How far in the boot process do you get before it hangs? I had a similar problem, but I discovered it was because I was trying to boot from a PATA device, which OMV (actually Debian) doesn't support. Also, check your CMOS battery; it's old enough that it might need replacement.
Intel SS4200-E Lives Again
- Thread starter Samir
- Start date
eric90066
New Around Here
It gets pass the os selection screen and where it says something about ramdisk. The next screen it hangs. I think you are right about the CMOS battery. When I went into the bios for the first time had to set the date and time. Since then, the date remains correct, but the time is always wrong. Will swap that out and see if there is any difference. Thanks!
I've had one of these in near continuous operation, until a power outage resulted in a failure mode: the top two purple LED's lit, all others dark.
The system boots further with an external ATX power supply, and this thread confirms that the power supply can be a problem.
My ask - what are the recommended, reasonable cost, power supply alternatives for this form factor?
The system boots further with an external ATX power supply, and this thread confirms that the power supply can be a problem.
My ask - what are the recommended, reasonable cost, power supply alternatives for this form factor?
You're welcome! It's so great to see so many people still have this great unit and are sharing their experiences to rebuild all the knowledge that was once available on these things.
Don't give up on it, and whenever you are ready to be done with it, I can give it a happy home with my units.
The only power supplies I found that were decent were ones that are now discontinued by Seasonic. I can post the model number once I get back to where the power supply is (I haven't installed it yet).
Another alternative that seems like it should fit are 1u server power supplies. The hard part will be finding one with all the necessary power leads, but I think this would be a quality alternative.
And there's always just the option of using a standard pc power supply and leaving it outside the case. I've considered this since I don't move mine once they're in a set place.
Hope this helps! The ss4200-e lives on.
The only power supplies I found that were decent were ones that are now discontinued by Seasonic. I can post the model number once I get back to where the power supply is (I haven't installed it yet).
Another alternative that seems like it should fit are 1u server power supplies. The hard part will be finding one with all the necessary power leads, but I think this would be a quality alternative.
And there's always just the option of using a standard pc power supply and leaving it outside the case. I've considered this since I don't move mine once they're in a set place.
Hope this helps! The ss4200-e lives on.
Thank you! I looked around a bit, and found that generally 'FlexATX' should have the right shape and existing screw-holes to not need surgery
My first solution was using a standard modular power supply - I found, that it was mostly possible to reassemble with the cables routed through the two openings left by removal of the dead supply! The one unfortunate bit is that the 12V to the CPU made it impractical to redo the plastic air guide - is that important for CPU cooling?
From a long term replacement perspective:
- There's a USD$30 Apevia option on Amazon that I seriously considered, because in between the reviews of miswired connectors and motherboard fires, someone had actually left a review of successful operation with the SS4200E.
- There are retailers listing "DPS-250AB" modules on ebay for about USD$50 mostly for a competing brand of NAS which would need rewiring, but some (from "KDM" that just need a PATA to SATA power adapter cable, - aside from the variants of those which also catch fire. The catch is that these don't seem to be actual 'Delta' supplies.
- All the Seasonic and FSP branded supplies seem to be between USD$90+ new, and have low used availability - but that's just a bit much ..
Yep, FlexATX is the style that fits, although you need to make sure it has enough amps on each of the voltages to match what is in the tech manual on the ss4200-e as most don't.
Yep, it's actually quite easy to do so since the stock power supply does have a big enough hole. Yes, that plastic is quite important for cpu cooling since it doesn't have a fan on the heatsink itself. I've noticed about 10 deg difference between it being on or off between my 2x ss4200-e units (one has one and one didn't have it). And I've also noticed temperatures skyrocket when there is no fan across that heatsink like when the cover is open, so I wouldn't recommend that at all.
I wouldn't buy it from Amazon, but find a retailer where you can buy it direct. JVC has this message on their web site and I agree with it, just replace the brand JVC with any company and it holds true:
I also saw some supermicro 1u power supplies that might fit since there is a lot of length available for the power supply.
