Server Hardware Swaps

RAM Upgrade

When I initially built the server using a Dell Dimension 4200, I added 1GB of RAM on top of the 512MB that was factory installed. The board can support up to 2GB, but 1.5GB seems sufficient for what I am doing. One of the first steps is to run MEMTEST by booting off of a Linux CD that I had laying around. This test ran overnight (15+ hours) with no problems, it’s always a good idea to run MEMTEST with any memory changes.

Memory upgrade, added 1GB stick to the exiting 512MB
Memory upgrade, added 1GB stick to the exiting 512MB
Running MEMTEST to check for flaws in the RAM, before loading Ubuntu Server
Running MEMTEST to check for flaws in the RAM, before loading Ubuntu Server

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second Hard Drive
HD in floppy bay. Tight a bit tough getting the screws in.
HD in floppy bay. Tight, a bit tough getting the screws into the holder.
Pulled lower CD burner, replaced with DVD drive
Pulled lower CD burner, replaced with DVD drive
DVD drive goes in bottom slot, ready to load Ubuntu 12.04
DVD drive goes in bottom slot, ready to load Ubuntu 12.04

I removed the floppy drive and added a second 120GB hard drive. I also replaced one of the CD drives with a DVD reader. Ubuntu Server 12.04 gets burned onto a DVD so I needed to boot off of the DVD. The other option would be to boot from a USB drive. I swapped the IDE connector off of one of the CD drives and used it for the secondary hard drive mounted in the floppy drive bay.

Disconnected CD drive, hooked IDE HD in same bus as DVD drive.
Disconnected CD drive, hooked IDE HD in same bus as DVD drive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swap 120GB hard drive for 500GB

I soon was well on my way to filling up the primary 200GB drive so it was time to consider putting in a bigger secondary hard drive in preparation for the future.

I have installed the 500gb drive in the server and formatted for use with Linux. Linux can use a drive formatted as NTFS but I formatted it as EXT4 for Linux so the disk checks and fixes can be more precise. EXT4 can handle extremely large drives 1EB partition size, an amount of data I cannot even imagine! EXT3 is good up to 32TB partitions, which is still very big! The new extra drive will give me much more space as the main 200gb drive is almost full. I will move some files onto it, mostly the backups from the other computers at home. This is primarily the goal with second drive. There is a software manger in Linux that can manage the drive, so called “Logical Volume Management” (LVM), the primary drive is managed using this feature. In theory I can create a “snapshot” of the drive and copy the image onto a backup external or the second drive, but I have not considered doing this yet. The primary drive contains the OS, whatever software I have loaded, which doesn’t take up much space. The files that I have loaded onto OwnCloud take up a good deal of space, but 200GB will be plenty of space for the primary drive for a while.

To LVM or not?

At first I was going to connect the first and second drive into one large “logical” drive using LVM. But, there is a risk if the system treats the 500gb+200gb = 700gb logical drive. If one drive fails it can ruin the entire “logical” drive composed of both drives. One disk failing out of two might be a bad risk, so I might leave the drives connected normally, mounted separately and not as a big logical drive.

500GB drive mounted in the floppy drive holder
500GB drive mounted in the floppy drive holder
120GB drive out and 500GB drive in
120GB drive out and 500GB drive in
Resources

For more information on Linux file systems…

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LinuxFilesystemsExplained

About files and the file system…

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/chap_03.html

 

 

 

 

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