Update to Building a SAN Part 1.

I love the SuperMicro case. It is well built, well thought out, has plenty of fans. I had a couple of issues.  The documentation is a little light. For example it came with a fan shroud that the documentation said you shouldn't run without.  Well come to find out that is for the next generation Xeon and isn't required and in fact won't fit with the current Xeon heat sinks!  Took a while to figure that one out.  Second the case doesn't have any provision for mounting a floppy drive or DVDRom.  Well I stopped mounting floppy drives in machines I built about four or five machines back.  However a CDRom/DVD is still pretty much a must for me since I have yet to setup DSI images that would allow me to install from a PXE boot. I debated on whether I would be able to boot from an external DVD and finally decided to just hang one out the top of the case temporarily until Windows 2003 was done installing.  Whoops, come to find out Windows 2003 requires you to load the RAID drivers off a floppy.  A CDRom won't work!  Ended up having to also hang a floppy out of the case temporarily.  Once I got everything setup I pulled the drives and am now good to go.  Waiting on a Gig Ethernet switch and I will be ready to test the SAN out probably in early June once I get off the road.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 7:55:08 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)         Comments [0]