Introduction

I was able to snag a Dell R220 with an E3-1220 v3, 16GB DDR3 UDIMM memory, and an H310 for a pretty decent price. I plan to replace my current pfSense box with this new server.

iDrac

Unfortunately, this server has iDrac Basic Management, which has almost no useful features to me. All of the previous servers I’ve purchased have had iDrac Express as standard and one of them had Enterprise. I expected this server to also have Express as by default, but it turns out that 500 series and less Dell servers had Basic Management as the standard. I could purchase an iDrac Enterpise license, but I’m not sure since once I boot into an operating system, I would do everything in there. I don’t see the benefit of upgrading either of my R230’s to Enterprise, so I won’t upgrade this R220 as well.

H310 Flash to IT Mode

As with all new server purchases, I need to flash the included RAID card to IT mode for my usage. Luckily, the instructions are the same as the H710 and I’ll use the guide from Fohdeesha Docs to flash this time around.

Conclusion

This will be a nice additon to my home lab and I’ll be able to convert my current pfSense box into another hypervisor. I’m also considering trying out Windows Server and seeing what it has to offer.