ML 110 Server kicking about - what to do

Django x2 · 9 Apr 2015 at 15:25

Hi all,

I have an old ML110 Q6600 / 8GB box kicking around with 6 bays. It has a dual HP NIC and one onboard, but nothing in the way of RAID.

I was thinking about sticking a good H/W RAID Card in and 6 x 1 or 6 x 2 TB drives to act as storage. Not sure then really what to do with it software wise. windows? vmware? FreeNAS?

Suggestions welcome

jameshurrell · 9 Apr 2015 at 15:47

There's a big thread here about them: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18410198&highlight=ML110

I have an ML110 G7 (G840 16GB RAM) - I run ESXi on it for a home lab... works well.

EDIT: Mine has embedded Smart Array B110i raid controller which will do RAID 0, 1 and 10 - does yours not have this? If not I guess it might be an older generation ML110??

Confused · 9 Apr 2015 at 16:13

If it's just for home storage (and nothing mission critical), forget the raid card, fire it up, install Windows and grab yourself a copy of StableBit DrivePool and have a nice, large, pooled storage drive made up of all your drives of varying sizes.

If there's some stuff you don't want to lose (like Photos), set up your Photos folder to be duplicated across multiple disks.

Steveocee · 9 Apr 2015 at 17:02

Run Linux with built in software RAID? RAID 10 for the hell of it.

paradigm · 9 Apr 2015 at 17:30

See if it'll run xpenology!

whiskycycle · 9 Apr 2015 at 23:44

paradigm said:
See if it'll run xpenology!

Mine did, before I shifted it back to a G7 Microserver... Was blindingly quick with a Xeon in there.

Django x2 · 10 Apr 2015 at 09:05

Hmm, all good ideas. The XPenology stuff looks good but can't find any English guides on their site...Would I still be best with H/W Raid there? I guess I can team the NIC too which would be good...

paradigm · 10 Apr 2015 at 09:16

You'll be fine without hardware RAID for XPenology. And yes, you can run a linux NIC Bond in XPenology/Synology. I've got an old Lacie Ethernet Disk with an upgraded ITX motherboard running with dual bonded gigabit NICs. I'm getting a good 200MB/s out of it.

http://www.xpenology.nl/tutorials/

These guys have English guides (not that you really need a guide, just a relevant boot image and OS package).

Django x2 · 10 Apr 2015 at 12:45

Sweet!! Off I go....Thanks Paradigm