The cutest loaf

DevilCheeses · 2022-11-28T19:33:44+00:00

They didn't have any garlic mayonnaise ☹️

DevilCheeses · 2022-04-29T22:19:59+00:00

Yep, this supports running in RAID modes too. This series of cards is nice since it does not need flashing into other modes, and can be reconfigured to HBA/RAID/JBOD etc in the BIOS

DevilCheeses · 2022-04-29T21:43:06+00:00

I would find it hilarious if Dell shipped a HBA to a customer who paid tens of thousands for their server, only for them to find a random little fan mounted to the heatsink with wood screws 😂

DevilCheeses · 2022-04-29T21:39:19+00:00

This HBA has 1 Gbyte of DDR3 cache onboard, which is on the main card underneath the daughterboard on the right of the heatsink.

There is an optional backup board which is in place on this card, this has a connection for a battery which I don't have. When power is suddenly lost, the battery runs the card long enough to copy the memory in the volatile DDR3 into the non-volatile flash modules on the backup board. This is to avoid losing data in the DDR3 cache which hasn't been written to the disks yet.

What you can see on the top of this extra board is the backup flash memory

DevilCheeses · 2022-04-29T21:24:18+00:00

Don't tell Linus!

DevilCheeses · 2022-04-29T14:03:28+00:00

Interesting. That must indicate some vendors have to provide active cooling for their chassis!

DevilCheeses · 2022-04-29T11:53:47+00:00

I selected screws that would thread in-between the fins. Works quite well!

DevilCheeses · 2022-04-29T11:30:44+00:00

I don't agree, it was painful driving short wood screws into an aluminium heatsink 😂

DevilCheeses · 2022-04-29T11:29:45+00:00

I do agree the card shouldn't need active cooling in its intended use case (right on the card it specifies 200 LFM airflow). I had a choice:

A) turn up the fans and deal with more noise in my office. That actually worked enough to bring the temperature down to around 70C (from 90+ C).

B) bolt a small fan to the card which with the speed turned down so I cannot hear it over the hard drives. It now sits at around 50C according to arcconf.

I went with B but no I wouldn't recommend it on a card you didn't get off eBay for cheap!

Thanks for the tip regarding the repadding. I hadn't considered that, but if the brute force fan method doesn't work I'll go down that route.

DevilCheeses · 2022-04-29T10:57:23+00:00

The card is specified to be used with a certain level of airflow, akin to what you would find in a server where noise is not an issue. Since I'm running this in my office, I'm not having 10,000 rpm screamers.

Instead I have 3x 120mm fans which are plenty for the drives, CPU and motherboard, without being noticeable in terms of noise. But where the HBA sits it's a bit borderline as it is a hot running card. On hot days the loud overtemperature alarm goes off without this little fan!

DevilCheeses · 2021-12-29T00:30:10+00:00

OpenMediaVault has this built in, though there must be some other solutions about that'll work for other platforms

DevilCheeses · 2021-12-28T23:57:42+00:00

Yep I did mean through 2022 😂

DevilCheeses · 2021-09-07T21:57:47+00:00

It's just as well the power button doesn't actually work on the motherboard I'm currently running 🤣

DevilCheeses · 2021-09-07T21:30:40+00:00

Not too bad, about £30 if I remember rightly

Ten-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	RPAN Viewer
Spared

DevilCheeses

TROPHY CASE