Dell T20 Review

Since I start using plex my HP ProLiant MicroServer was to slow to transcoding movies for Chromecast. So I had primarily two options, first I transcoding them not on the fly and save them to my NAS or I buy a new NAS. Obviously I bought a new one.

So I look around an found the Dell PowerEdge T20. The Key features for was the Intel Xeon processor which has enough power to transcoding movies. The possibility that you can extend the ram to 32GB is nice for ZFS which take advantage of that. Also nice is that the ethernet controller a Intel I217-LM is. Intel has a much better record for building stable and supported network controller.

The downsides on my opinion are that only 4 hard drives fit in the case. And these hard drive cartridges don't look really rock-solid for me.

Hardware

I upgrade the my RAM to 20GB, for this you can checkout my other blog post about this. For disks I use three WD Black with each 2TB space. And for my system drive I use one of my old SSD, just because I can.

For the future I plan to upgrade it with a network controller to play with things like LACP.

Noise

What should I say, in a normal office environment you can't hear it. But it has two fans so you can hear it if it's really quiet, but for the most environments this shouldn't be that big deal. So if you searching for something quiet and powerful I can really recommend the Dell T20.

BIOS update

My BIOS version was A02. So you can simply go to the dell support site, download the BIOS .exe, copy it to your FAT formatted USB stick and select in the start menu (F12) BIOS Update. For some reason I must unplug it to restart.

Software

I run a FreeBSD 10 on it. Maybe I extend on this a bit what software I use. But for now, It looks to me as if every part of the hardware is supported on FreeBSD by default. (I like that)

Dell T20 Ram Upgrade

I can confirm that Crucial Ballistix Sport (part number: BLS2CP8G3D1609DS1S00CEU) running fine in the Dell T20. This mean I have now 20GB RAM \o/. Yeah you can mix ECC RAM with RAM that doesn't support ECC.

A extended review about the Dell T20, coming probably this week.

Note: This post is manly for people like me, who look first on google if someone running this successfully, since most time I don't want to buy certificate hardware.

UPDATE: This RAM failed me after ~10 years of more or less 24/7/365 usage. (Which is probably a good deal)

Lack The Rack Part I

I got some 19 inch server. The problem I don't have a rack for it. So there are two options buy for a truck load of money a rack or build one on my own. So just buying a rack sounds boring, and I don't have a truck load of money.

First step

To build your own rack you need a table from Ikea called lack. They are available in different colours and cost around 5$ -15$. They are exactly 19" and you can stack multiple of them to a large rack.

Decoration

I invest some hours, to paint on the front site a logo.

Assembly

The assembly of the table is so easy, that I think even a monkey can do it.

##Mount the server

My servers are kind of short, so I need to attach them from the backside a bit.

And as you can see a 19" fit perfect in a lack table.

Mount Nexus 5 On Fedora

I connect my phone with my laptop. And surprise it doesn't work.

So I google around and based on this: mounting nexus 4 via MTP in Fedora 17 I found a solution. (at least for Fedora 20 and Nexus 5 with MTP).

Install libs:

sudo yum -y install fuse fuse-libs libmtp simple-mtpfs

Update your udev rules:

sudo vim /etc/udev/rules.d/51-nexus.rules

#LG -- Nexus 5
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666"

For Nexus 4 it's possible something like:

#Nexus 4
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="4ee1", MODE="0666"

Now just add aliases for it. For that add to your .bashrc these lines:

alias nexusmount="simple-mtpfs ~/your/mount/point"
alias nexusumount="fusermount -u ~/your/mount/point"

Now reboot to reload your udev rules and load the new modules.

After that just mount and unmount your device.

Update

There is a list with vendore id's http://developer.android.com/tools/device.html.

Browser Link Visual Studio 2013

Mit dem neuen Visual Studio 2013 gibt es etwas das sich Browser Link nennt. Eigentlich eine nette idee eine aus dem Visual Studio raus mehr als ein gerät zu refreshen. Was es alles so kann kann man hier nachlesen Browser Link feature in Visual Studio Preview 2013.

Ich find es aber scheisse sollange es mein Solution Explorer mit poll?transport=longPolling&connectionToken= voll rotzt.

Bitte Microsoft fix das, oder macht irgendwo eine Option das man das ausblenden kann. Solange kann man es aber auch bequem austellen, und zwar hier:

Update

Da es manchmal dazu tendiert Einstellungen zu ignorieren, kann man sich auch einfach ein Eintrag im web.config machen.

<appSettings>
    <add key="vs:EnableBrowserLink" value="false"/>
</appSettings>