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Firmware / Re: Recovering the BMC on the Talos II
« on: February 03, 2021, 08:49:57 pm »
@jedavies What device were you using to flash the BMC chip? And what settings did it have?
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Talos II / Is the Intel "8-Port PCIe Gen3 x8 Switch AIC" HBA controller compatible?
« on: January 18, 2021, 09:48:27 am »
Hello,
There has been a LOT of discussion in various forums, especically https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php, about which combinations of PLX-switched HBA controllers and U.2 SSD drive cages (1x 5.25" slot for 4x 2.5" SSD's; 2x 5.25" slots for 8x 2.5" SSD's) are compatible. There is still no definitive answer, but I would like to find one for my use case...
Is the Intel AXXP3SWX08080 ("8-Port PCIe Gen3 x8 Switch AIC") (https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/124459/8-port-pcie-gen3-x8-switch-aic-axxp3swx08080.html) compatible with a Talos II (x8) PCI-e slot?
I didn't see any mention of this in the wiki. Could somebody please shed some light? Thanks!!
@ullbeking
There has been a LOT of discussion in various forums, especically https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php, about which combinations of PLX-switched HBA controllers and U.2 SSD drive cages (1x 5.25" slot for 4x 2.5" SSD's; 2x 5.25" slots for 8x 2.5" SSD's) are compatible. There is still no definitive answer, but I would like to find one for my use case...
Is the Intel AXXP3SWX08080 ("8-Port PCIe Gen3 x8 Switch AIC") (https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/124459/8-port-pcie-gen3-x8-switch-aic-axxp3swx08080.html) compatible with a Talos II (x8) PCI-e slot?
I didn't see any mention of this in the wiki. Could somebody please shed some light? Thanks!!
@ullbeking
3
General Hardware Discussion / Build specs for a quiet NAS/file server for serving A/V multimedia to an HTPC
« on: April 23, 2020, 06:20:48 am »
Hi all 
I'm currently still working on and with my Talos II. When it's in tip top shape I will invest in a BlackBird with an 8-core POWER9v2 (this will find its way into the setup I have below :-)
Background
I am building a NAS and HTPC, and currently conentrating on the NAS. It will hold multimedia for my HTPC, it needs to be very quiet -- or, if miraculously it can be made be silent -- I will be thrilled to bits and then I'll jump over the moon!!
The NAS ideally would be made from a Talos or BlackBird but this isn't feasible yet. So I'm looking at Intel based solutions, so that I can more forward without having to wade deep into the reeds.
Ideal specifications:
At present, my NAS's main characteristics:
The ideas are:
How does this look for the beginning specs of a quiet, living room, multimedia file server for our family HTPC?
HTPC machine: First iteration has been shelved.
My first idea was to use one node from my 5-node Orange Pi +2E cluster, which is our silent, beautiful, and powerful enough hiome server for our family's needs. (Website, photos for family, etc.) I wondered whether an Allwinner H3, H5, H6, A20, A64, etc, could gracefully function as an HTPC. The developers in the #linux-sunxi and #H3Droid channels discussed a few details with me, including the fact that open source and libre user space video libraries and the video hardware software interface have been developed and even merged to the appropriate places upstream! I was gently nudged in an easier direction. I got an implication that getting the FLOSS solution for video working is going to drag me into having to put even more pots on the boil, and right now I juat need to focus on getting these working.
Any ideas and I would be very appreciative!! Thank you!
I'm currently still working on and with my Talos II. When it's in tip top shape I will invest in a BlackBird with an 8-core POWER9v2 (this will find its way into the setup I have below :-)
Background
I am building a NAS and HTPC, and currently conentrating on the NAS. It will hold multimedia for my HTPC, it needs to be very quiet -- or, if miraculously it can be made be silent -- I will be thrilled to bits and then I'll jump over the moon!!
The NAS ideally would be made from a Talos or BlackBird but this isn't feasible yet. So I'm looking at Intel based solutions, so that I can more forward without having to wade deep into the reeds.
