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WIP Home rack server space.

December 27, 2016

Finally got a metal storage rack that I will use as Rack space. About US$99. Finally so much space. Comes with removable half panels, just in case. It’s the same sort I have in my storage room. Why did I not think of this earlier!

[caption id=“attachment_380” align=“aligncenter” width=“169”] DSC 0256 e1482787188387 169x300 metal rack for servers/devices[/caption]

Since I was unplugging everything to get the rack installed, I took the plunge and installed that 2nd Xeon CPU on the workstation and it went without a hitch. This is the first time I have actually installed the CPU myself. I did try earlier without a heatsink and it was overheating so the system would not boot. The BIOS logs accurately pointed as much, with the heatsink, no complains. Cleaned out the system with compressed air and a vacuum cleaner to catch the dust.

Got a lot done for Christmas holidays I must say.

It tooks months for me to get my Second Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5420 CPU for the used Workstation I bought an year ago. There was some hassle and expensive shipping to get the Heatsink as the stock heatsink would not fit the Dell workstation spec. After all the upgrades to this beast of a Dell t5420 Workstation is finally complete.  My final server spec is

Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5420 32 GB RAM 2.5TB HDD 4TB external powered HDD 2TB 2x enclosure, powered disk cloner that doubles as USB drive Edgemax Pro 3 Gbps router and Unifi pro wireless (next in line for network upgrades) 1Gbps down and 500mbps up fiber internet connection excludes my desktop and peripherals. Runs a decent Apache Storm cluster, mirrors OSS projects and chomps on AWS Kinesis streams while deploying to Azure app services.

There is no hyperthreading support unfortunately on this old Xeon and the 2 Disk LVM still suffers from IO issues. It could be the limits of 2009 SATA. I might have better luck with external storage for things like my Raspberry mirror. I have been very happy with WD My Book which is externally powered and has been my offline backup for almost 4 years now.

Wire management is going to get easier. Plus the Eubiq port is amazing for power supply. See picture

[caption id=“attachment_381” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] DSC 0258 300x169 Eubiq power strip, still need to manage those cables.[/caption]

It doesn’t sit on the floor so it’s gonna stay a lot cleaner and quieter. Once I am sure where to place what i an do some cable management.

Full blast LXC containers manage and host all my apps. Maybe I will try Docker at some point.

The workstation is heavy and I forgot to take picture of the installed dual Xeon CPUs. Maybe next time when I upgrade the disks.

Complete setup of my home workspace, much neater with everything else on the rack

[caption id=“attachment_382” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] DSC 0257 300x169 my workspace, those cables need managing[/caption]


You are welcome to connect with me. Abhishek Dujari
This is my archived blog where you will find content about early days of Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, Development and Sysadmin.