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My server rack in the basement is a hot mess. I decided to fix it up a bit and am splitting it into a few phases. I just finished phase one and thought I would show you. Here is the problem. Rack of wiring installed by someone else. Coax and voice wiring are in a sub rack to the side. I've "borrowed" a few of the voice CAT5e lines to use as Ethernet. My first plan was keep the sub rack and run a cable ladder back and forth but I decided to run a few jumpers up the wall and come in behind the rack instead. That allows me to dump the side rack and leave it as it was when I first saw it. You can see in the photos that I also needed a wire rack on the side to hold some gear. I used to have a pfSense box and some mining rigs as well. Goal is to get it all in the 19" rack. One thing that makes it difficult is I have so many little boxes. HDHomeRun Ooma VOIP box Echo Connect - Hooks the VOIP line into Alexas. Fire TV Recast Netgear Cable Modem Synology RT2600ac Router DS415+ DS218+ Then I have the D-Link 24 port switch and somewhere around here I need to put in a POE switch for the Ubiquiti AP's so they will all be on battery backup. All these little boxes have to go somewhere. Here is the side rack. At this point the cable coming in is jumpered to my great room where the Synology router and cable modem are. I did this in order to use the Synology as the wireless AP. This is the panel I steal CAT5e connections to certain walls too. Also, the voice system for the house is here. I have to inject the Ooma box into the house so we can use normal handsets and answering machine. Here is the hot mess. Speaker wiring mixed with CAT5e. The amp on bottom hooks up to an Echo Dot to do whole home audio with Alexa. The UPS is on the wire rack as well as the NAS's. The HDHR is at the top which is out of frame. Here is phase one complete. I still need to power it all down and get the UPS moved. The HDHR as well. Side rack. I ran an extra CAT5e jumper and it's curled up in front. I may have to rethink this as the jumper on the top right is bouncing from gig to 100mbps. I may have to pull these jumpers all the way back and into the main rack and re-punch them down. My concern would be them reaching. Here is the new setup. On the top are all the odd shaped boxes. Conect, Recast, Ooma, then below is Netgear Cable Modem and Synology Router. (More on this below) Wiring section. Rooms on the left, boxes on the right. Speaker wiring. NAS section. Phase 2 will be powering it all back down and fixing up some wiring in the back. Power on one side, data runs on the other. Move the UPS, move the HDHR. Also, I may move from the Synology Router to Untangle. If so, I'm going to rack mount a PC and use the Synology router as a spare. I have the Synology wireless on. It's completely surrounded by metal though. Not far from this rack are two heater/AC units and tons of ducting on all sides. That's why wi-fi access points in this room are a waste. The only clients are in this actual room. I have wireless on right now and see if it will work ok with the Ubiquiti system I have on the floors above it. It's not a supermodel but I'm liking it so much better! Suggestions and comments welcome. I used to have a MacBook setup at all times with Ethernet. That way when I came downstairs I had something to do some console work with. I may set that back up at some point.

I couldn't wait. But you guys knew that would happen right? Here it is in the air. Simulated ceiling mount! It's on a microphone stand that is on a high shelf so it's up in the air pretty good. This is on the top floor, middle of the house. Signal reaches all over the top and middle floor. In far off spots it's not great signal but it is there. This is all while two synology devices are blasting PLUS two Orbi units are going full blast. Not bad and I look forward to turn off those devices and just using the Synology as the router. I'll change its SSID and turn it off and turn it back on if I need "admin" wifi in the future. Surprisingly, everything connected to it except my new Pixel 3 XL. It would bounce the connection and if it did connect it would be the "no internet" situation. I tried a lot of settings on the AP itself but finally fixed it by downgrading the firmware of the AP by 2 versions. I should probably report this to Ubiquiti but I'm now busy undoing all the settings on the AP that I tried. I kept a log of it in OneNote though. So far so good. I love the Controller software updates. It has come a long way. I have it on a Windows PC but would like to run the dedicated controller, or cloud key, in the future. I'm taking baby steps but will leave 1U in my rack open for that option. USG router? I'm not sure about that option but will explore it more when I get everything settled. I also need to try the app.

Depending on the area I am trying to cover, mounting a WAP high on a wall can sometimes be easier, mounting a box and running cable, than ceiling mounting.

ADATA Ultimate SU650 2.5" 960GB SATA III SSD $99.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820215327&Tpk=N82E16820215327 Wow, 960Gb for a hundy!

my $40 one was here, vendor is pitching on newegg as well. it has 12 poe ports and 12 non-poe + 2gig ports and 2 optical ports. more than enough for my needs. some of the links above look good too. cheers!

