I really should just buy one.....

 

[gpsguy]

Mine is still in the box - no time. I hope to do some work this weekend.

@Digitaldreams was working on his earlier this week. Hopefully he tell us how it's going.

 

[Digitaldreams]

@gpsguy I'm going to post about my time with it so far. I've been working on it most of the week and at this point right now, it's pretty much all up and running. I'll probably reply on Monday from work.

 

[samuelellis]

I got my Ml10 in the post today, will be a while until i get it setup as I cant afford the discs and as i dont have a displayport to vga adapter ive not been able to power it up but these are my views on the hardware - First view is just having displayport is a pain

Expansion - it has 4 RAM slots so RAM upgrades should be easy

It has 1 PCI-E X16 and 1 PCI-E X8 that connects straight to the CPU
It has 2 PCI-E X4 slots as well so more than enough expandability for a server

The board has 5 SATA connectors and a internal USB plug so pretty straightforward to setup and run as it stands.

The issue is the case, as personally I am planning on 8 drives they wont fit, some of the metal work for the drives I can remove easily by just unscrewing it but some of it is rivited in so i think i will probably either remove the board and try to fit it into something like a Fractal design R5 or remove all the hardware from the case, drill out what i can and try to 3d print some drive mounts

 

[Digitaldreams]

I got my Ml10 in the post today, will be a while until i get it setup as I cant afford the discs and as i dont have a displayport to vga adapter ive not been able to power it up but these are my views on the hardware - First view is just having displayport is a pain

Expansion - it has 4 RAM slots so RAM upgrades should be easy

It has 1 PCI-E X16 and 1 PCI-E X8 that connects straight to the CPU
It has 2 PCI-E X4 slots as well so more than enough expandability for a server

The board has 5 SATA connectors and a internal USB plug so pretty straightforward to setup and run as it stands.

The issue is the case, as personally I am planning on 8 drives they wont fit, some of the metal work for the drives I can remove easily by just unscrewing it but some of it is rivited in so i think i will probably either remove the board and try to fit it into something like a Fractal design R5 or remove all the hardware from the case, drill out what i can and try to 3d print some drive mounts

You pretty much explained it well and I agree with most of it.



I have 4 drives but definitely see it being an issue to add more drives. The case is built perfectly for 4. The length of the rails are terminated for exactly 2 drives to be installed in the cage above where the hard drive cage normally (bottom of the case) is and 2 in the normal drive cage. If I were to add another 2 drives, I really don't know where I could put them. 1 could go in the normal drive cage on the bottom and maybe 1 on top? Then I would need more power connectors. I'm not sure how I'd add more. I guess I need to research Fractal design R5. I'm not familiar with that that is. And the rivets are a pain. I don't want to go in and start drilling and never mind getting into any 3d printing. But for 4 drives it's perfect.

The DisplayPort is not an issue as my monitor has a DP.

The other thing I can't figure out is where do add extra fans or if it's even possible. There's no front mounted hard drive cage cooling fan and I don't see a way to mount one on either the inside of the case or the outside behind the front cover. And I don't recall if there is a plug on the mobo to connect a fan. As it is now though the ML10 is pretty quiet. I have no complaints though noise usually doesn't bother me too much.

As of now, I have it all up and running. Before going into this I had no experience with FreeNAS and limited with Linux but I've been building gaming PC's for over 15 years. Workstations and servers are on a different level. I'm a network engineer but only really worked on routers and switches; nothing on the server side.

Getting it to boot from the FreeNAS installed USB flash drive was a pain at first until I found the solution:
Ensure the following setting is configured in the BIOS:

CMS Configuration (Compatibility Support Module Configuration)
CMS Support (enable/disable)
CMS16 module version 07.79 (static)
Boot option filter
Legacy only
UEIF only

After this it worked fine. After installing it to the 16GB USB drive, I had to fiddle with the BIOS again to prioritize it's boot sequence before the hard drives. It was kind of hidden as you had to change it in the hard disk boot menu which is a submenu (not the prominent boot priority section)

I'm not really going to write on how it was working with FreeNAS unless you guys want me to. In short, I had to redo it all 4 times which at one point included wiping the hard disks and reinstalling FreeNAS a few times.

But I think I'm good with how it's set up for now. I have a Windows SMB share mapped network drive for basic file storage and backup. I then have the Plex jail and server installed and running but I want to revisit the jail storage permissions piece. I think I gave the jail storage RWX permissions where instead I need to change a PID or something to match the initial group I created.

 

[Linkman]

Interesting! Keep us (me!) updated, please. My ML10 Gen9 is on the truck for delivery "by end of day" today. I have a DP to DVI adapter waiting, and 16GB of ECC RAM scheduled for delivery tomorrow.

