By resources I do not mean CPU and RAM, but something more valuable, time and money.
I am all in, and I want to see this server to completion, but man it is costing way more than the deal was supposed to be.
I am still tallying up the damage but here are some points
- CPU was lacking, so I ordered a pair that is much faster then the single CPU in the server, the pair was cheap, less than $20, but the heatsink, that was $60
- The S300 that was in it is windows only, I found one that was ESXi and Linux friendly, but it crashed every time I tried to format a disk. Furthermore, it really wanted to use hardware RAID.
- Luckily, I found an H310 at a local electronics recycling shop, the nice lady even gave me a discount for not only the cards, but two dual 1G NICS.
- But the H310 card used a different connector, not only that but the power connector was not common, luckily it is not proprietary. But it was a time sink trying to find a power and storage adapter solution.
- One issue is the cable is soooo expensive, more expensive then the server, like $130, so I am opting for an adapter instead, ordered one, hopefully it will work.
- I thought I was done with all my problems, then as I try to install a hard drive, it came as a surprise that the brackets that were including in the unit were the wrong one. I was going to head out to try and find a new one, but the time sink to figure out what type of bracket I needed was huge, I found 4 for $10 on ebay, I needed 6 so I had to order another 4 making it $20
- This does not include other little components like video, keyboard, power, and mice, but I have those lying around.
- This does not include hard drives or memory. To be fair, any new server would have gotten new hard drives anyway.
Speaking of hard drives
Another time sync were hard drives and why I do new with the servers.
- My daughter PC months ago, I replaced the SSD and I just got around to checking it out, not going to call out the vendor, but I would like to see how they handle Warranty replacement.
- Another huge time sink was my plex media center, I forgot the drive was refurb, it was a time sink as well. Drive is such junk, not even Linux can detect it anymore.
- I want to use a WD Black drive in another new rig I have, but I tried to back up the data, I did, but I also wanted a clone image for a few months. I don’t know why but clonezilla fails. I am going to try another version.
Anyway there you have it. A bunch of deferred IT problems, I just need to hit it.