There's a good page on the last remaining wiki for the ss4200-e that talks about power supplies and might be useful:
In my own research, I've noted the following for power supplies:
INTEL PART# FXXSS4200EPSU
DELTA DPS-250AB-24
FLEX ATX STYLE
1U SERVER STYLE
NEEDS TO HAVE:
20-24 PIN ATX
4-PIN CPU
4-PIN FLOPPY
4X SATA POWER
CHECK SPECS FOR PROPER AMPAGE AS MOST POWER SUPPLIES WILL NOT HAVE ENOUGH.
I also found that the Sparkle FSP250-50PLB must have been of interest because I downloaded a spec sheet on it.
A search on the Intel part number led me to this company that claims to have 1193 of the original power supply in stock:
FXXSS4200EPSU | Green Light Electronics Suppliers
I also tried searches for the Intel and Delta power supply part numbers on ebay and got some decent (<$50) results. But a search for "1u atx power supply" brought a lot more options, many which would possibly work:
1U Atx Power Supply for sale | eBay
Get the best deals for 1U Atx Power Supply at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!
www.ebay.com
This is cool. I tried using SBC's as a substitute. RasPi's, Odroid's, Rock64's, and even Dell Wyse. I even had an actual rack mount server and then learned about the woes of eSATA which doesn't have port multiplier support. Also the rack mount server used 120 W idle and that's what made me go down the SBC route.
The Dell Wyse was the best so far, 69 W tops, but this old device I got on a whim from newegg about a decade ago still tops them all. Say what you will but USB is frowned upon by OMV. OMV sees the drives but their UI won't let you do anything with them. I'm not sure if that's the same situation with USB 3.1+ and or with UASP. My 4-drive bay can't do UASP I believe, it can do eSATA.
Anyway, eSATA still seems to be the bees knees, not sure if USB w/ UASP will let the OMV UI devs show the drives or not but I digress. Anyway, was looking here because I actually never stopped using my SS4200-e, I just switched the OS and was wondering what the new hotness is.
Love all the comments here BTW, made me join up! BTW at the end I just made the DOM /boot and the rest of the drives are a 4 drive RAID-5 array with a tiny OS partition (20 / 32 GB - I forget). Prior to I was using a USB key as a DOM, but it was sticking out far too much for my taste and I didn't want to risk biffing the USB key and or port. I may go back to USB, sizes have come down so it's not sticking out as much and with root being on the RAID, the drive power savings are gone.
Currently using Ubuntu 22.04, As far as physical changes, only upgraded the RAM and enabled / added the serial port. The LED lights which spoke to the internal SATA drives don't work due to a kernel change. They'll light up and stuff but it's not really useful as a diagnostic anymore.
This thread though has made me consider updating the CPU as finding a low power device with similar eSATA and stuff is proving to be a more costly affair. Granted i should probably just do it since I've spent a lot on SBC's ... but the thing is, the SS4200-e does what it does reliably and well :-D
Thanks all!
The Dell Wyse was the best so far, 69 W tops, but this old device I got on a whim from newegg about a decade ago still tops them all. Say what you will but USB is frowned upon by OMV. OMV sees the drives but their UI won't let you do anything with them. I'm not sure if that's the same situation with USB 3.1+ and or with UASP. My 4-drive bay can't do UASP I believe, it can do eSATA.
Anyway, eSATA still seems to be the bees knees, not sure if USB w/ UASP will let the OMV UI devs show the drives or not but I digress. Anyway, was looking here because I actually never stopped using my SS4200-e, I just switched the OS and was wondering what the new hotness is.
Love all the comments here BTW, made me join up! BTW at the end I just made the DOM /boot and the rest of the drives are a 4 drive RAID-5 array with a tiny OS partition (20 / 32 GB - I forget). Prior to I was using a USB key as a DOM, but it was sticking out far too much for my taste and I didn't want to risk biffing the USB key and or port. I may go back to USB, sizes have come down so it's not sticking out as much and with root being on the RAID, the drive power savings are gone.
