Dell poweredge 1600cs what can i do with it? And some random switches/routers

LeperousDust · 21-08-2007, 12:13

I've been offered a Dell poweredge 1600cs for £30 seems to good a deal to say no to. After an inital boot up it's running one (boooo) 2.4ghz Xeon, with (only) 512mb ram.

I tried entering the BIOS to see what the hard drive is but i've got no idea at all, i assume it must run some sort of SCSI stuff i don't understand at all. Looks like a RAID kinda controller loads up in the BIOS but its too quick to check what the hell its saying...

The thing is bloomin heavy so apart from possibly having a backup PSU inside, i guess its just fully of hard drives (i cba taking it apart just yet).

If i buy this for £30 just to curb my curiosity, what the hell could i actually do with it?

It has special connectors on the back i've not see before either, i'm guessing either something strange or just external SCSI (if you can even get that i don't have a clue).

I've got some switches and ADSL routers (ancient i guess) too now and they have some strange flat connectors on the too for setup i guess, maybe making them managed? I dont know, i'll take some pictures in a bit i'm popping out now.

Any ideas then?

Mark · 21-08-2007, 12:17

I assume you probably mean 1600SC?

http://support.euro.dell.com/support...=uk&l=en&s=gen

And yes, you can get external SCSI. There are several different connectors possible though.

Flibster · 21-08-2007, 13:48

Hmmm.

Wait for Windows Home Server to be released to OEM's and then have a play with it. It's like a NAS with automated backup.

Looking at it myself as well for my photo's

Simon/~Flibster

Del Lardo · 21-08-2007, 15:46

Dedicated torrent machine with a nice web interface so you can access it when away from home.

LeperousDust · 21-08-2007, 15:47

Sorry SC i couldn't remember the name off the top of my head... It might be worth £30 for the drives in it, but without me butchering it how would i go about finding out whats on it?

Yeah i'm gonna use WHS but i've got a PC ready for that, P4 with 4x 400gb drives in caddies, i've been playing with that with loads of linux NAS distros and other stuff and i've not got on with any of them yet. i WISH WISH WISH WHS could at least enable RAID though, tis a pain...

LeperousDust · 21-08-2007, 15:50

Right had a bright idea, just burnt off the Hirems BootCD thingy i'll boot from that from the dvd drive see what i can see on there. I can't get into windows because they've left 2003 server on it, probably with all their sensitive information too, stupid really, good job i'm not out to blackmail for any reason lol... Although i could probably sell it for more then £30 to a competitor of theirs

haha

Mark · 21-08-2007, 15:51

Got the service tag for it? Providing it's still 'as sold', it used to be possible to pull up the specs based on the service tag.

Flibster · 21-08-2007, 16:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeperousDust

Yeah i'm gonna use WHS but i've got a PC ready for that, P4 with 4x 400gb drives in caddies, i've been playing with that with loads of linux NAS distros and other stuff and i've not got on with any of them yet. i WISH WISH WISH WHS could at least enable RAID though, tis a pain...

It kind of does use raid...
...ish...

It's a weird system in that adding a 400gb drive may only give you 300gb more space as it mirrors everything across. It's almost Raid5 in that you can plug in a USB HDD and it then adds that to the storage pool, and if you remove it you won't lose any files as there's copies across the other drives.

I think anyway.

I'm going to see how much the pre-built systems are before building one of my own at the moment. 1tb system looks to be $750 in the US, which is a bit pricy...

Still looks bloody useful though.

Simon/~Flibster

Daz · 21-08-2007, 16:37

Useful, but nothing you couldn't sort yourself easy enough and have better control/access to the system. For Joe user absolutely - they dont want to understand what's happening and make decisions about it - but for a techie? From what I've seen it will just frustrate someone who knows what they're doing and what they want to achieve.

As for the disk expansion - it's quite clever from what I can tell, though typical Microsoft, it's not clear what's exactly happening (security through obscurity). 'Drive Extender' as they're calling it is a cludge of DFS, Volume Shadow Copy, some hot RAID-5 technology and SIS. Very clever, but should the thing go wrong and you want to recover data off it, I shudder to think how difficult it could prove.

LeperousDust · 21-08-2007, 16:59

Yeah i wish there was an option to turn it on and off, like you can enable different RAIDs in windows now, thats the ONLY thing putting me off, but i know its the only thing i can sensibly set up and keep running, its unfortunate but all this nix stuff goes right over my head and takes me hours of googling to work out the simplest of problems...

