My HP ML350 G6

  • So this will be my thread about my build.Still learning linux but am getting more comfortable. Still kind of done with windows on the server side of things. So back in 2017 while deployed, I found an HP Proliant ML350 on ebay that I bought for $88.30 including shipping.(Below are are pictures from the ebay auction). I figured it seems like an upgrade for my ageing Proliant ML115 running Windows Home Server 2011. While I build computers, it seemed to be more cost effective to just buy another off the shelf/lease system. Most of the rigs that I build are for gaming anyway. So attached are some pics of what I am starting with.


    Re-Purposed Server ML115 (The Old and Busted) - OMV 4.1(Erasmus): <---Now used as a backup server for the ML350
    1. Storage
    ---a. 8GB Ram Max
    ---b. 1 physical 2.2ghz processor with 4 cores.
    ---c. 1 60GB SSD with OMV 4.x <---smallest one I had laying around.
    2. Backup - 5x4TB Standard SATA III Hard Drives on the internal SATA controller
    ---a. Deduplicated and Compressed ZFS Pool to keep backup sizes small allowing for less of a need for more hard drives. <-This will be the goal
    3. Power - Need to find a way to minimize power by going to sleep certain times of the day or when idle. <--Still working on it


    ML350 (Current Setup - The New Hotness) - OMV 4.x(Arrakis) on top of ESXI: ***Updated 2019/10/01***
    1. Storage
    ---a. Main ZFS Storage Pool - 25x1TB Enterprise grade drives 2.5in drives on a H221 HBA connected to a D2700 Storage Array Passthrough Directly to OMV.
    ---b. RAID 6 Internal HW backplane SmartArray i410 Raid 1+0 running SSDs Strictly for ESXI and VM system drives. This has 1GB of BBW Cache.
    ------1. RAID 5 Internal HW backplace Smart Array 410 just for UrBackup running a separate OMV 4.0 VM as a Main backup Server that will backup windows, mac, and linux
    ---a. Currently 96GB of ram half of which goes to OMV for ZFS with a Max of 128GB
    ---b. 2 physical 2.4ghz processors, 4 cores each hyper threaded, 8 logical cores per processor for a total of 16 logical cpu cores.
    2. Backup - Not only should this server backup its own system drive but any other pool in it. <-still working on making this an automated process
    ---a. Main pool(ZFS) will be backed up to another server using rsync.
    ---c. Automatic system drive backup to USB via clonezilla. <---Still working on that one. ESXI may make that easier
    3. VMs
    ---a. OMV 4.x
    ---c. Storj Server
    ---e. Multiple Windows 10 desktops - Running Steam, Plex with HW acceleration, or for any game server that I may host or game streaming if I can pull it off.
    4. Snapshots - Still love this feature and hoping that I can use it to make monthly snapshots to another server. ZFS has snapshots but the more backups the better.
    5. Mac Client backup - Wifey has a mac, gotta figure out how to back this machine up. <---This mac now runs windows with urBackup LOL!
    6. NextCloud - Very Awesome! and working great. Will never go back to dropbox now I have my own damn cloud :)
    7. Plex running under windows - Why? because it is running with an AMD graphics card passed through for HW acceleation. Windows was easier to setup.
    8. TV Capture Services - I would like to consolidate another desktop into just one box. <-no longer needed with so many streaming services + plex


    Always a work in progress and I would love to get any feedback from the community and their thoughts to my plan so far. I am still planning and buying parts like caddies, hard drives, also waiting to finally go home. All in all I want to have a self contained system that is self sufficient and there when I need it.


    *** Update - 2019/10/01 ***
    So alot has changed my ML350 is now running ESXI 6.5, I have learned alot more linux, and a while back I bought an HP Storage Works D2700. I added 25 Seagate Constellations 2 years ago running on a HP Smart Array. Everything ran great until a power outage that killed the batteries in my UPS. Last month I almost lost everything when a couple of the drives had bad sectors and the HP Hardware Raid was showing that everything was great. This was obviously a lie and data was getting corrupt and partitions being lost on the ext4 file system. So now I am running ZFS and hopefully this will mitigate the problem. Since 25TB is alot to backup the only way I could do it was to build another machine so my old and busted got me out of a jam. LOL The old HP Proliant ML115 still worked so I used that as a platform to save money. I took the motherboard out and put it into another case so I could fit more 3.25in hard drives. Put some 4TB hard drives and started running UnionFS temporarily. I plan on having this machine start up once a month and rsync and then shutdown as a more permanent solution. Lesson Learned BACKUP!!!


    Everything is basically the same except for the fact that it all runs in a virtual machine under ESXI. I would have used proxmox but I was already familiar with ESXI and at the time HW Passthrough was easier. I also think these machines were built for ESXI as well since you could buy them with ESXI pre-loaded on a SD-Card for the internal SD-Card reader. I have updated everything above.


