Intel Server Build with S1200 Series Board with 4TB usable VM storage On Site Solution

We've been building servers for a long time. We are an Intel channel partner and have enjoyed their excellent server products along with their very professional server support when needed.

Lately, we have been building quite a few S1200 series servers along with the P4304XXSHCN chassis for a HyperV 1-2 server solution for our clients.

We will follow the install of this server setup at a later date.

Our builds have been as follows:

CHASSIS: Intel  P4303XXSHCN with 4 HOT SWAP Drive Bay and 1 550Watt P/S
MOTHERBOARD: Intel S1200SPS Motherboard
MEMORY: 2 x 16GB Kingston ECC memory 32GB total
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 v6 CPU  4 core / 8 thread  3.50Ghz.
HARDDRIVE: 4 SEAGATE or WD equivalent SAS 2TB in RAID 10 config for VM's
HARDDRIVE: SSD Intel 3510 120GB for Host O/S
NETWORK: Intel E1G42ETBLK Dual Port Gigabit Ethernet
RAID: Intel RS3WC080 8 Port RAID card
BACKUP: Buffalo 3010 Series NAS
BACKUP SOFTWARE: Altaro HyperV Backup Unlimited Edition with  DeDupe
UPS: APC 1500 VA

You can build these ten ways to Sunday and there could be guys out there that may disagree with our build but we have had no issue what so ever with this system. Ever.

No power supply redundancy. Well do you know how many times an Intel server P/S went down on us in 15 yrs. "0" That's just our past knowledge talking to us when you pair the server to a good UPS. I'm just using common sense here and giving our clients a cost effective in house solution for their business.

We run a DC VM or a DC and app server VM with no issue for 10-20 user offices with no performance issues.

We can update the chassis and storage to go 8 bay 4TB x 8 for 16TB of storage or 6TB x 8 for 24 TB of storage. SATA or SAS  - We can build to suit if interested. Contact us at 732 528-4975 or info@calldataserv.com

Always update your server to the latest BIOS.

Photos for documentation and cabling purposes:

Motherboard mounted

Backplane accessory wiring

CPU Fan power connectors
2 x 16GB Memory modules placement
Power connectors

RAID Card and cables used - Connected to Port '0" on Card

RAID Cables

Backplane photo with SAS cables connected 

Notice your port assignments

The very tried and true 3510 Intel SSD for the 2016 Server Host O/S

Got these on Amazon, hence the Dell logo as our regular distributor was allocated on this fine SSD

Four Seagate Enterprise SAS 2TB RAID 10 5yr warranty

Front bays - labeled to show right to left port assignments

Our SanDisk 16GB USB nib with Server 2016 O/S ready to install 

Also to be used to reinstall O/S incase the SSD tanks

BIOSUPDATE
First thing after the server is built we update the BIOS
We went with this package: Intel® Server Board S1200SP Firmware Update Package for EFI

This package will not work as it is used to create a WinPE envrionment
Intel® Server Board S1200SP Family BIOS and Firmware Update for Intel® One Boot Flash Update (Intel® OFU) Utility and WinPE


Use a USB drive 8GB
Format Fat32
Copy unzipped BIOS contents (root data) to the drive
Boot to the EFI shell  Press F6 during boot
If the Shell does not pickup the files and start the script automatically Change drive to USB drive
The EFI shell will default to fs0:
We had to change to fs3: (with colon) as that was our USB drive location, then RUN>startup.nsh
Its should automatically start the BIOS update

The update will ask you if you want to update the following:
SDR only
FRU only
SDR & FRU   - This option will ask for additional chassis update info
Modify asset tag only
Exit FRU/SDR Update