Used Aruba S2500 switches give you a lot of feature and function for the money. The POE versions, S2500-24P and S2500-48P, support 802.11af and 802.11at. Both models include four 10GbE SFP+ ports. There are several threads on using them in the home. The 48P sells on eBay for around $100. The 24P was around $75 but they seem to be around $100 as well. Not as cheap as the ProCurve, but 48 ports could be an easy way to consolidate switches if you are running multiple switches.

1. My understanding is that WHS was based on the 32-bit Server 2008 product, so I don't think 8GB is unreasonable (I thought the 32-bit limit was 4GB), rather that you expecting ever increasing requirements ad infinitum is unreasonable. 2. While many on this forum like(d) WHS ... I saw it as a monetising venture by MSFT (and HP with their special device) … I have always thought data security should be a fundamental part of all editions of Windows. MSFT have continued this divisive policy; now introducing variants such as Windows Pro, Pro for Workstations and Pro for Workstations 4 cores+. 3. 32-bit pretty much seals the deal at 4GB, I expect. Maybe the later version was x64 and allowed 8GB. 4. First positive thought: does the EULA allow the WHS license to be reparented, or is it fixed to one installation? If flexible you could follow the same route companies do when preserving old applications - package them up in virtual machines (or containers) and consolidate on a new server. 5. Alternatively you could reparent everything bar WHS + Stablebit Drivepool to a new machine with a (memory) configuration of your choosing. A 2nd machine might also serve as availability and backup: should the WHS box go down/fail altogether, you would still have access to your data. (How do you handle backup presently?) 6. In your position I would be preparing a migration plan. Sorry … yet hardware has advanced tremendously since 2011 and your server applications will benefit greatly from new kit (think how fast a database would fly on an NVME drive!). Difficult to say more without detailed machine and usage requirements. 7. A new Windows Server OS will be expensive - Windows Server Essentials 2016 x64 is £325 in the UK. What is it that you do that cannot be done with Windows Home or Pro? The WHS experts on this forum will have far more knowledge than I on this subject 😉

Doesn't this make you wanna build up a box? - https://fave.co/2Rwcu1j or how about this? https://fave.co/2Tp5aGm

Congrats on your new router. Have you ventured into the mobile app or Safe Access settings?

https://mega.nz/#!9jADwaaL!TmHFMBFw7ts74U5MdgyycEXxASVSKIjOlJBrGAw8JnU sorry i didnt see your post you should have pm'd me like J.M. did

A few days ago, I applied the fix on both PCs that stalled at 81% and they now work fine. Eternal thanksTedster for pointing me to the fix !!

Great holiday destination … I was lucky to visit Ponta Delgado on St. Miguel last year. If there is ever a US-EU meet-up then this would be the place to have it! I have a vision of everyone lounging in the volcanic pool at Terra Nostra Gardens drinking beer and discussing cooling their rig! https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g1190881-d554492-Reviews-Parque_Terra_Nostra-Furnas_Povoacao_Sao_Miguel_Azores.html

I installed a 1TB Samsung 860 EVO SSD in my HPE ProLiant Gen10 MicroServer to use in creating future virtual machines in my MicroServer.

This seems to support my guess. Primarily for USB printers. https://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?t=138179

A bit of speculation here but I think the Synology network printer function is to share USB printers connected to the device. If you have a network connected printer I am not sure why you would need to let the Synology take over this function.

Server 2016 can use containers however I do believe that the Linux support is not quite ready yet. As for the docker containers I tend to use the LinuxServer.io versions of the containers. This is the container I would be using myself https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/letsencrypt

We use Life360 for family and mother in law tracking. Fortunately kids not running loose with phones yet. Holding off on that for as long as we can get away with. Surprised someone hasn’t acquired them yet, integrating them into something else (while destroying all that is good).

I'm the only one on Android in my family so that won't work. Life 360 is under consideration when they officially get phones and start taking them to school.

Interesting piece of gear. Had no idea Disney made those. All my kids uses Android phones and/or tablets so I have ESET Parental Control to monitor their activities, block inappropriate websites and apps, put a daily time quota on fun and games as well as setting up time restrictions (school days/nghts), etc. It also allows me to locate them using their phones’ GPS. I even get a notification when they arrive or leave school (geofencing)..... what every psycopath parent needs. The neat thing is, the policies are applied regardless of how they are connected... they could be connected to our home WiFi or using their mobile data in school.... they’re covered.

Same... running Untangle and Ubiquiti UniFi. How can you NOT be?

Ceiling mounted about 6 APs around our place a while back, including outdoor for same purpose. Mix of the HD for high density and AC Pro elsewhere. Wish I had done this long ago. The configurability, speed and range are unparalleled. Cloud Key recommended. Unloaded all my Netgear Orbi year that was in service prior to UniFi.