Ideal specifications:
At present, my NAS's main characteristics:
- Supermicro X10DRi-T 2p mainboard ( https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X10DRi-T )
- 2x Intel Xeon E5-2630L v4 CPU's( https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/92978/intel-xeon-processor-e5-2630l-v4-25m-cache-1-80-ghz.html )
- Fractal Design Define 7 XL tower chassis ( https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/define/define-7-xl/black/ )
The ideas are:
- It must be very quiet or near silent.
- Use existing hardware where possible.
- 8x LFF spinning HDD's where possible. I have 4x WD Red 8 TB HDD's, 16x WD Re and WD Gold SAS and SATA 4 TB HDD's, and 30x WD Red 3 TB HDD's. This may go up to 10, 12, however many not to overload the chassis with heat.
- Noctua all the way!
How does this look for the beginning specs of a quiet, living room, multimedia file server for our family HTPC?
HTPC machine: First iteration has been shelved.
My first idea was to use one node from my 5-node Orange Pi +2E cluster, which is our silent, beautiful, and powerful enough hiome server for our family's needs. (Website, photos for family, etc.) I wondered whether an Allwinner H3, H5, H6, A20, A64, etc, could gracefully function as an HTPC. The developers in the #linux-sunxi and #H3Droid channels discussed a few details with me, including the fact that open source and libre user space video libraries and the video hardware software interface have been developed and even merged to the appropriate places upstream! I was gently nudged in an easier direction. I got an implication that getting the FLOSS solution for video working is going to drag me into having to put even more pots on the boil, and right now I juat need to focus on getting these working.
Any ideas and I would be very appreciative!! Thank you!
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Talos II / Re: Rackmount Server Chassis for Talos II
« on: March 11, 2020, 04:08:12 pm »Why do you want to use the 1K28R-SQ? I have 1K41P-SQs in my Talos II and I find that adequately quiet.
The problem is that PWS-1K41P-SQ PSU's were running their fans at full speed even when the system was idling.
During discussion with Supermicro and Raptor, we determined these PSU's were not fully compatible with my particular board. The official recommendation was to change to PWS-1K28R-SQ PSU's. Moreover other users in the Talos user community and the Supermicro user community more generally have indicated that the PWS-1K28R-SQ PSU's are noticeably quieter. This was a specification that I identified to Raptor pre-sale too.
5
Talos II / Re: Rackmount Server Chassis for Talos II
« on: March 01, 2020, 09:47:18 am »My understanding is that the board and 2U heatsink will fit into a 2U chassis and if I had fans in the chassis to force airflow over the board and CPU, any excess heat will be disbursed and later be extracted by the rack fans.
While there is no aircon where the rack is located, the rack itself (NetShelter CX 24U) has extraction fans. The servers will also be 1U apart which should allow for more airflow and heat disbursement.
That said, would it be better to invest in a 3U or 4U chassis? It does seem like waisted space, which could be used for a shelf (I have a ton of single board computers I need to fit in too).
I have a Talos II with dual CPU's, each CPU with a 3U HSF. Therefore a 4U tower/workstation chassis was a natural option for me. I'm currently in the process of replacing the PSU's, which isn't as simple as I expected. I'm replacing the redundant pair of PWS-1K41P-SQ PSU's with a pair of PWS-1K28R-SQ PSU's. I was expecting a simply swap-out replacement but I suspect the firmware in the machine needs updating. I'll keep the community and HCL on the wiki updated as to my progress (I've already added a note to the HCL: https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Talos_II/Hardware_Compatibility_List#Problematic_Cases ).
Moving forward -- in addition to ensuring that firmware is not the concern -- I also intend to reproduce a few other people's research. I'm specifically interested in recreating hardware+firmware testing environments, reproducing other tests, and interpreting the results as applied to my own Talos II.
If I were choosing to create a remote workstation or server then I would probably use one of the SC846 series and keep the 3U HSF's. Inadequate cooling is one less issue I need to be dealing with at present. However I would be very careful about which PSU's and PDU's I select, and I would check and do research first. Several people Raptor and the Talos+Blackbird community have some very useful research about the characteristics of the voltage and current that various Supermicro PSU's supply.
Also the SC846 series of chassis seems to have something of a cult following and there is a lot of community knowledge about these chassis. Topics regarding airflow, noise, modifications to the backplane, have been well studied and experimented, by many people, in various homelab communities for development servers, or for experimental servers for research projects, or ..., etc.
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