Currently using Ubuntu 22.04, As far as physical changes, only upgraded the RAM and enabled / added the serial port. The LED lights which spoke to the internal SATA drives don't work due to a kernel change. They'll light up and stuff but it's not really useful as a diagnostic anymore.
This thread though has made me consider updating the CPU as finding a low power device with similar eSATA and stuff is proving to be a more costly affair. Granted i should probably just do it since I've spent a lot on SBC's ... but the thing is, the SS4200-e does what it does reliably and well :-D
Thanks all!
OMG! I am so excited to have found this thread....and that it is actually still fairly current. I just found a Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo Home Server NIB (just a rebranded SS4200E) in the back of a closet that I totally forgot about. Now that I have two machines running 24/7 as emby servers and my setup grows I actually could use a NAS and when I found this last week I started wondering if I could make it relevant today.
When I have time I will read this entire thread and then I am sure I will have lots of questions and need some advice. This thing is quite nice and the case is gorgeous and well designed. I hope I can get this thing up and running with my limited knowledge.....I am no coder or programmer.
When I have time I will read this entire thread and then I am sure I will have lots of questions and need some advice. This thing is quite nice and the case is gorgeous and well designed. I hope I can get this thing up and running with my limited knowledge.....I am no coder or programmer.
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Nice! Looks like its in great shape too!
If you don't have the ss4200-e dom, you can get a ide-cf adapter and write the ss4200-e image to the card and it will be up and running in stock form no problem. Or you can try openfiler as someone did in this thread.
I still have a couple ss4200-e units to restore in addition to the ones I have that work, and still have yet to try 4TB drives with the stock ss4200-e image, but the ss4200-e lives on!
It's brand new in the original box. I opened it when I bought it 14 years ago and then put it in the closet, moved 3 years later and put it in a closet in my new home....which is where I found it a week or so ago.
What software is on the Fujitsu-Siemens DOM? I thought I read somewhere is was something to do with Windows Home Server which means today that is probably useless since it won't likely network properly with Windows 10 & 11 machines. I figured if I even used this thing I would put something else on it like FreeNAS or similar....if that is possible.
Is there any way to make this thing see my 16TB Toshiba drives? I have two and will likely get two more which I need for my emby servers. If it can't it probably isn't worth the electricity to run since I can house them in one of my machines and let the network use them from there....or put them or any other drives in my 5 bay USB dock which works fine since I have been using it that way for several years.
My original thought when I found it was to tear out the electronics and just use the awesome case to build a Raspberry Pi NAS in. I think it is one of the coolest and most attractive enclosures I have seen and it is super well built so I would like to use it somehow.
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Nice! It's great to finally unpack, no? lol. I still have boxes to unpack from 3x moves as well. Moving sucks imo.
Most of the fujitsu units were dom-less so one could install windows home server. But there were companies that were picking up the Fujitsus cheap, getting an ide dom and installing the Intel software on them because it was available to download on Intel's site, and then reselling them as a Fujitsu ss4200-e. I think you might have one of those as that's the time people bought these when they were being blown out for like $50 (which is a fantastic price for one of these today even today imo). If this is the case, once you install at least 2x drives, it should initialize as a ss4200-e, possibly branded as emc vs intel like the one I have. Works the same though.
As far as modern day compatibility, I can't recall if these have smb2 enabled or not (and I'm not near them to check), but I believe they do as win7 performance is 2x faster than xp and smb2 was available on win7. So that means out of the box, it should still work with win10/11. However, you may have to add the protocol to windows home server or to your 10/11 clients, but that's easy enough. And since the protocol is running on a lan that you control, the 'security' issues of smb1, etc are basically nill and zero unless you regularly have people you don't know coming over and connecting to your lan.
The hardware can see drives of any size since the ports are just regular sata. However, the original ss4200-e is limited to 4TB drives from my previous test and some other details I've posted here but have long forgotten from memory--which is exactly why I started this thread, lol.
