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Thanks for your comment below, Toheed. To change RAID configuration, in this case, the OS would have to be reinstalled, and data would have to be backed up then copied to the appropriate position. Another option could be to set up four drives as RAID 5, or four drives as RAID 10 for data and set up a backup to another server or an external hard drive. I also wouldn’t recommend a single drive to store data unless it is used for non-critical log files or non-critical data. Hope this helps!

— TechMike

We have Dell poweredge R730 purchased from TechMike NY.
We have drives and first two are SATA SSD, other 4 are SAS 1 TB each.
Our tech set it up first SSD as OS. 2nd SSD as data drive and rest of the three as RAID 5 to backup.
But I like to setup first two as Raid 1 for OS. Like to set up 3rd drive as data and RAID rest as RAID 5 or 6. Could I be able to redo do the raid as above without loosing data?

Appreciate your response.

— Toheed

Hi Kenan. Thanks for your inquiry below. We think this is a compound problem. During the server reboot with the drive, the server should have prompted to import the foreign configuration or it may have also done this automatically. If it did not automatically import or prompt to import foreign config, then you can enter the RAID utility and import foreign config from there and the data should be kept intact. If the drive is blinking amber, it usually means that the drive is bad. Hope that helps.

— TechMike

Hi, and thank you for this tutorial.
I have situation with PowerEdge with only 1 drive, where it lost its RAID config after I replaced it with other drive from another identical server (I was testing the other drive).
Now, the server wont bootup and drive shows orange led.
If I rebuild the Virtual Druve configuration as you instructed, my data will remain intact?
Thanks

— Kenan

Thanks for your comment below, Chika. The steps would be the same as illustrated in the video, but go right to the section of creating RAID 5 starting around 1:50. Remember, RAID 5 requires a MINIMUM of 3 disks, so you would not be able to have a hot spare.

— TechMike
HOW CAN I CREATE RAID 5 IN POWREDGE R440 SERVER

I HAVE INSTALLED 64GB RAM AND 2TB X3 HDD( 3.5" SWAP

REGARDS
CHIKA

— CHIKA NWOSU

Hi Faisal. You can follow the instructions in the video tutorial, however, you would skip the first step of creating 2 drives with RAID 1 and go right to the creation of the RAID 5 VD using your 3 drives. If you want to have a hot spare drive, then a 4th drive would be required. In your case with no hotspare, add all three drives to a new virtual disk and set it to RAID 5. Note: 3 drives are the minimum amount of drives required to created a RAID 5 disk. Hope that helps!

— TechMike

i have server Dell poweredge R730 which have 3 hard drives each of capacity 500GB

i want to configure RAID5 on my server with above mentioned specs, please guide me whole the procedure step-wise?

how many virtual drives do ineed to create? etc….?

Thank you
Regards

— faisal riaz

Hi SC++,

Thanks for your question. You may see warnings in the management utility stating that the drives are not Dell certified. Other PV units will not work at all with non-Dell drives.

Some Dell Powervaults will only work with SAS drives of a particular series/part number and are not compatible with SATA drives; we haven’t tested this one in particular. Long story short, it depends on the Powervault.

— TechMike

Hello, i have a rather specific question regarding the Dell Powervault MD1220 though this question may be relevant or applicable to other hardware as well. I am aware of the fact that you should normally be able to just plug SATA drives into SAS backplanes as long as you don’t mix them, however i find it confusing that DELLs specsheet of the MD1220 doesn’t explicitly mention SATA support anywhere. Interestingly enough cloudninjas sells SATA drives as accessories for the MD1220 though. Furthermore i have read a reddit thread where some people ran SATA drives on a MD1200 just fine which according to it’s specsheet also doesn’t support SATA drives. Is this just DELL doing DELL things as in it works but they don’t guarantuee that it works? Thanks in advance!

— SC++

Hi Josh,

Thanks for reaching out. What’s your question?

— TechMike

Hello, just had a general question about hard drives, servers and desktops.