Finding service tag now, thats a very good idea Mark

Service tag: 3twrw0j i don't like the dell site where the hell do i find out whats in this?

21-08-2007, 12:13	#1
LeperousDust Bananaman Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Liverpool/Edinburgh Posts: 4,817	Dell poweredge 1600cs what can i do with it? And some random switches/routers I've been offered a Dell poweredge 1600cs for £30 seems to good a deal to say no to. After an inital boot up it's running one (boooo) 2.4ghz Xeon, with (only) 512mb ram. I tried entering the BIOS to see what the hard drive is but i've got no idea at all, i assume it must run some sort of SCSI stuff i don't understand at all. Looks like a RAID kinda controller loads up in the BIOS but its too quick to check what the hell its saying... The thing is bloomin heavy so apart from possibly having a backup PSU inside, i guess its just fully of hard drives (i cba taking it apart just yet). If i buy this for £30 just to curb my curiosity, what the hell could i actually do with it? It has special connectors on the back i've not see before either, i'm guessing either something strange or just external SCSI (if you can even get that i don't have a clue). I've got some switches and ADSL routers (ancient i guess) too now and they have some strange flat connectors on the too for setup i guess, maybe making them managed? I dont know, i'll take some pictures in a bit i'm popping out now. Any ideas then? __________________

21-08-2007, 13:48	#3
Flibster Moonshine Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 3,388	Hmmm. Wait for Windows Home Server to be released to OEM's and then have a play with it. It's like a NAS with automated backup. Looking at it myself as well for my photo's Simon/~Flibster __________________

21-08-2007, 15:47	#5
LeperousDust Bananaman Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Liverpool/Edinburgh Posts: 4,817	Sorry SC i couldn't remember the name off the top of my head... It might be worth £30 for the drives in it, but without me butchering it how would i go about finding out whats on it? Yeah i'm gonna use WHS but i've got a PC ready for that, P4 with 4x 400gb drives in caddies, i've been playing with that with loads of linux NAS distros and other stuff and i've not got on with any of them yet. i WISH WISH WISH WHS could at least enable RAID though, tis a pain... __________________

21-08-2007, 15:50	#6
LeperousDust Bananaman Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Liverpool/Edinburgh Posts: 4,817	Right had a bright idea, just burnt off the Hirems BootCD thingy i'll boot from that from the dvd drive see what i can see on there. I can't get into windows because they've left 2003 server on it, probably with all their sensitive information too, stupid really, good job i'm not out to blackmail for any reason lol... Although i could probably sell it for more then £30 to a competitor of theirs haha __________________

21-08-2007, 16:37	#9
Daz The Stig Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Swad! Posts: 10,713	Useful, but nothing you couldn't sort yourself easy enough and have better control/access to the system. For Joe user absolutely - they dont want to understand what's happening and make decisions about it - but for a techie? From what I've seen it will just frustrate someone who knows what they're doing and what they want to achieve. As for the disk expansion - it's quite clever from what I can tell, though typical Microsoft, it's not clear what's exactly happening (security through obscurity). 'Drive Extender' as they're calling it is a cludge of DFS, Volume Shadow Copy, some hot RAID-5 technology and SIS. Very clever, but should the thing go wrong and you want to recover data off it, I shudder to think how difficult it could prove. __________________ apt-get moo

21-08-2007, 12:17	#2
Mark Screaming Orgasm Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Newbury Posts: 15,194	I assume you probably mean 1600SC? http://support.euro.dell.com/support...=uk&l=en&s=gen And yes, you can get external SCSI. There are several different connectors possible though.

21-08-2007, 15:46	#4
Del Lardo Absinthe Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Cambridge Posts: 2,539	Dedicated torrent machine with a nice web interface so you can access it when away from home.

21-08-2007, 15:51	#7
Mark Screaming Orgasm Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Newbury Posts: 15,194	Got the service tag for it? Providing it's still 'as sold', it used to be possible to pull up the specs based on the service tag.

21-08-2007, 16:59	#10
LeperousDust Bananaman Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Liverpool/Edinburgh Posts: 4,817	Yeah i wish there was an option to turn it on and off, like you can enable different RAIDs in windows now, thats the ONLY thing putting me off, but i know its the only thing i can sensibly set up and keep running, its unfortunate but all this nix stuff goes right over my head and takes me hours of googling to work out the simplest of problems... Finding service tag now, thats a very good idea Mark Service tag: 3twrw0j i don't like the dell site where the hell do i find out whats in this? __________________ Last edited by LeperousDust; 21-08-2007 at 17:04.