**Dell PowerEdge T20 Mini Tower Server - Owner Thread**

Soldato
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Hi guys, I have just ordered a T20 I now need to order a dual port network card, do I need a full height one or low profile ?
Also looking at RAM would this be suitable Corsair Vengeance Pro 8 GB RAM Memory CMY8GX3M2A2400C11R ?

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Cards need a standard height bracket, which can usually be fitted to a low profile card
 
Associate
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Has anyone had issue with USB mouse and keyboard (and presumably other USB devices) completely disconnecting as if the USB ports have died? Just installed Win 7, some extra RAM and a GPU and it seems after some period of working the whole PC will have a moment and then the USB devices will completely die but PC remains running.

Only thing I can do then is hit the power button and it will go through shut down process but gets stuck on the 'shutting down..' screen and never actually turns off until I hold down the power button. Didn't have this issue with my ESXI install on it.

Cheers.
 
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Soldato
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Bought one of these just recently, decided i need to get things under one piece of hardware. It's great value for money.

I'm presumably going to be putting server 2012 R2 I have a code for, and then Virtualize everything from there of course.

I guess I'll be putting some kind of expansion card for more sata ports in there it seems.

I've also got a Silverstone PSU that I plan to put in this, so I can power more drives.

Am I correct in thinking i need this so i can use the after market PSU?


"24 to 8 Pin ATX Dell Optiplex 3020 7020 Power Supply Motherboard Adapter Cable"

described as:
ATX 24Pin Female to for DELL Optiplex 3020 7020 9020 T1700 Server Motherboard 8Pin Male Adapter Power Cable

DELL Optiplex 3020 7020 9020 T1700 Motherboard 8Pin Power

8Pin Compatible with for Dell H61/H81/Q77/Q87/B75/A75/Q75/Q65 etc motherboard

18AWG wire, support 1000W high power PSU

Anything else I should look out for?

//Edit: Or do I ghetto the PSU cables (is it really worth it). I guess a few people have installed graphics cards and crazy things in this i've seen, so someone must have some previous experience with this...

Do Not Hotlink Images
 
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Soldato
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i am also looking to put an aftermarket PSU, any recommendations for a psu that fits would be greatly appreciated,.
So my part arrived this morning and I fit a standard ATX PSU easy, mine was an old 500w silverstone one but it gives way more options than the OEM one, can't see why any standard PSU wouldn't fit really. :)
 
Soldato
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If i bought something like the "Syba SATA III 8 Port PCI-E 2.0 Controller Card" which is using the Marvell 88SE9705 that would allow me to expand, and be compatible with everything right?


Sounds like a lot of ports i know, but i'll have having a few extra smaller physical drives that will have separate things housed on them rather than partitions. They won't all be used at once, so I don't see any bottlenecks, they just need to be accessible easy enough.
 
Associate
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I have added this card StarTech.com 2 Port PCI Express eSATA Controller Adapter Card, it shows the HDD on the boot and into the card bios (Ctrl +M) but it doesn't show in my operating system which is UNRAID.

Anyone else experience this?
 
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So my part arrived this morning and I fit a standard ATX PSU easy, mine was an old 500w silverstone one but it gives way more options than the OEM one, can't see why any standard PSU wouldn't fit really. :)

Thanks,

I got a Corsair 550w and the PSU motherboard adapter, all fitted and working great :)
 
Soldato
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Can anyone recommend a PCI-E sata card for my new T20? 4 port ideally, and would also like it in the lower x16 slot (I think) so I've got room for a passively cooled GPU in the future.

Also is there an easy way to find an extra drive cage? I already have 4x3tb 3.5" migrating from my N40L that are nearly full.
 
Associate
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Can anyone recommend a PCI-E sata card for my new T20? 4 port ideally, and would also like it in the lower x16 slot (I think) so I've got room for a passively cooled GPU in the future.

Also is there an easy way to find an extra drive cage? I already have 4x3tb 3.5" migrating from my N40L that are nearly full.

I kept an eye on ebay and picked up a Fujitsu branded LSI 9211-8i for a good price - with the SATA to SAS cables it'll handle 8 drives for you.
 
Associate
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I have added this card StarTech.com 2 Port PCI Express eSATA Controller Adapter Card, it shows the HDD on the boot and into the card bios (Ctrl +M) but it doesn't show in my operating system which is UNRAID.

Anyone else experience this?

Yes, I've had this exactly. You need to go into the BIOS and disable 'VT for Direct I/O'
 
Associate
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Can anyone recommend a PCI-E sata card for my new T20? 4 port ideally, and would also like it in the lower x16 slot (I think) so I've got room for a passively cooled GPU in the future.

Also is there an easy way to find an extra drive cage? I already have 4x3tb 3.5" migrating from my N40L that are nearly full.

If you need a SATA card, i'd avoid silicon image and marvel chipsets, at least if you are going to use Unraid.

I had a silicon image chipset, 4 port SATA card in my T20 and Unraid was throwing up iommu errors until I disabled VT-D in bios. I recently swapped to a cartd using the ASMEDIA ASM1061 chipset and it works perfectly.

As for adding extra drives, if you google "Orico drive cage dell t20" It is pretty easy to fit one if you don't mind adding 2.5" drives
 
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It's all a bit Reddish...
Yep, been running on mine since early Jan with one issue. This was completely losing network connection on a single port Intel NIC which required the whole server to be restarted to correct. I've since stopped using the card and all has been well :)

ESXI.PNG
 
Soldato
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Really tempted to get one of the T20's to run along side my synology nas which will be mainly used for backups. Im looking at putting in 3x3tb wd drives and running esxi as the base perhaps of a small ssd. I have just a couple of questions if i may...

1. Would it be worth considering the T30 over the T20 now?

2. I want to create one large volume from my 9tb not sure on raid yet, was looking a stable bit drive pool. How would i go about doing this through esxi?

3. I want to use a linux server to host my plex server, i currently have all my media stored on the nas but want to move it to the new server. What would be the best way for plex to access the media? Create one big VM that could hold the server and media files or just create a data store and have the plex server point to that?

Thanks all
 
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