Dave, it really was easy to configure. I'm really pleased with how well surveillance station works vs. my dedicated Amcrest NVR. This was a great idea Dave! I'm now replicating the 918 locally to this and I got two more cameras out of the deal.

This is the latest SPP to download. The service packs no longer contain Gen8 updates, so HP releases these "post-production service packs." Funnily enough the 8.1 pack freezes on analyzing system when it runs on both my Microserver Gen8 and DL360p Gen8. So I've manually updated in Windows. http://h17007.www1.hpe.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/products/service_pack/spp/index.aspx?version=Gen8.1 Use this link, click on the appropriate OS you have and then sort by date. https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/home/driverHome?sp4ts.oid=5390291 My own notes have my server at the following, running Windows Server 2019 Standard. I don't have any "entitlement" but I've been able to download all these updates. Firmware: BIOS: J06 (May 21, 2018) iLo: v2.61 (July 27, 2018) Intelligent Provisioning: v1.64.0.0 (March 2, 2017) RAID Controller HP B120i: v3.54.0 RAID Controller HP P222: v8.32c (Nov 27, 2018) SATA Controller: v0.84 Drivers: Matrox G200eH Video: v9.15.218 (Nov 27, 2018) SAS/SATA Event Notification Service: v.6.46.0.64 (Oct 24, 2016) iLO4 Channel Interface Driver: v3.31.0.0 (Jun 26, 2018)

Here's the P18 IR + IT firmware for anyone who picked one up and wants raid It turns out they came from intel 1u socket 2011 servers I have asked him the exact model with a bit of luck i will be able to sniff down some P20 firmware at some point This firmware is for oem LSI 9207-4i4e / oem LSI 9217-4i4e if you use the firmware provided at Avango's website the ports are reversed Backup your device before continuing and save it somewhere safe (bk*.bin files) backup.bat if your device came with any firmware different to P18 plz provide me with your backup for others to use The IR firmware came from a HP LSI 9217-4i4e and is P18 The IT firmware came from a Intel LSI 9207-4i4e and is P18 They are both made directly by LSI and sold complete to them but for some stupid reason LSI have messed with it slightly and reversed the port layout somewhow (most prob via the sbr) which means the ports are in reverse if you use the firmware provided by lsi/avango/broadcom If you havnt got a problem with the ports being in reverse feel free to use LSI P20 If like me you have got a problem with it (or want to be able to roll back in the future) here's the required files P18 IT firmware by default isnt bootable and only presents 4 drives just change it to 8 and enable boot both in the LSI bios P18 IR firmware by default is bootable and presents 8 drives HP Gen8 Servers get an nmi error on initialization of the MPTSAS2 7.39.02.00 (a bsod basically) 7.39.00.00 is fine so thats the build i use (HP also use 7.39.00.00) IT Firmware 18.00.00.00 IR Firmware 18.00.00.00 Legacy Bios 7.39.00.00 UFI BSD 7.27.01.01 If you want to keep the factory Board Assembly & Board Tracer Number sas2flsh -list write down the details and flash like below sas2flsh -o -assem xxxxxxx sas2flsh -o -tracer xxxxxxx ir.bat for 9217-4i4e IR firmware it.bat for 9207-4i4e IT firmware The IR P18 Firmware is downloadable from HP The IT P18 Firmware isnt available anywhere i had to dump it from the Intel LSI 9207-4i4e I will keep working on a P20 firmware with the ports not in reverse LSI drivers by default dont add the required registry key's to tell windows to spin idle drives down to enable spindown run the registry key included after every new driver install e.g. if you update the drivers or flash it to a 9217-4i4e from 9207-4i4e https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8-hfA9ycQNoUU1DV2tIN1BJcnM/view?usp=sharing

Ok I've solved this one (maybe the rest of you already have but I haven't seen it documented here, so here goes) When booting up, head into the BIOS Setup/RBSU (press F9). Select Advanced Options > Video Options, and select the 3rd option (Embedded Video Primary, Optional Video Secondary). ESC out and press F10 to save and exit. If you are using Windows, when logged in right-click on the desktop and select "Screen resolution". If you have your PCIe Gfx card's drivers installed there should be 2 displays in the first drop-down list (Display). The first will be "Generic Non-PnP Monitor", which will be what is used for iLo, and the second will be your HDMI monitor. Select your monitor, set the resolution you desire, and make it default! (Click apply/ok) Now when you use iLo it will work 100% as it is supposed to, and when you use the server directly using HDMI it will also work 100% as it is supposed to without having to change resolution etc. Quite handy for those also wanting to use their server as a HTPC and/or not wanting to be stuck with the Matrox G200 resolution.