Suggestions for re-tasking a Dell PowerEdge 2450

Thu Jun 14 06:55:25 MST 2012

James

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 12:42 AM, James Dugger <james.dugger at gmail.com>wrote:

> Lisa, Thanks I have been looking into VMware, though I hadn't thought of
> Citrix.

It looks like there's known issues with VMware on this server:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=865

VMware has observed ESX and GSX Server product instabilities due to
hardware problems on Dell PowerEdge 1400SC and 2450 servers (Pentium-III
based systems). The failures are due to chipset malfunctions and may lead
to several different failure modes including those resulting in VMware
errors messages and guest operating systems failures such as blue screens.
These problems were observed on both dual-processor and single processor
systems. VMware has observed that these failures are usually not tied to
particular actions caused by virtual machine users and may happen at any
time. In our experience, the average time to failure is inversely
proportional to the number of virtual machines concurrently running on the
server. Servers running more virtual machines are likely to fail sooner
than those running fewer virtual machines. Replacing the motherboard is an
appropriate remedy in this case.

This server is not going to be appropriate for ESXi, however you could
install plain linux with vmware server.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-virtualization-90/best-practices-setting-up-centos-5-5-esxi-4-0-dell-poweredge-852064/

A citrix XenServer is going to be slow.  I would make it a toaster or use
it as an Apache lamp server or iptables firewall.

Processors Dual Intel <http://www.wdpi.com/intel>®
Pentium<http://www.wdpi.com/pentium>®
III microprocessors with a minimum internal operating frequency of 600 MHz
Memory One or two Intel <http://www.wdpi.com/intel>
Pentium<http://www.wdpi.com/pentium>III microprocessors with an
internal operating frequency of at least 600
MHz and an external operating frequency of 133 MHz  Internal Storage Options
SCSI <http://www.wdpi.com/scsi> hard-disk drives formatted capacities
ranging from 9 GB to 36 GB  Max Internal Storage Up to 91 GB of internal
storage <http://www.wdpi.com/internal-storage> capacity for support of up
to 5 hard drives  Drive Bays    Slots Three full-length PCI
slots<http://www.wdpi.com/pci-slot>,
located in a removable expansion-card cage.  Driver Controllers    RAID An
optional integrated PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) 3/Si that
supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 10.  Communications    Size
Rack<http://www.wdpi.com/rack>Mount (2U):
Height 8.4 cm (3.3 inches)
Width 42.4 cm (16.7 inches)
Depth 66.8 cm (26.3 inches)
Weight 15.87 kg (35 lb) minimum
24.94 kg (55 lb) maximum  Power AC power supply:
Wattage 330 W per supply
Voltage 100 to 240 V at 60 Hz/230 V at 50 Hz
System battery CR2032 3-V lithium coin cell

>
> James, I will look into AZ State Surplus.
>
> Thomas, I have a 42U rack and have the space for it.  However you are
> right it is not very green.  I have thought of gutting it and keeping the
> 2U case however I don't know if it is worth the effort (or even possible)
> to retrofit it to work with a new face plate tom increase the number of
> drive bays.  Probably would end up with very poor air flow anyway.
>
> Thanks all.
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 9:11 PM, Thomas Cameron <
> thomas.cameron at camerontech.com> wrote:
>
>> On 06/12/2012 04:20 PM, James Dugger wrote:
>>
>>> I have inherited a Dell PowerEdge 2450 and want to re-task it somewhere
>>> in my network running as a linux server.  It was being used two months
>>> ago as a VPN server running Windows 2003 Server.
>>>
>>> Here are the secs:
>>>
>>> 2 - 866 MHz Pentium Processors
>>> Bus 133MHz
>>> cache 256 KB
>>> 2048 MB ECC SDRAM
>>> built in adaptec hardware RAID controller
>>> SCSI dual channel backplane - w/1 daughter card installed
>>>
>>> 4 - 3.5 hot swap drivebays
>>>
>>
>> Man, that thing is going to suck LOTS of power and pump out LOTS of heat.
>>
>> If it were me, I'd sell it on craigslist or eBay and use the cash to buy
>> a modern multicore motherboard, memory, and processor in a desktop case.
>> Seriously, for a few hundred bucks you can get a system that sips power
>> comparatively, has many more - and much faster - CPUs, and has as much more
>> more memory.
>>
>> I've given up trying to repurpose machines that old. The cost in power
>> alone over the course of a year makes it smarter to get rid of it.
>>
>> TC
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> James
>
>
>
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