— Josh Thogersen

Merci pour cette explication sa ma vraiment aidée

— Marzak

Hi AJ,

To use 4Kn drives in systems that run Server 2012 or Windows 8, you would need to make sure that the hardware is capable of supporting 4K drives.

If the hardware supports it, then when the drive is initialized, you will be able to use the 97% of the drive.

— TechMike

how to make full use of 4kn drives of the 97% in windows server 2012 or windows 8.1?

— Aj

Thanks. As of 2022 using PowerEdge 13G servers + electing to use 512-byte drives seems to offer best compatibility across the board, and compatibility is more valuable to me at the moment.

— Rubber Chicken

It really helped when you talked about electronic trash and how to dispose of it without damaging our environment. I heard my aunt is interested in buying new computers and other IT devices to improve her operations, but she doesn’t know what to do with the old equipment, so I’ll make sure she reads your tips now. Thank you for the information on how to protect your data and the environment when disposing of electronics.

— Eli Richardson

Thanks for mentioning that many cities have programs in place to help you recycle electronics. My husband is an electrician, and I found a bunch of old transformers in our basement. He said they don’t work anymore, so I’d really like to recycle them so they don’t go to waste. https://www.epsonline.com/services/pcb-disposal/

— Eve Mitchell

Hi Doug,
Sorry, we don’t have any systems that would be compatible with Windows Server 2003. You may want to try finding Dell 11th Gen servers such as R610 or R710. We are no longer stocking these older model servers.

— TechMike

Thanks for the information. The link you provide takes you to a newer Dell whitepaper and it only goes back to windows 2008. Unfortunately we have servers running server 2003. We cannot upgrade the windows version since the underlying software runs on server 2003. We are currently ebay’ing servers that we know work on 2003 but we would love to get some “newer” ones that are not 20 years old. A 10 year old server would be a great improvement!! Do you happen to have a copy of the older whitepaper which shows compatibility back to server 2003? Thanks a bunch!

— doug bray

Hi Adam. Thanks for your question below. The best bet is to go with R620 STATIC rails. Static rails have more flexibility when it comes to installation since there are different points for the screws (the downside is, of course, that they are static/fixed, and you won’t be able to roll out the server for maintenance, etc.). Here is a link to R620 compatible static rails:
https://techmikeny.com/products/dell-r420-r620-r630-r640-static-server-rails-not-sliding

— TechMike

Good Afternoon,

Recently purchased a dell r620 server. I bought a pair of rack rails, however they are apparently too long for my server Rack.

I have a Navepoint 22U open rack, that is apparently 23.6 inches deep and apparently the rails are too long for them. I am curious as to other solutions or rails i can purchase to solve this problem. thank you in advance.

— Adam Gause

Hi Joseph, Thanks for your question. Yes absolutely, we can install TrueNAS Scale.

— TechMike

Are you able to do truenas scale even though it’s not listed?

— Joseph

Thanks for your question below, Yemi. We suppose it’s possible. We have some of our servers plugged into 2 separate UPS battery backups. In the past, we had one battery backup where one PSU was connected to a battery backup and the other PSU was connected to a PDU power strip which was connected directly to AC power. We never had any issue with servers shutting down.
Did this scenario happen to you? Did the server reboot and give any error messages on power supply issues? HP and Dell servers show errors during boot if the power required exceeds the output of the power supply.

— Mike

Could frequency variation on one part of power source to a server shut it down when such server takes it supply from dual sources?

— Yemi Fajuyi

Thanks for your question, Bill. Broadly speaking, the power consumption will be driven by what the server is using. So using a higher-wattage PSU will not necessarily cause the server to use more juice unless it needs it. And if it does need more than 460W to run, you should expect to get errors when booting that the server exceeds the output of the power supply. Of course, all this depends on what you have in the server, e.g., type of CPU, CPU count, type of RAM, amount of RAM, amount of drives, etc. There are some power supply calculators out there, which you can find through Google search. These let you punch in exact parts of your system and tell you estimate of the power consumption. Hope that helps, and thanks for reaching out!

— Mike

Is there difference in power consumption between 460W and 750W power supplies (for the same server configurations)? How to calculate what power supply is most appropriate for my server?

— Bill