    *** Update - 2017/11/09 ***
    So I finally bought the bullet for now and dumped Windows Home Server. I was running WHS2011 in a VM on my new machine but since there will be no new version best I dump it now and try to use UrBackup. So far a nice backup solution that will mimic everything that WHS2011 did if you use ZFS with deduplication on. So I decided to use the old ML115 as another OMV machine that strictly runs UrBackup. Rather than junking it I gave it something useful to do. So now it's only purpose is to Backup all the clients and maybe the system drive of my ML350. I decided to separate this function into another machine because of the horsepower needed for plex and ZFS. ZFS requires alot of horsepower and RAM on its own when used with UrBackup. So I decided to use another machine. More electricity use but less headache, and maybe I can put it to sleep at certain times of the day, but at least the systems do not have to fight for resources on the same box.


    *** Update - 2017/02/28 ***
    I finally buttoned up everything and now I am working on a backup plan. I tooks some pictures to post on eBay for you all to see and comment also. One of the things I would like to do is use the Blue-Ray burner as an off site backup medium. Yes, I know hard drives are faster but, Blu-Rays are something that I just like having in addition to a hard drive for an off-site backup solution. Any one have suggestions please let me know. Anyway, let me know what you all think, Just realized that at Idle this setup is only using around 120w which is not bad considering what my last system was using which was 230w at Idle. this beast is also now in my basement doing its thing, also I apologize in advance for the mess seen in the pictures.


    *** Update - 2017/02/12 ***
    So I got my drives in and my main pool is running. Using the links below I was able to SSH into the server and setup my RAID 6. 5 out of 8 drives for now but I will keep expanding it. I am realizing quickly that I need to upgrade to Jessie. The 2 biggest reasons are Virtual Box is stuck at version 4.3 and for some reason when I shutdown the server all VMs that I run are aborted. This is a no go, another reason is because Nextcloud requires php 5.6 now. So now it looks like I have no choice, I just hope that I dont have too many issues with the beta that I had when I ran it in VMWare. I now have to take the plunge. Geronimo!


    *** Update - 2017/02/10 ***
    So I finally got everything up and running. I am still waiting for 5 1TB seagate constellation drives to come in for the main storage pool. In the mean time I have put Windows Home Server 2011 and my torrent box system drives on a SATA SSD. The data drives are vmdk files sitting on 3x1TB SATA notebook drives running mdadm RAID0. I chose RAID0 for sheer backup speed and once the main storage pool goes online the virtual disks will be rynched anyway. So when the RAID0 pool takes a crap I will replace the drive and recopy the virtual disks from the main storage pool. So far WHS2011 runs great with no hiccups since all it will be relegated to do now is client backups. I chose to stick with WHS2011 for client backups because of deduplication. I have a large home network where each machine is close to 1TB. Especially when steam is installed on each, I could be backing up games 3 or 4 times. WHS2011 was great in this regard, backing up 4+ machines with room to spare. I have one more machine to consolidate, which is my PVR. Problem is the happague collossus tuner. Not sure about support nor if anyone else has setup this tuner. Ideally i would set it up in a VM because it is already running under Windows. But I'm open to ideas from the community. Questions like IR blasting and getting the TV guide working, among other problems come to mind. It was a pain to setup in windows i can only imagine how bad it would be in linux.


    USEFUL LINKS:
    HP Raid Related: <-- Need to have HW Raid Plugin installed.
    HP Raid Command Line Examples 1
    Extending HP Raid Logical Volumes Command Line Examples

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    I chose to stick with OMV 2.1 because 3.0 is still in beta and more stable.

    I disagree.


    Looks like a decent system. Having ILO is nice although ILO2 is kind of a pain to get a browser and java to work. I recommend updating it to the latest (2.29 I think) makes it a little less painful.

    omv 7.0.4-2 sandworm | 64 bit | 6.5 proxmox kernel

    plugins :: omvextrasorg 7.0 | kvm 7.0.10 | compose 7.1.2 | k8s 7.0-6 | cputemp 7.0 | mergerfs 7.0.3


    omv-extras.org plugins source code and issue tracker - github


    Please try ctrl-shift-R and read this before posting a question.

    Please put your OMV system details in your signature.
    Please don't PM for support... Too many PMs!

  • Nice, I also got a ML350 G6. For very little money (125 euros). Is has 2 Xeon X5570 and 12 GB of registered ECC ram. Some 6 disk (1 147GB, 2 half of that, and 3 300GB 2.5 SAS disks). I'm getting windows 2008 SBS up and running now (official license came with the box), just for fun. I ordered another 12GB of RAM, and hope the box will be able to use it all. And I am planning to see whether my wd red's could go in here. Not sure yet if I will go with OMV or another distro with zfs. Just to play for now. But what a great peace of machinery, and what a bargain. Only thing is they are a bit noisy, even in the quietest mode.....

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