Dell PowerVault 725N

[Silmeron]

Hey guys,

I'm looking at NAS options right now for a fairly small business (<50 users) and came across the Dell PowerVault 725N for a really good price on the low end model.

Question is, can I put in my own hard drives into this puppy and have it work ok? It comes with 4 40GB drives, which isn't enough space, but the cost to upgrade to 4 160GB model is much higher than just buying the 40GB model and putting in my own 4 160's.

Just curious if this would work without much of a hitch; I do understand it would void my warranty.

Thanks,
-Sil

 

[comtec17]

It is my best guess that using your own drives will not work due to the configuration methods expressed by Dell.

This looks like a nice box but I would ponder the fact that these drives are IDE and are only rated up to 7200 RPM. I would also question the fact of price of the drives for such a low rating.

 

[jcassidy]

We just got two of these systems in. After looking at the hardware, I'd say it may be able to be done, but you would still have to purchase the 40GB drives (Assuming not purchasing drives is even an option). You would need the drive hardware to mount the 160s. There is a tray piece that the drives are mounted on to allow the drive to fit the 725N drive bays.

 

[Silmeron]

Thanks jcassidy,

I bit the bullet and gave it a shot and it works like a champ with 4 160GB's in it. Thanks all for the help!

-Silmeron

 

[DexterBip]

Hi Silmeron,

I'm in the same position you were, only I have 4 of the 480Gb Powervaults (4 x 120b Hard drives) which I need to upgrade to the 1T with 4 x 250Gb hard drives in each.

How exactly did you upgrade your drives? A quick run-through would be a big help - I need to get this right first time!

Thanks in advance,


Mark Murray

 

[Silmeron]

Hi Mark,

I actually just followed the instructions in the Dell guide for repairing a corrupted OS (basically how to reinstall everything as if the whole system was screwed. )

I took out the four 40GB drives that came with my NAS, and then installed the four 160GB drives. I then set up the user account on my own workstation that the docs called for, put in the reinstallation CD, and followed the process they had there to install everything. I was actually impressed how it worked - it reinstalls the OS and formats the drives all from shares on the workstation.

It actually worked out the door first time too

Good luck, let me know if you run into any snags.

-Sil

 

[DexterBip]

Hi Silmeron,

Just to let you (and anyone else who's interested) know, I finally got round to installing the 4 x 250Gb drives into my 725, and reinstalled the O/S per the instructions - and it worked like a dream first time! Mind you, formatting the RAID5 volume on a terabyte of disc space took a bit of time...

Plus, I figure we've saved nearly two thousand pounds on the cost of a new Dell server.

Thanks for your help and encouragement - now to do the same thing for the other 5 725's I've got...

Mark

 

[jcassidy]

We did end up keeping our 725Ns.

We were not happy with having Windows 2000, so we reloaded them via the network (this was not easy)with Redhat 8.0. We used DHCP to point to a TFTP server where the installation folders reside.

We have a 132T autoloader for one system. It works pretty well also.