I got a Proliant ML350 G6 from work

It’s been a long time since I last posted, not that I posted heaps, but a lot has changed in that time including a change of work to finally working in IT again after really long time.

Today, we had a Proliant ML350 G6 that was on the junk pile and I was allowed to take home. So here’s some pics of a very dirty server that will be my project for the foreseeable future :slight_smile:

It’s only got 12GB of RAM and one CPU installed. I haven’t booted it up yet, that’s this weekends job, but the worst case is that I get a pretty great looking server case once it’s cleaned up.

I’m pretty chuffed with this even if it is pretty ancient and I’ll try to update this periodically with status pics even if it’s only me that’s interested :smiley:

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Nice - Keep us posted on how it turns out. I love the wheels.

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Update time. I spent a large chunk of yesterday dismantling and cleaning what I’m now calling The BFS. As you’ll see from some of the pics, there are areas with a significant amount of corrosion and some super rusty pics were immediately binned.

I still haven’t tested whether it works (I forgot to grab a VGA cable from work) but assuming it does I may completely dismantle it, riveted panels included, sand it and paint it. Maybe.

And a few more of the stripped down case. I did eventually figure out how to remove the other side panel but forgot to take yet another pic.

I hooked it all up and…sparks. It’s dead Jim :frowning:

I’m not even sure if I can re-purpose the case since it has the hot-swap power supplies.

I’m sorry to see that she’s dead. I have also have an ML 350 G6 (also retired from the corporate life). Replacement power is kind of expensive considering what you get, so it might not be worth it, but would be a fun project if you are handy with a soldering iron.

Thanks! I’m pretty disappointed but it was free at least.

I might open it up tonight and see if I can work out whether its the power supply or the hot swap board that’s the problem. I think it’s the board based only on where I could see the sparks from but didn’t investigate further.

I’m not terrible with a soldering iron but I also no longer have one since we moved unfortunately.

So maybe there will be more updates here :slight_smile:

So there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that it turns on.

The bad news is that I don’t know why it’s turning on tonight and what is different to yesterday.

I am getting error lights that indicate there are power supply issues. I found that there is an identical server hidden away at work that has a power supply in it, I’m going to see about borrowing it for the night for testing. Hopefully it’s just the power supply.

I was able to bring the power supply from work home for the night and…

The fan errors are because I haven’t cleaned them yet so they’re not installed. But it works. It needs a lot of TLC and some hardware replacements/upgrades but this is going to end up as my OP home file server.

I’ve already installed an SAS2008 that will get flashed if I haven’t already done so. The onboard RAID seems to be limited to 1TB 2.5" drives but I’ll look into this more.

:smiley: :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

I also found one, on CL, for a few dollars. I ended up throwing way too much into it, 2nd processor/fan, more ram (let me know if you need some 4x4R 16GB sticks), added in a 2 5.25" bay to 3x3.5" icy dock tray, new flashed LSI card, and I bought a box of 2.5" drive (73 total) on CL for another few bucks.

This things are loud, but they can manage a few drives. I figure 6 3.5" and 8 2.5" bays will work for a good backup server.

my setup was dual e5530 ( i think I have ver 1 mobo so no 5600 series), 128gb (8 x16GB) and a few HDDs. The onboard raid was very specific to HP disks. I have plenty, thanks to my box of HDDs, but the system is too loud right now.

I’m going to try this later to swap out the fans to see if better ones will work:

I’m definitely going to join you in swapping out the fans. They’re not quiet :smiley:

Although I was thinking that it would be less destructive to buy or make an adapter rather than chopping off the existing PWM end on the replacement fan.

I got a cheap SSD today and this evening installed the Windows Server 2019 evaluation, in keeping with the stuff I’m doing at work for learning purposes, on BFS. It definitely works.

The next step is to upgrade the firmware and then start looking at component upgrades and tearing it down to clean out the rust and corrosion for a paint.

And then the fans need to be replaced and some RGB light strips added :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m kidding about the RGB strips…

We’re attempting to save for a house so this will be a fairly long term project but I’d really like to get the rust removed and the case painted sooner rather than later.

If anyone has suggestions for online stores to look at for bits and pieces I’d love to see them.

I’m glad to hear that it is working well! I went down the FreeNAS route and got an LSI 9211-8i (eBay). The internal cables will reach from the onboard RAID controller to an expansion card if you decide to change in the future. eBay also has drive carriers for about 10 bucks apiece, so you can expand it a bit more.

You can also get additional drive cages for 2.5" (507803-B21) or 3.5" (487936-B21) drives, but I would suggest off-brand since you’ll get better value. Sadly, they don’t make RGB ECC RAM. You’ll have to go DIY on that. :stuck_out_tongue:

Hey, let me know if you need some cages. Part of my box of hard drives came with HP and Dell 2.5" cages for various setups. Since I have a G6 and G8 HP products it works out well. I also have 2 HP DL360p’s sitting around in cold storage that I’m going to teardown soon and part out. nothing like have 384GBs of ram just sitting around doing nothing.

That’s a lot of RAM! :smiley:

Awesome, thanks! I’ll bug you about the cages and probably RAM in a few weeks.

I’ve got an old Proliant ML350 G6 that had a hard disk failure years ago. It originally had ESXi 5 on it; that subscription has long since expired. I’d like to repurpose the machine to eventually work as a gaming console, desktop home computer, or something. It has 64GB of ram and an Intel Xeon E620 2.4 GHz processor so should be fast enough to run pretty much anything. My question is, can I remove the flash drive that has ESXi on it and simply install Windows 10 to run it like a desktop instead of a server?

Assuming windows has drivers for the hardware in the machine, that would be the path to take.

I was reading on the HP website that the Proliant ML350 G6 isn’t compatible with Windows 10… However, I’m thinking of downloading an image to a USB drive and installing it to see if it will run. Just need to buy a large enough USB stick first. Hoping to get this up and running over the holidays next week. :slight_smile:

Seems like Windows 10 isn’t on the list.

  • Microsoft Windows Server
  • Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
  • NetWare
  • VMware
  • HP Citrix Essentials for XenServer|

Again, I’m wondering if I can put Windows 10 on a USB drive. Similar to how ESXi 5 was running before? Has anyone tried that before?

That’s called “windows to go” and it exists but isn’t exactly great.