So if you are using anything other than the original, you not only can use drives larger than 4TB, but you can also use the esata ports with an external enclosure that has a port multiplier since the esata ports support port multipliers (but not with the stock ss4220-e software). Someone posted their openmediavault setup using I believe 8TB drives and an esata external enclosure to have a capacity of over 100TB. Of course, this is going off my memory, so I could be completely wrong on the drive sizes and capacity, but I know they had a full out solution working well beyond the original specs.
If you have the fujtisu with the dom, your best bet is to image this first so you can restore it to its original state and then see if you can put openmediavault on there like someone here previously did. There's also other options now like xpenology and other nas builds like truenas that may or may not work since the hardware is lga775 and not exactly modern or fast by modern computing standards, and the ram expansion is very limited due to only have one ram socket. But once you find a nas software that works on it, your 16TB drives should be able to be easily used, although most nas software/firmwares (including the ss4200-e) require formatting the drive, so you probably won't be able to use your current drives if they have data on them. The good thing is that while the hardware is dated, it's still capable of saturating gigabit which would make it faster and more power efficient than a pi that can do the same. Even if you do want to go the route of a pi, there's actually more than enough room in the case to put a pi there without touching the original motherboard, so again you could restore it back later if you wanted.
In the event you don't want to keep the original dom or any other original parts, I could definitely use it to help restore another unit.
First off let me thank you not only for your enthusiasm but for your willingness to take the time to share it with those of us that know very little about such things. It's people like you who allow people like me with the tinkerer's spirit to accomplish things way above what we could ever do on our own or reading old posts or books....the living word is king! I understand this because I am a classic car guy who does frame off restorations and have been sharing my knowledge with all who ask for over 40 years. The true enthusiast is a breed alone my brother so THANK YOU.
Actually from my reading that was exactly what I was planning to do at first to start testing this thing because I found a post somewhere else that spoke of OpenMediaVault also. My question is then how to I image the DOM first to archive the original software? I have an old computer around here somewhere with an IDE port would it be easiest to just use that? Because even though most of my machines are old by today's standards none have an IDE connection.
Actually from my reading that was exactly what I was planning to do at first to start testing this thing because I found a post somewhere else that spoke of OpenMediaVault also. My question is then how to I image the DOM first to archive the original software? I have an old computer around here somewhere with an IDE port would it be easiest to just use that? Because even though most of my machines are old by today's standards none have an IDE connection.
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In the event you don't want to keep the original dom or any other original parts, I could definitely use it to help restore another unit.
If I end up going another route other than using the DOM it becomes useless to me and rest assured it is yours at that point because if I end up getting this thing going and doing what I want it will largely be because of this thread and you.
Do you have any idea what capacity the DOMs are? I can get mine out of the box and send you a pic if it helps you identify it.
I have an extra 128Gb Compact Flash card laying around and the IDE-CF adapter you spoke about earlier can be had for $7-15 on Amazon depending upon what you want so I may just get one if there is not enough capacity on the DOM for a true operating system. I have no idea how large OpenMediaVault is on disk to be usable.....does it fit on the DOM? If so I'll try it first but if I end up going the FreeNAS or other route then I may need more space and I can actually use my current desktop to image a CF and then stick it in the adapter which makes it easier.
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The good news is I am very prepared. I started with 4TB drives because I could get year old Hitachis from server farms with a 5 year warranty for $50 shipped off Amazon and I just bought more as needed. Now that I have 2 16TB Toshibas I have 4 4TB Hitachis for each one as a true offline back up solution.....I will not rely on software or RAID as I have too much work into all this content to loose ANYTHING......so all I have to do once this unit works is delete all data on my two 16TB drives and let the NAS format them and then simply pull the drives out and use my hot swap bays to quickly repopulate then using FastCopy and then reinstall them in the NAS box. Even if I have to populate them in the NAS it will only take a few days so that works too. Then the 4TB drives go back in the cabinet and all is good and I have a functioning NAS for the sunk cost of 14 years ago and a little tinkering. Gotta love it!!