This will be a FreeBSD server, replacing my Dell T20 (which already replaced an old AMD Propus build), and the T20 is going to be my new workstation, replacing the loud AMD Phenom I use currently. I picked mine up from PCMall.com, which has free shipping, and the same sales tax as Tiger, but I'm sorry I purchased before the -$10 coupon code.

 

[samuelellis]

thanks for the BIOS tip

From what i remember the board doesnt have any extra fan headers on it so if you wanted more fans they would need to be run straight off the PSU or from a fan controller but i will check the board tomorrow as it will be easier to see on mine as its cable free at the moment. I will also have a look at the case to see if fans can be mounted to the front in some way.

My big sticking point is that mine is only the pentium model (not the core i3 or the Xeon) but at least ive got an upgrade path if i need more grunt down the line

 

[gpsguy]

I did a base install of Server 2012 R2 on mine last night. I will add some additional comments later.

 

[Linkman]

There is a night and day difference in the ease of working on my Dell T20 vs the HPE ML10 Gen9. Nothing inside the ML10 is tool-less, or easy. Everything is screwed together, no hard drive carriers, etc. And they don't include the SATA power extension cable by default. The T20 is much simpler to work on, and includes the extension cable.

I've installed drives and 16GB of RAM, but haven't set it up or burned it in yet.

Side note for those without DisplayPort monitors- while the older T20 will work with a passive DP to DVI-D adapter, the ML10 Gen9 requires an active DP to DVI-D adapter.

 

[YLLYXZMZ]

Here's an interesting new deal on Amazon. Similar to the previous TS140 deals, except it already has 8GB RAM.

https://www.amazon.com/ThinkServer-TS140-i3-4150-Desktop-Computer/dp/B017MXVOI4

 

[YLLYXZMZ]

The link I posted above was $250 at Amazon previously, and is $200 now. With an acceptable amount of RAM pre-installed, this has got to be the cheapest way to get into FreeNAS without violating the spirit of the hardware requirements.

 

[lukeren]

That HP ML10 looks like a great deal! I was looking at buying a Supermicro board and doing a custom build, but this seems like a cheaper option, without sacrificing too much.
Is the IO shield at the back removable, and does it fit in a standard case? If the motherboard (and IO shield) can be moved to a standard chassis I'm gonna put an order in immediatly :D

EDIT: Found this thread on Linus Tech Tips forums, a guy who did a very thorough report on the insides. Thought I'd put it here in case anyone else was curious too. I've ordered one with an E3-1225 v5 :)

Oh, and you can swap it into another case if you want, but the frontpanel and front USB might be tricky.

 

[YLLYXZMZ]

I finally got around to getting one of those ML10's. Seems to work great so far, though I've just gotten FreeNAS installed and messed around with it a bit. A couple of thoughts for anyone considering this machine --

- This seems to reliably be the cheapest reasonable machine you can buy. The other Amazon deals mentioned in this thread, for the T20 and the TS140 are sometimes pretty good as well, but they come and go. Once I saw a TS140 with 8GB RAM for $200 with a slightly slower i3-4150. That deal didn't last long, but you can still get that for $270. The ML10 shipping costs fluctuate between $0 and $10, the price fluctuates between $190 and $200, and there's a $10 coupon code from time to time. You will likely have to pay tax, depending on where you live, which you might not have to pay for the Amazon deals. A friend has bought some of the TS140s and said that it didn't house a large number of drives as easily as the ML10, and that's what finally put me over the edge in favor of the ML10.
- As mentioned by others, displayport, displayport, displayport. Seems like an odd choice for a server? Anyway, the lack of HDMI and VGA is annoying. One poster mentioned needing an active adapter rather than a passive adapter. I can't seem to confirm whether the cable I used was active or passive. It's an Insignia NS-PD06502, and it worked fine, for what it's worth. It sure looks like a passive adapter (the ends of the cable are standard size rather than the bulkier active adapters I'm used to, a couple of comments on Best Buy's website said it was passive, but what do they know?). Either way, it's an additional expense for most people.
- Funny torx screws, although you can use a flathead screwdriver if you want. That's incovenient, because it slips out much easier than the torx bit would or a phillips bit would had they been standard screws. The system comes with plenty of extra screws for mounting all the drives
- The extra 8GB ram stick I bought cost half what the computer did. Could probably have tried to find a reasonably matching 4GB stick to save on costs. But now I have 12GB instead. ECC RAM is still a bit more expensive than desktop RAM. You're getting a cheap server, but it will be more expensive to fill it up with RAM, so just keep that in mind.
- Comes with 4x SATA cables wire tied up inside the case itself, just long enough to reach all the drive slots. If you mount the drives from the bottom up, some of the SATA power cables are a tight reach, but it seems to be ok.
- There is an internal USB header, though since there's only one of them, I didn't use it. I used mirrored boot USB drives connected to the back USB ports. There's four ports in the back, so that's two boot drives, a mouse, and a keyboard.
- There are actually 6 internal SATA ports. I'm going to have 4x HDDs and 2x SSDs (two pools, a slower one, and a faster one). You have to steal the optical drive's SATA port, which is actually a combo data port and mini power port, but that shouldn't be an issue. A regular SATA cable fits in the data side of this combo port. There are 5 regular SATA ports on the motherboard, but it only comes with 4 SATA cables, and 4 SATA power cables coming off the power supply. I've ordered two Y adapters and a 2.5" to 3.5" bracket to accommodate the SSDs. We'll see how that turns out. I'm not looking at the system now, but I want to say that it could physically house 6 3.5" drives, but I could be lying. It will definitely house 5 comfortably, with space to breathe between the drives (or 4 plus two SSDs in a 2 in 1 bracket, in my case).
- FreeNAS 11 RC4 installed with no issues. I did go enable legacy boot in the bios, but I didn't have any problems other than that. Perhaps I could have installed and booted FreeNAS via UEFI. Didn't try.

