May 2024
Update November 2024
My PRIMERGY TX140 S1p server is about 10 years old but is still going strong. It is robust and reliable and the OS is CentOS 7.9. CentOS is a robust and reliable OS, rock solid but has now been replaced by “Rocky Linux“. I have now migrated to Rocky 9, no problems.
I use the server in a home setup and its sole purpose is to be used as a SAMBA (file) server and it just plods on 24/7. I use a “headless” version of CentOS and only access the server remotely to do updates, when available. I use Webmin, WinSCP and Putty to look after the server and rarely need to login interactively.
The spec of the TX140 is fairly standard with an i3 quad core CPU. It has 8GB RAM – which is loads for Linux.
The features that make it stand out are:-
- a “Remote management interface” (a.k.a “Lights out” ) that allows a remote connection separate to the LAN port. When connected, you can see all the details you need about the server.
- Redundant hot swappable (switching) power supplies. It has 2 PSUs which can both have a power cable attached or just one of them with power supplied.
- Build-in RAID board with hot swappable HDDs. I have a 2TB Raid 5 array using 3 x 3.5″ HDDs but the TX140 supports up to 8 x 2.5″ HDDs.
The hot swappable HDDs and PSUs are just awesome. If one of the HDDs fails, you just pop it out, insert a new one and then rebuild the array without any data loss. If a PSU fails, you just put the power cable into the unused PSU and then power up. When you have a replacement PSU, just pop it in without powering off. Awesome!
Note about Redundant Power Supplies. When available, it needs a minimum of 2 Power Supplies (usually hot swappable) but can have several Power supplies. In a business set up, all the power supplies would be powered and the power usage would be “load balanced” so that it is spread across the power supplies in use. When a power supply fails, the spare (redundant) supplies take over automatically with no interruption. The failed power supply is then just “popped out” by releasing a clip – no tools needed and then “popping in” a replacement.
In my case I only provide power to one of the power supplies and recently this failed. All I had to do was disconnect the power cable and plug it into the spare power supply. The server was back up and runing in about 10 mins and a replacement power supply was obtained fairly quickly.
You might think that having a (file) server like this is a bit OTT for a home installation and it is if you only have one Desktop PC / Laptop / Tablet but if you have a few devices, a set up like this is what you should be looking at. e.g. I have a Desktop PC and Laptop and iPad and Android phone, my wife has a Desktop PC and Laptop along with an Android Tablet and Android Phone. Having a SAMBA (file) server allows us to use all of our devices to access “Network Shares” and “Network Printers”. See setting up a “Home LAN”. Also see setting up a “Guest LAN”.
We store our family photos and documents on the “network shares” so we can access them from any of our devices. We also have 50+ GB of music in MP3 format and can access this by any of our devices.
I also store “backups” and “disk images” on the “network shares”. The raid 5 array is backed to an external USB HDD and for good measure is also copied to a USB drive on a spare Windows box.
My system isn’t bomb proof but offers a secure method of keeping our data reasonably safe.
You can look on eBay and find a (used) TX140 server or similar for less than £300. see itinstock for used servers
You might need to buy new HDDs to create the Raid 5 array and an external USB HDD to backup the Raid 5 array but the minimal expense is well worth it. The advantage of having your own “file server” is being in control of your data. You could of course use “Cloud Services” e.g. Google Drive or MS Onedrive and store your documents in the “Cloud”. Google currently offer 15GB of free storage. Microsoft only offer 5GB. The “Cloud services” are very robust and it is virtually impossible to lose your data because your data is replicated to more than one server and in several geographical locations but if you don’t have an “Internet” connection, you can’t access your data.
Having your own “network” file server puts the onus on you for making backups but you can store several Terabytes of data without having an Internet connection. You could create your own “Personal Cloud” (quite easily) and access all of your data remotely. You would have to create new rules in the Firewall to allow external connections, often called “punching holes in the firewall”.
This is something that you CAN do but it doesn’t mean you “should” do! Your data is more secure if you limit access to it from the LAN only. If you need to access files when out and about, copy them to Google Drive or MS Onedrive (or iCloud). These will then be stored very securely and you can access them from anywhere in the world. When you no longer have a need to access the files when out an about delete from Cloud Storage, after making sure you have a “Local” copy.
NOTE :-
When you have a “Server” on your LAN, it can be more than a Samba file server. It could be a DNS server or even a Domain controller.