Thank you so much! I'm a car guy too, but never had the guts to do full frame offs or restomods but appreciate the heck out of them--so yes, we're definitely brothers from another mother.
This thread is the virtual garage shop for the ss4200-e. Awesome! Yep, you nailed it for imaging--moving the dom to a full computer and imaging it using clonezilla or many of the other cloners out there and then making sure you can restore it onto some other device like a flash drive would be ideal. What's even more interesting is that if you have a computer with an IDE port like some of the older lga775 Dell computers that have both IDE and sata just like the ss4200-e hardware, you can install the software on an IDE dom and set up the old Dell as a NAS. I have a lot of these older systems, and haven't tried this yet, but I plan too. It will be great for some of the older lga775 units that maxed out to 2GB of ram--which is still plenty for the ss4200-e as a nas.
Let me know if you run into any issues cloning as I know some linux partitions do have problems with clonezilla.Thank you! The DOMs are generally 512MB-1GB from what I recall. I will know better when I'm with my other units, but that's what I remember. If anything they're smaller vs larger than what I recall. Also, the info should be here in this thread when I first checked out the specs of mine.If I end up going another route other than using the DOM it becomes useless to me and rest assured it is yours at that point because if I end up getting this thing going and doing what I want it will largely be because of this thread and you.
Do you have any idea what capacity the DOMs are? I can get mine out of the box and send you a pic if it helps you identify it.
I have an extra 128Gb Compact Flash card laying around and the IDE-CF adapter you spoke about earlier can be had for $7-15 on Amazon depending upon what you want so I may just get one if there is not enough capacity on the DOM for a true operating system. I have no idea how large OpenMediaVault is on disk to be usable.....does it fit on the DOM? If so I'll try it first but if I end up going the FreeNAS or other route then I may need more space and I can actually use my current desktop to image a CF and then stick it in the adapter which makes it easier.
I don't think anything less than 1GB will work or any of the third party NAS systems. Check out the previous posts and it should be pretty clear. I would actually go the route of getting a used 4gb or 8gb CF card from bhphotovideo (I've gotten several over the years for my cameras) and that would work great with your idea of setting up in a computer and then just moving it to the ide cf adapter.
Nice! In fact if you have those and the data is that important, I would just install the 4TB drives in the NAS unit, set it to raid 1, which is actually 0+1 and then use your other computer with the ide port to set up another twin nas and put the other 4TB drives there and do the same thing. The end result would be that you have your original 16TB drives untouched, and then you would have 2x nas units, each with half of the media on a set of redundant drives that you can simply power on and off as needed. Plus you built the nas units so if something goes wrong, you know how they work and can repair them. Also, the good thing about the stock nas setup is that you can basically boot into a linux live cd with all the drives in any computer and the raid gets put back together automatically since it's standard linux mdadm.
I'm going to be dark for a while. I bought a new Alder Lake i7 and Asus mobo today to rebuild my desktop/emby server 2 so I can then use it for active recording from CATV while I reconfigure emby server 1 and do a clean install of windows so I will be busy with that for a while. On top of that I recently got married and I have tons of stuff to do for her since she is a foreigner so I can get her legal status. I know I have a mobo with processor and cpu cooler upstairs in the closet that has an IDE port on it along with SATA so as soon as I get caught up and all my other hardware is up to code I will pull that out and get it running on the worktable long enough to make the image of my DOM so I can get the ball rolling on my Scaleo Home Server. I have a couple 500Gb WD Blacks I can throw in there just to test the unit and software. I am very thankful to have found you and I am very excited to pursue this when I have more time Samir.....thanks for all your help so far and in a couple weeks or so when I have time I will start working on this project and I will report back to you butt soon as I do.
Thanks again....talk to you soon
Thanks again....talk to you soon
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