NetApp E2624 Help

[brazen tusk]

Hey, I Got a NetApp E2624 storage server from some one and i was wondering if some one could maybe help me to set it up❔I have no idea how to🤣

[meager anchor]

At least you know it’s E-series and posted it in the right channel! That’s an excellent start!

What are you going to be using it for?

[brazen tusk]

I just need it for storage nothing special

If i could add it so the storage is availeble in Proxmox that would be awsome

[clever grail]

What have you attempted so far in terms of configuring the storage?

[fathom tendon]

yes with ross question how far are you with configuration

??

[brazen tusk]

I Have some Samsung 120gb SSD's (Just using for testing) maybe set up in Raid 4 or 5

[brazen tusk]

Hey, Was there someone who could help me set it up?

[clever grail]

@brazen tusk Based on the information you have shared so far, you are giving off the impression you've spent minimal up-front effort trying to resolve this yourself. This Community Channel is not here to do all the heavy lifting for you. So I am not sure what your expectation is here, but asking over and over for someone to help you setup this E-Series system when it appears you've not spent anytime up front yourself is really not a good way to start things off.

This is why I asked what have you tried so far.

Also your comment about just using some Samsung SSD's, this won't be possible. E-Series is an enterprise solution and has it's own disk models that it supports, you cant just throw in any old disk you have lying around. At least that is my understanding.

That being said, there may be information outside of this community (mainly homelab based sites/subreddits) where other users may have workarounds for using non-supported disks, but I can't speak to that (outside my area of knowledge on that).

Have a read through - https://mysupport.netapp.com/ecm/ecm_download_file/ECMP1532567

Does your E2624 have drives? or are the drive bay's empty?

[meager anchor]

Hey @brazen tusk you should be able to power up the E2624 and get to a prompt. It is a storage system all on it's own, and doesn't need to be directly attached to any server. Just cabled up properly.

Here's a nice overview of the steps to set it up with a cabling diagram.

https://library.netapp.com/ecm/ecm_download_file/ECMP1147614

[brazen tusk]

do i need to use the sas cables or can i use the ethernet ports?

[meager anchor]

If you're just wanting storage capacity expansion for ProxMox, this is the last platform I would choose. A simple disk shelf like the DS4246 would be a much better option.

[meager anchor]

The SAS cables are only if you're linking multiple shelves of disks to the main system.

[brazen tusk]

yeah but i got it almost for free form a friend (I paid with a bottle of Pepsi😅) but thanks for the tip

[brazen tusk]

okay

[meager anchor]

And can you confirm which drives are in it?

is it fully populated with 24 of them?

Show us a picture of the label on one of the drives, assuming they're all the same?

[brazen tusk]

Okay, one moment

[meager anchor]

Where I think you're going to run into the most problems is getting access to the software needed to run it. That requires a support contract at this time, and it's more than just a web browser. This thing is 10 years old and a lot has changed in that time.

Versus, just having a JBOD disk shelf that can simply be controlled with any LSI HBA in your proxmox server

[brazen tusk]

Yeah i have tried downloading from the netap support but i get this message saying access denied

[brazen tusk]

@meager anchor No i only have 6 drives at this moment, and Yes they are the same

[meager anchor]

I’m gonna plead to your reasoning one final time. The amount of power that thing is gonna devour will be mind-numbing. And for what? About 400GB of usable storage? If you had some giant capacity drives, I could make sense of it. But I don’t feel good about seeing you go through allllllllll of the effort to get that thing up and running just for it to 4-5x your power bill for little to no real return with 128GB drives.

You say you got it for free, but it’s going to be anything-but free once you power it on.

[brazen tusk]

Hey, thank you for the tip, Do you think i could sell this thing or should i turn it in for coper?

[meager anchor]

You could maybe get $100-$200 for it, but that's IF you could find an interested buyer. It's 10-yr-old kit at this point.