CentOS - Nov 2017 - low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

I just put a call into AT&T Office 365 asking them to explain the spoof
warning thing...

To answer your question....

At the moment, no I can't. I like HPE stuff, we bought a DL380 gen9 say five
months ago and totally happy with it. In fairness, its running Server 2012 r2
too but I didn't run into the hardware gotchas I did on the other stuff. It
just seems HPE skimped on their lower end stuff and CentOS 6.x doesn't play
well.

This whole incident with the DL20 JUST happened. It's (finally) been
spinning Server 2012 r2 for about a week now. It was a long 5 week process just
to get to to this answer.

I haven't had the time to research out what my next buys are going to be.
I'm listening as well if someone has a suggestion.

Honestly, I'm leaning against Dell because their stuff just doesn't seem
to be built to last. We have 1 T620, 2 R620 servers. So far just past the 5 year
mark, 3 dead hard drives, 2 power supplies. That is with the machines mostly
TURNED OFF. (Failed IT project after I was hired; aborted a move to a new ERP
system) With my personal Dell laptop just bought 4 months ago, periodically get
the 6 beep on power on error. Tells me Dell quality / quality control might not
be where it needs to be.

Then again, I get a constant flow of HPE advisories..... :(

I've thinking of taking a look at Supermicro severs. 

Bottom line is, they all have their quirks, problems, deficiencies....

WHY did Lenovo have to quit selling the RS140's? I *LOVE* those machines....
Fast, reliable and just work GREAT with Centos 6.9!

Regards,

Richard


-----Original Message-----
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of hw
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 9:09 AM
To: centos at centos.org
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially if
using CentOS 6.x)
What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
_______________________________________________
CentOS mailing list
CentOS at centos.org
https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
<snip>
> Honestly, I'm leaning against Dell because their stuff just doesn't
seem
> to be built to last. We have 1 T620, 2 R620 servers. So far just past the
> 5 year mark, 3 dead hard drives, 2 power supplies. That is with the
> machines mostly TURNED OFF. (Failed IT project after I was hired; aborted
> a move to a new ERP system) With my personal Dell laptop just bought 4
> months ago, periodically get the 6 beep on power on error. Tells me Dell
> quality / quality control might not be where it needs to be.
<snip>
That's... odd. We have a bunch of Dells, R4[123]0's, R520's,
R7[23]0's, an
R815, etc, and they keep chugging. Some of them are 5, 6, 7 years old, and
I rarely have any h/d issues, and PSU issues are equally rare.

If you're having this kind of issue, you should talk to Dell support, and
escalate it, so that a manager takes ownership. I've had one do that,
years ago, when we kept having issues with one machine, and they were
*serious* about "taking ownership" (as opposed to Sun/Oracle, file
them
under "none of the above").

      mark

Good to know about the HPE and Dell "gotchas", thanks to those who
posted.

I can speak to SuperMicro (11 systems, mostly X9 and X10).  Hardware seems to be
fine, management utilities (IPMI - like iLO) are more basic.  The real heartburn
right now is that the browsers for Linux have pretty much dropped NPAPI which
means remote console doesn't work since it needs Java.  They have
alternatives on their web site (look for IPMIView and IPMICFG).  One of their
solutions only works with Gnome (but I don't remember which one - too long
ago).  Differing versions of IPMI firmware have their own quirks.  Bottom line:
support is there but more basic and not as easy to use.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Zimmerman" <rzimmerman at riverbendhose.com>
To: "centos" <centos at centos.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 8:33:17 AM
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

I just put a call into AT&T Office 365 asking them to explain the spoof
warning thing...

To answer your question....

At the moment, no I can't. I like HPE stuff, we bought a DL380 gen9 say five
months ago and totally happy with it. In fairness, its running Server 2012 r2
too but I didn't run into the hardware gotchas I did on the other stuff. It
just seems HPE skimped on their lower end stuff and CentOS 6.x doesn't play
well.

This whole incident with the DL20 JUST happened. It's (finally) been
spinning Server 2012 r2 for about a week now. It was a long 5 week process just
to get to to this answer.

I haven't had the time to research out what my next buys are going to be.
I'm listening as well if someone has a suggestion.

Honestly, I'm leaning against Dell because their stuff just doesn't seem
to be built to last. We have 1 T620, 2 R620 servers. So far just past the 5 year
mark, 3 dead hard drives, 2 power supplies. That is with the machines mostly
TURNED OFF. (Failed IT project after I was hired; aborted a move to a new ERP
system) With my personal Dell laptop just bought 4 months ago, periodically get
the 6 beep on power on error. Tells me Dell quality / quality control might not
be where it needs to be.

Then again, I get a constant flow of HPE advisories..... :(

I've thinking of taking a look at Supermicro severs. 

Bottom line is, they all have their quirks, problems, deficiencies....

WHY did Lenovo have to quit selling the RS140's? I *LOVE* those machines....
Fast, reliable and just work GREAT with Centos 6.9!

Regards,

Richard


-----Original Message-----
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of hw
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 9:09 AM
To: centos at centos.org
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially if
using CentOS 6.x)
What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
_______________________________________________
CentOS mailing list
CentOS at centos.org
https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
_______________________________________________
CentOS mailing list
CentOS at centos.org
https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

I can help a little here... Yes, dropping NPAPI is a huge problem. FireFox ESR
is available for Linux x32 and x64.

Solved my problems using Lantronix Spider IP/KVM device until Java updates, then
refuses to run it yet again :(

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/

Hopes this helps....

Richard


-----Original Message-----
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of Leroy Tennison
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 11:08 AM
To: centos
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Good to know about the HPE and Dell "gotchas", thanks to those who
posted.

I can speak to SuperMicro (11 systems, mostly X9 and X10).  Hardware seems to be
fine, management utilities (IPMI - like iLO) are more basic.  The real heartburn
right now is that the browsers for Linux have pretty much dropped NPAPI which
means remote console doesn't work since it needs Java.  They have
alternatives on their web site (look for IPMIView and IPMICFG).  One of their
solutions only works with Gnome (but I don't remember which one - too long
ago).  Differing versions of IPMI firmware have their own quirks.  Bottom line:
support is there but more basic and not as easy to use.