24th century

Exploring a Dell PowerEdge 2400

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• published: 09 Mar 2016
• views: 16973

I've made so many videos now that I've started to forget some of the older ones. This is not actually the first time I've talked about proper server grade hardware, outside of the IBM PS/2 models that were intended for use as servers. That honor would probably go to the PowerEdge 600SC video. I have no idea what attracted me to this. I do, however, know what I'm likely to do with it. Dell actually supported this system under Windows Server 2003! (So much so that that two years after the previous BIOS update had landed, they issued another to provide WS2K3 compatibility. I think I'll pick up a cheap secondhand copy of WS2K3 when circumstances permit and use this machine as a "playground". And I'll get some larger, newer hard drives along with a few extra caddies as well. I've already got a line on enough RAM to max this thing out.) Yes, I could virtualize. No, I don't want to. (You can't throw a virtual machine out of a window when it annoys you, and that is a very important feature to me. Not that I've ever thrown a computer out of a window. That's actually the truth. I've gotten even with computers in other ways, but never have I thrown one out of a window.) Check this space, there will probably be more corrections, amplifications and clarifications to come. The chip I didn't recognize is actually part of the system's ServerWorks chipset. (I thought it was Intel based prior to reading the specs.) Also wrong was my expansion of the DRAC acronym..it's actually "remote assistant" instead of "remote access". Oh well, close enough. I might try to find a suitable DRAC card, if they don't require extra licensing to unlock all of their functionality. Other mistakes and clarifications: When referring to the add-in NIC, I meant to say that A) it is not installed as a replacement for a failed NIC and B) that it is placed into service while the onboard NIC is ignored. As for my "lost train of thought" (hey, it happens!) I was going to mention the added depth of the power on self test being a result of a server's focus on data integrity and reliability. And then I got distracted by a fan. :-) I've updated the BIOS, flashed the latest firmware to the management controller hardware and resolved all of the errors relating to the "out of date" software. It's the middle hard drive that has failed. When I upgraded the management controller firmware, the power supply fans actually stopped running for a while! I may, depending upon how things work out, set the SCSI backplane aside and go with a SATA solution in a PCI slot. It's hard to tell. I'd rather not go through "battle of the aged hard drives that want to do nothing other than lay down and die" as I did with my old IBM PC Server 500. I don't mean to say that proper server grade computing gear doesn't bring something useful to the table, only that I don't find much utility in those extras. Having a system that was designed to be paranoid about one's data (with support for ECC RAM and other features) can certainly be a valuable feature! I don't hold true with the notion -- based on empirical evidence -- that regular computer hardware isn't up to the task.