Dell R710 Build 2021 (almost 2022 now)

[v8mirage]

Hi All,


Since the last post about R710 was more than a year ago. I'm here to share my experience of setting up a Dell R710 + H200 (H200i to be specific) controller with 6x 3TB HDDs in case anyone else stumple across these hardwares and wanted some 'latest' info. Since these hardwares are quite cheap for home use purpose IMO.


The primary goal is to setup a NAS in Home network, secondary goals are few various VMs for services and docker containers etc. for sysadmin & software developments


Was initially only able to install Proxmox and run TrueNAS as VM with attached disk.


Disk size was limited to 2.2TB due to lack of firmware update to the H200.


TrueNAS CORE 12.0 U7 was looping with "root mount waiting for: CAM" message when booting up the installer.


Managed to (bare metal) install and setup zfs pool with below steps:

1. Setup bootable FreeDOS USB (used Rufus for this).
   *Some USB stick works and some doesn't. For those that doesn't will hang at initial boot screen, and for those that works, you'll be able to enter BIOS setup etc. with function keys.
   
   
2. Expanded and copied files downloaded from Dell (below #3 & #4) to it.
   
   
3. BIOS boot to FreeDOS.
   
   
4. Flashed BIOS to 6.6.0 (url).
   Ran the exe in FreeDOS and reboot, it didn't take long.
   
   
5. Flashed H200 to 07.03.06.00, A10 (url).
   Ran the flash.bat, it took a little while and reboot.
   *Not sure if it matters, I flashed it when it's plugged in the non-integrated PCIe slot.
   
   
6. Set to UEFI boot.
   
   
7. Install away.
   
   
8. TrueNAS is able to see all disks in 3TB.

Copy files to/from it seems a little faster than my current setup, ~110Mbit/s with Windows 10 client on default SMB share.


This is still under experiment, hopefully I won't run into stability issue.


I'll update this post when there's any info gap/clarification from internet search that's worth sharing.

My next step is to assess if it is really neccessary to flash the H200 to IT mode.

Hope this may help a few souls from banging their head.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

 

[William Bravin]

Hello all

Thank you for this post. I appreciate the effort you are making to make life easier for all of us

I am new (a vergin to be more precise) to proxmox. I installed proxmox 7.2 on the dell r710. The dell has a perc6 controller and currently has 2 hd and the bios has been updated to 6.6 and the bios is set to uefi

I currently have a vms for OPNsense and home assistant (that are being configured at this moment).

I do have 2 Truenas servers (the asus server is on the fritz) and i was happy with them until now.

I was thinking about not repairing the downed server and install truenas on the dell as a vm.

I know that i need to change the hd controller and the the controller need to be flashed in it mode.

I was looking at the h200 and the h310 i do not know which is better

on the dell i will install 6 x 4tb drives and keep these drives available to truenas and i will need to learn how to make these drives available to truenas vm

This will also mean that will need to reinstall everything on a 500 gb sata ssd (connected to the sata port on the r710 mb)

As i do not know or understand anything about these controller cards what would you recommend?

i have read on some posts that i should go directly for a lsi 92xx in it mode instead.

Please guide me to the best solution


Thank you in advance for reading this and responding