My Dell C6100 server arrived today. I worked from home all day so I could be here for the UPS guy but the joke was on me: he didn’t show up until almost 5:30. Bah!
But he delivered my C6100, another hard drive and my new System 76 Kudu laptop! The laptop is pretty nice, but more about that later.
After dinner I started playing with the server. I popped the three 4TB drives into sleds and stuffed them into the bays for node one. I powered it up and set them up as RAID5. The RAID controller software requires a mouse for crying out loud. I guess there is a CLI mode, maybe I’ll play with that on another node.
Then the fun started.
I had created a bootable USB stick with Ubuntu server 14.04.2 LTS on it. But it appears there is a bug that won’t let you properly install a server from a USB stick. It boots fine, but then says it can’t find the CD ROM to mount. I guess I’ll have to do more research on that one.
Thwarted at installing the server software, I started popping the 2TB drives into bays. It appears that one of the drives is DOA. No matter which bay I put it in, the server can’t see it. I guess I’ll have to RMA that one.
There is another weird issue too. If I put drives in the bay for node three the lights on the drives don’t work. The server can see the drives, there are just no lights. But if I turn on node two (and only node two) the lights on the drives in the bays for both node two and node three turn on. How’s that for weird?
I did pull all the nodes out to inspect them. They are a tight fit and the cables can get crushed or bent easily, so I guess I’ll pull them out again and look that the cables some more. I might have to open a case with STI about it.
At least all four nodes power on and see the drives, so that’s a good start.
