Some notes from resurrecting my old EX475 for service as a backup server, committed here for posterity and perhaps my own future reference.
Highlights
- 10TB WD Red drives were no problem. 4GB DDR2-6400 800MHz RAM works great. The single-core stock CPU is slow, but not totally unusable.
- I had to change the SATA mode to IDE+IDE, and I had to disable "simplefb" so that the built-in SiS video would work.
Hardware
Disks:
4x 10TB WD Red (WD100EFAX)
Detected without issue, large disks not a problem
RAM:
Hynix 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz 2Rx8
The system recognizes it as 800MHz
Works great, much faster than the stock 512
System sees only 3.25GB, not a big deal
CPU:
Stock AMD Sempron 3400+ single-core
VGA cable
Cable or debug adapter required for installation
Found one on eBay
USB thumb drive
BIOS
Stock BIOS, reset to defaults
Integrated Peripherals > SiS OnChip PCI device > SiS Serial ATA mode: 4S(IDE)+4P(IDE) (both set to IDE)
Software
Proxmox Backup Server 2.2
Procedure
Other considerations:
- I opted for Raid-Z1.
- ZFS works just fine without huge amounts of physical RAM.
- The SiS chipset is kinda wonky but it works.
- github.com/merelin/mediasmartserverd doesn't seem to recognize the LEDs in this chassis.
- By all indications, performance is entirely constrained by the CPU. 5400RPM disks, slow SiS SATA, ethernet … none of this is being saturated, while the CPU is at 100% during transfers.
- So far, this thing seems capable of backing up and restoring at a rate of about 15GB per hour. Not great, but once I get everything transferred the first time, incremental backups should go very quickly. Restoring an entire 20TB server is going to be a different story, one I hope not to have to tell.
One other thing: as I was reassembling my server and returning the exterior panels, I used a screwdriver to bend the metal tab on the top of the enclosure so that the top panel won't engage with it fully. This lets me slide the top panel off without removing the disk in the top slot, making it easier to access the VGA cable, which I secured with a rubber band so that it doesn't fall down into the chassis. Photo attached.