DELL

r730-01

This is the Dell R730 host known as r730-01. For reference, the previous post on this server is still available. A few days ago, this host had a change in CPU and RAM. This is my primary developer server in my basement. gpart zpool list zpool status zfs list dmesg sesutil show jls pciconf (added 2025-09-27)

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Using powerd++ to reduce power consumption on a Dell R730

Yesterday, I changed CPUs in my main server. That server builds packages, is the database server for dev, test, and stage freshports, amongst other things. It is a generalized server. In this post: FreeBSD 14.0 powerdxx-0.4.4_1 Dell R730 2x E5-2699 v3 CPUs As folks started reading my tweets, crest pointed out that powerd++ may help. SPKaniu also mentioned cycling down. Straight out of ports After installing powerd++, I tried running it: [0:31 r730-01

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Spreading thermal paste – replacing Dell R730 CPUs

On Sunday, I replaced the CPUs in r730-01 with something quite a bit more powerful. I have been thinking about doing this since before this September blog post: Can I really swap CPU and RAM between my Dell R730 servers? The answer was: Yes, I can. See also the next post: Using powerd++ to reduce power consumption on a Dell R730 In this post: FreeBSD 14 LibreNMS 24.1.0 2x E5-2650LV3 (old CPUs) 2x

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Adding another pair of drives to a zpool mirror on FreeBSD

Today, I’m ready to adding two recently obtained 12T spinning disks to r730-03. This host is the work-horse which houses all the main backups and database regression testing. It also hosts my newly-created but not yet-functional graylog jail. I will be following a previous post about adding drives because I don’t want to remember these things. They occur infrequently enough that documenting it is a good idea. In this post: FreeBSD 14 The

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r720-02

I’ve been given a Dell PowerEdge 720, which will be known as r720-02. It sits in a datacenter in New York, New York, and acts as a FreshPorts node. For example, if you’ve ever accessed dev, test, or stage [.freshports.org], then you’ve accessed this host. Partitions zpools The zpools: Filesystems The filesystems: dmesg And dmesg:

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Moving 4x storage devices into a new home

Yesterday I did some scavenging of some servers which I’m going to dispose of. I managed to put together 4 x 1TB storage devices: 2 x NVMe sticks and 2 x SSDs. I also pulled a riser card from an R730 and relocated it to another host. The NVMe sticks are mounted on these PCIe cards, which I do not regret buying. They came with full height and low-profile brackets. More to the

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Preparing a server for sale – Supermicro 846 – 10 x 5TB HDD

FYI: This server has since gone to a new home. After powering off the server about 8 months ago, I took the first steps to selling it. I opened it up and took out 2x NVMe sticks (1TB each, ZFS mirrored, giving a 930G zpool) INTEL fiber NIC (Intel X540-AT2) I’ll be keeping those items. I also took an inventory of the drives still in the system: 10 x 5TB drives – all

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