The datacenter (SS4200): (27.May.2010)

How to install/configure Intel's SS4200-EHW with flexibility and performance in mind

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Intro

Two years ago I started centralizing all my backups, movie- and CD-rips (got rid of all DVD-, BR- and CD-cases - saves a lot of space) and VM-images.
I built a small server (I call it "server", but in the end it's actually a normal PC with a normal Intel quad core Q6600 CPU - it's just that from there I "serve" all NFS-mounts to the other PCs - the VMs run as well in there), which was running Gentoo Linux and had 2 x 1.5TB internal HDDs coupled in a SW-RAID1.

Everything was perfect but the amount of data grew and this year the RAID reached its maximum capacity.
In the meanwhile I thought about alternatives.
A possibility was of course to just add HDDs and transform the RAID1 into a RAID5. But this solution didn't convince me - I ideally wanted to keep the storage separate from the server itself.

I first tried to connect the HDDs to the server using external cases via USB 2.0. This was really slow and some features, like putting the HDDs to sleep, didn't work (not supported by USB 2.0 - 3.0 should support it).
Then I tried doing the same but using ESATA. Almost "good", but the whole setup was quite unstable (some combinations of controller cards and cases didn't work or returned errors from time to time or just didn't want to reach their maximum speed of 3Gb/s but got stuck with 1.5Gb/s).
I then started looking at NAS but they were all quite expensive, especially the ones able to hold more than 2 HDDs.

Then I saw Intel's SS4200. Able to hold 4 HDDs, GBit ethernet, a not too slow CPU, and for only CHF 240.-!
I even found out that a colleague had it already and he confirmed that he was really happy with it.

I therefore bought it, and I can say that so far it works very well.
The only big problem I was confronted to was right at the beginning when I wanted to install the OS: Intel's SS4200 does NOT have a monitor-out connection. Quite difficult to install an OS without visually seeing what's going on, mh?

The alternatives I thought about were:

  1. buy a PCIE-1x graphics card (the SS4200 does have a PCIE-1x slot. But as the case doesn't have a slot which allows such a card to "look out" of the case, you will have to do some acrobatics to have the motherboard stick out of the case, which is what my colleague did)
  2. connect a nullmodem serial cable between the SS4200 and another PC and access the SS4200 through a terminal.
  3. make the SS4200 boot from an OS installed on a USB-Stick and connect through LAN over SSH.

If I wanted to install Windows, only the first option would have been feasible but in my case I wanted to install Gentoo Linux on it, so all three options were valid.


I first tried the alternative using a nullmodem cable connecting it to the SS4200 (use a USB-to-serial converter on your host if you don't have a serial port), but it didn't work immediately.
The SS4200 has on its motherboard a serial port but unluckily I didn't have the right connector (most of the serial cables follow the "AT/Everex" standard, while Intel uses their own "Intel/DTK" standard. The digital world still works almost like the analog one - everybody does whatever they want and then call it "XXX standard").
As I didn't have a PCIE-1x graphics card at hand I started fiddling around with the last option - but the serial option is still valid (works now for me), even if you just have an "AT/Everex" connector - this option is handy if you want to change the BIOS settings even sometimes later.

I split this article in three parts:

  • In the first one I describe how I installed the OS on the SS4200 by booting it an OS "blindly" from a USB stick.
  • In the second one I tell you how I adapted an "AT/Everex" cable to become an "Intel/DTK" cable.
  • In the third part I write how I configured the NAS to serve the data.





Parts

References