I'll update later once I've got the SSDs and SATA power Y adapters installed if there are any additional issues.

Anyway, for what it's worth. I'm pretty happy so far. Sooooo cheap compared to the entry level you're usually looking at for FreeNAS. Seems to be legit server hardware, and has ECC RAM. TigerDirect even has identical ML10 Gen9 models with WORSE processors (i.e. a Pentium G440) for more money, so I get the impression that this is a loss leader. Fine by me. The deal seems to stick around unlike the TS140/T20 deals, so you may be able to count on it being there in case you decide to use these for multiple projects, which I will probably do.

 

[lukeren]

I ended up buying it too. It seemed like the best deal at the time. Ordered an extra 16GB RAM, since you can never have too much RAM ;)
I've transplanted it into a custom case though, since I need more drives and the cooling in the HP case is next to useless, drives get way too hot.
There was some odd issue with my LSI controller if I ran it in UEFI mode, so I had to switch to legacy too. Not that worried about that though. It's probably because the LSI is too old and doesn't support UEFI.

 

[YLLYXZMZ]

Got in my 2.5" to 3.5" brackets and SATA Y power adapters. I can confirm that the ODD SATA port on the motherboard is just a regular port. That works. So, I have 6 drives in the system (4 HDDs in RAIDZ1 and 2 SSDs in a mirror, PLUS the two OS USB sticks in a mirror) and my brand new FreeNAS 11 RELEASE install is working great. You really couldn't add much more to this case. There's only 6 SATA ports on the motherboard, so you'd have to add an HBA or something if you needed more than that. Also, the case is really only designed for 5 3.5" drives. There are also 2x 5.25" slots, one of which is taken by the optical drive. There's also some space underneath the bottom hard drive, which looks like it's big enough to house another drive, but there's not really any way to attach the drive to the case. There's not a ton of fans in this case, so I don't know how wise it would be to stuff it full past its 5 drive design. I guess I'll see in the long run how temps go, though there is a reasonable amount of air gap between the drives if installed as designed. Overall, I'm very pleased.

 

[bent98]

I just picked one up. I plan on running 6 drives. I see they make a Drive enaablement kit to give you the ability to add 6th drive.
https://www.hpe.com/us/en/product-c...l10-gen9-drive-enablement-kit.1008772184.html

Is there a way to add a bracket to add the 6th drive. $50 is pricey for this kit? I saw someone mentioned you could swap the case out. Can anyone recommend a case and instructions on how to do this? I am assuming some modifications need to be made?

For the folks who are using this case how is the HD temps since it you cant add fans? Do you leave the side panel off?


I started as thread here.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proliant-ml10-gen-9-freenas.56574/#post-396803

 

[bent98]

I'd rather do a case transplant if I can.

I wanted to do a case transplant. I dont care about loosing the front USB ports as its for a FreeNas server so I just need 2 ports on the back. My questions are as follows:

The most important thing I need to know is how to handle the FP LED CONN that powers the Front LEDs and power switch, is there a converter I can buy that converts a traditional pc case Power/Led connector to the mini one on this mothertboard? I'd rather not cut anything tthat would void the warranty as its 2 years. IF there is such a converter, can someone please post a link to it? IF not, how are the pins wired?

 

[lukeren]

I'm not aware of any adapter/converter for the frontpanel connectors.
I just followed the wires from the powerbutton to the connector in the case, then I knew which pins on the motherboard I needed to short for power.
In the new case, I took apart the powerbutton connector (removed the plastic housing), taped it together and it could then fit on the pins on the motherboard.

You can do the same for the LEDs. I didn't, since I don't care about the LEDs, but the same approach should work.

 

[bent98]

how did you get the pin connectors on the new case to fit in the HP motherboard? They arent the same size.

 

[lukeren]

Like I said, I removed the plastic house they're in and taped the 2 connectors together. Then they'll fit on the pins in the motherboard.
Be sure to have some tape between the 2 connectors when you put them together so they don't just short.