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Dell Poweredge 4600 SATA via Hot-Swap Bay

I purchased a Dell Poweredge 4600 server about two weeks ago for an extremely great price. The one thing about the 4600 series that I didn’t have a use for was the SCSI hot swappable drives. I’m a big fan of SATA (price, availability, etc) and have four brand new 750GB enterprise class Western Digital SATA drives sitting in the electro-static bags just waiting to be used.

I began tinkering with the PE4600 internal configuration and made some important observations.

  1. The SCSI Backplane used in the PE4600 is a mandatory part. Integrated into the backplane is a connector for fans 5 and 6 which must be enabled and controlled in the BIOS, otherwise the PE4600 sounds like a jet on take off
  2. With most Dell parts the backplane is designed to easily install/remove using guide rails and thumb screws

Even better was the fact that the SCSI backplane fit PERFECTLY between the hot-swap hard drive bays and the PSU bays. I simply added a thick piece of cardboard on the backside of the backplane, to prevent meta-on-metal contact (thus shorting out the electronics), secured the cardboard onto the SCSI backplane, and slid it into to place.

After reconfiguring the backplane in the case, I reconnected the cables and powered up into the BIOS. I disabled all SCSI devices and then restarted. The PE4600 recognized my SATA PCI add-on card and all of the drives. It also recognized the fans (6 of 6) and configured them as such.

A very easy mod to solve a complicated problem.

~ by johndball on November 15, 2009.

20 Responses to “Dell Poweredge 4600 SATA via Hot-Swap Bay”

  1. Interesting.. did you just install SATA drives in the bays and route SATA power and cables to them?

    Chris said this on November 23rd, 2009 at 12:38

  2. That is exactly what I did. I took pictures of the whole thing but then deleted them (go figure).

    I purchased 3′ or 3.5′ SATA cables from Newegg.com and molex to SATA Y splitters. I routed the SATA cables from the SATA card to the front of the case using the wire holders on the CPU fan shroud and zip tied them immediately behind the drive bay (so they don’t pull on the SATA card).

    I then mounted the SATA drives in the hot-swap caddies and plugged in the cables. I used locking SATA cables to help prevent and accidental unplug.

    With this setup I can pull individual SATA drives out and unplug the cables when, and if, I need to swap out drives.

    johndball said this on November 23rd, 2009 at 13:01

  3. Cool! The thought had crossed my mind to get an old 4600 or a HP Proliant server and do exactly this, as these can be had for little cash these days on ebay. Then, I wondered if it was possible to take out the old mobo and replace it with a newer one with newer processors, but any research I’ve done says ‘DON’T DO IT!’, mainly for thermal reasons.

    Having said that, the 4600 is a large size case, so have you done any mods like that? Is the mobo of extended-atx form, or is it some special Dell form factor?

    Cheers for the response, good to hear that the 4600′s are still being put to good use!!

    Chris

    Chris said this on November 23rd, 2009 at 17:37

  4. The motherboard is the standard Dell PowerEdge 4600 motherboard that comes with the server. I purchased a second Intel Xeon Dual-Core CPU and heatsink for about $19.99 on eBay and installed it without issue. Two dual-core processors is nice. I also purchased a lot of 128mb ECC RAM bringing the total to 1.5GB (1GB usable with redundant memory enabled in the BIOS).

    I installed a SATA PCI card but am having a few issues with installing the DRAC (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_DRAC )
    and get a PCI parity error. I’m going to troubleshoot that next week and see if I can figure it out. Either the DRAC or the PCI SATA, but not both, however other PCI devices work fine such as the two Intel 100/1000 teamed network cards I installed.

    I didn’t have to mod the case aside from fitting the SCSI board into the slot between the HDD bay and PSU bay. It really is a nice case (granted it feels like it weighs 100 lbs).

    Parts for the 4600 can be had on eBay for really cheap. They are so common place you don’t have to spend a lot to upgrade. I purchased a few spare hot-swapable fans, a spare VRM, and have the on-board RAID key in a box because it isn’t needed.

    johndball said this on November 23rd, 2009 at 22:01

  5. hi johndball

    i have bought a 4600 as well and i am looking to do something similer to yourself but i am having a hugh problem i can’t seem to find a way of turning down the speed of the fans they sound like a small aircraft i have looked in the bios but i can’t find anything any chance you could give me a helping hand?

    Andy said this on December 6th, 2009 at 13:05

  6. @Andy: only when a fan fails or is not recognized does it sound like a jet at takeoff… at least that had been my experience with it. Make sure all of the fans are seated correctly and are recognized. The front LCD screen should display which fan number is not functioning correctly.

