Colossus III [Pictures start on Page 2]

[Pri]

lol bieb

Just wanted to reply to say that the last part of the build is arriving tomorrow so we are on track for the 20th date I set to do the upgrade.

[Pri]

Okay so as you guys know the server is down right now, you're probably wondering why this hardware upgrade has taken (as of this post) 11 hours and 30 minutes.

There was a complication. The server was all ready and finished by the 7th hour of the downtime but I accidentally fucked up by knocking the C Drive against the case as I was removing it and it then wouldn't work anymore. I am currently imaging a new 1TB drive with our data from the C Drive so that we can get back online but it has taken a while.

I estimate we are about 2-3 hours away from being back online. Thank you for your patience.

[Pri]

Ok so the upgrade is now about 80% complete. The game servers and everything else is online.

I've had to use an old 1TB Drive for the boot disk because of the main drive not working. But this drive has over 1,200 days on its lifespan (3+ years 24.7 use) which means it's not going to be reliable. It will die suddenly. So before that happens I'm just going to replace it.

I've ordered a brand new 1TB WD Black by Western Digital at significant cost, this is from the fastest drive series they have it's the best of the best.

It should be here Monday. I've also ordered a dedicated PCIe Intel 1Gb Ethernet card. The PRO / 1000CT. It has its own dedicated networking processor and is designed for servers and high end workstations. This is because the Intel chipset on the motherboard is a PCI connected piece of shit that I was not aware of because MSI (the motherboard maker) failed to correctly identify which chip was featured on the X79GD-45 (8D) board I purchased.

So all this means is that on Monday the server will be down again but it should not be anything like last time. I will be posting pictures that I took on the build day in this thread eventually once I can be bothered.

[Db696]

Unless you accidentally kick your mobo in

[Pri]

Here are some of the pictures I took on build day. I'll post the Intel NIC and Western Digital 1TB Black on Monday.

The servers HP SAS Expander Card. This is a very unusual piece of kit to have in a computer especially at home. It basically takes either one or two SAS 8088 connectors from a RAID Card and expands them so that you can connect up-to 28 hard drives to your RAID Card. This is important because instead of spending £1,200 on a 28 Port RAID Card you can simply buy a 4 Port RAID Card for £240 and then this HP Expander for £330 and turn those 4 ports in to 28.


Next is the 120mm Zalman fan. I have three of these but only two are needed in the server. The 3rd will be kept as a spare. I also have three 80mm Zalman fans that look identical to this one, only smaller. I won't bore you with more than one picture of the fans.


I wasn't quite happy with the picture of the Heatsink I took last time, it was under poor artificial lighting. So I took a better picture this time using sunlight.


And finally just a picture of the memory in the motherboard. This board has 8 slots and I'm using 6 sticks of memory. In this picture I'm only showing the right side of the board where four sticks are installed. This RAM is not new, it's the same stuff I've been using in the server for around two years. I was going to stick 64GB in the server but after switching to Spigot our memory issues appear to have gone so there isn't any point to changing to 64GB now.

[Pri]

Intel 1Gb PCIe Network Interface Card (Pro / 1000 CT) and Western Digital "Black" 1TB Hard Drive.

[Pri]

Got another 4TB Hitachi Drive coming on Friday for the server. I'm going through storage pretty fast. I'm happy to say though there is finally some competition in the 4TB category with Seagate, Western Digital and HGST slashing their prices. Seagate now have a 4TB for £148 which is really affordable. I'm sticking with the Hitachi's I already have though. Bit more pricey at £171 including shipping costs but peace of mind is golden.

Once the new one arrives that pushes the total storage in the server to 83TB. 16TB of that provided by the Hitachi 4TB drives.

[Pri]

New Drive is in. Amazon surprised me by delivering it today instead of Friday. Go them. Now I just have to wait 12-24 hours for the array to rebuild haha but no downtime as storage drives on the server are all hotswap. The new disk is already in