    -posted via blackberry-

    johndball said this on December 6th, 2009 at 13:22

  7. I would like to know what the name of the PCI sata card you installed is. I have had a hard time finding a PCI X 64bit 3.3v 100mhz bus card, and would really appreciate your help.

    Warren said this on December 8th, 2009 at 14:10

  8. @Warren:

    this was about the only card I could get to run on the thing: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132017&cm_re=SATA_RAID-_-16-132-017-_-Product

    Here is the catch though. The card has to be in the FIRST PCI slot on the motherboard. If I move it to a different slot (2-7 or 8, can’t remember) then I get a PCI parity error. Other PCI cards (like the two Intel Gigabit NIC cards) work fine in any PCI slot, but not the SATA RAID cards I’ve tested.

    I can’t use the Dell DRAC because it requires the first PCI slot and will not boot in slots 2-7/8). Until I can figure out how to get the SATA PCI card to run in a different slot my DRAC is useless.

    johndball said this on December 9th, 2009 at 09:59

  9. thanks for your reply john my fans 5 -6 dont have green lights so i am guessing that my problem i am having a smiler problem with my sata card i got centos install on the drive but now it wont boot from it i am having major issues with it i have trawled over google looking for answers is there any chance of some photos of where you got your scsi board and how you have your server set up?

    cheers

    Andy

    andy Murray said this on December 9th, 2009 at 10:22

  10. @Andy:

    You can get spare fans for cheap from ebay.
    http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=Dell+poweredge+4600+fan&_sacat=0&_trksid=p3286.m270.l1313&_dmpt=COMP_EN_Networking_Components&_odkw=Dell+poweredge+4600+fan&_osacat=0
    I purchased a spare fan in case one of the six fans decides to crap out. I can hear fan #5 as it has a slight rattle and figured the bearings might go out in the near future.

    What type of SATA card do you have installed?

    I don’t have any photos on hand. I did but deleted them (go figure). It’ll probably be Sunday before I can get you some pictures. I have the server running in a production environment (not at my house) and will have to drive to the site to get some pictures.

    johndball said this on December 9th, 2009 at 10:28

  11. yeah i was thinking i might buy a few replacements its just a basic normal pci sata card think it has an ide slot as well but it comes up as unknown in the bios i have bought a 6 port sata card which is suppose to work with dells ADAPTEC AAR 2610SA 6 PORT SATA RAID 2610 CARD i am picking it up tomorrow so i will give that a bash see if it works also having trouble finding a second processor too.

    andy Murray said this on December 9th, 2009 at 10:35

  12. 2nd CPU is an easy find on ebay. Make sure you get the cpu, heatsink, clips, and vrm. The CPU and VRM are critical, you can find a compatible heatsink on newegg or a oem on ebay.

    I installed a second xeon cpu when I bought the 4600. It is screaming fast with quad cores.

    Keep me updated on the Adaptec sata card if you don’t mind.

    -posted via blackberry-

    johndball said this on December 9th, 2009 at 10:39

  13. What is the fastest xeon (speed, cores, l2 cache) which will work on the 4600?

    peter m lang said this on December 23rd, 2009 at 23:09

  14. I don’t have a definite answer, but I’ve read sales documentation that state up to a 3.0ghz CPU.

    johndball said this on December 25th, 2009 at 06:45

  15. Can the 4600 motherboard run dual core/quad core processors? i was told it cannot- i currently have two xeon 3Ghz ones in but need to run windows 2008R2, so need the 64bit processors

    Jim B said this on March 3rd, 2010 at 14:26

  16. I don’t believe so. Your best bet would be to Google the Poweredge 4600 Specifications and read the documentation from Dell.

    johndball said this on March 5th, 2010 at 10:11

  17. this may sound like a dumb question, but how did everyone power the sata drives? i dont have any molex or sata power connectors

    Randy F said this on May 16th, 2010 at 10:29

  18. I used Molex to SATA splitters: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812887006&cm_re=molex_to_sata-_-12-887-006-_-Product

    johndball said this on May 16th, 2010 at 22:10

  19. I have an 6850 and cant find any Molex or SATA Cable so what to do?

    Trufax said this on June 28th, 2010 at 10:57

  20. Take some pictures of the inside of your 6850 and send them to me via e-mail. johndball-at-johndball.com

    johndball said this on June 28th, 2010 at 12:16

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