Anyone Have Experience Running Windows 10 on a Dell PowerEdge T340?

[sapphirescales]

I have a friend that doesn't really NEED to run Windows Server but wants to use Windows due to familiarity. He's not super tech savvy either, which makes me hesitant to set up a Windows Server for him. I think I've settled on a Dell PowerEdge T340 as it's a solid system and the cost is low. I know that Dell doesn't technically support Windows 10 on the T340, but I've read online that people have had success selecting "Other OS" in the Lifecycle Controller during OS deployment and things working out alright. If I have to use Windows Server I will, but I'd really prefer to use Windows 10 Pro.

The reason I'm considering this is because I tried building a custom system, but it's basically impossible to find a motherboard that will support 8 SATA drives along with an m.2 SSD (if you install an m.2 SSD it disables half the SATA ports or whatever). I know I can go with a dedicated SATA controller, but they seem to be either cheapo Chinese crap, really outdated, or really expensive (almost as much as a base model T340). And he wants drives that he can easily replace without having to take the computer apart and deal with a rats nest of wires.

I realize this is kind of a jerry rigged situation, but my friend is insistent that he wants to do it this way. He's not a "client" per say so I'll go along with it if I can get it to work. What do you guys think?

EDIT: Forgot to mention that he won't be using RAID. The drives will be set up JBOD.

 

[NviGate Systems]

While I can't comment on using Windows 10, I did use an older Dell Workstation/Server with 7 back when that machine came with 2003.

Be careful about BIOS settings. Some settings like "Windows Setup" etc can change the amount of RAM or how RAM is accessible. How Dell has drives enabled is sorta um, stupid. I had issues with drives not updating or the BIOS couldn't recognize them in time and your boot would fails with the dreaded double beep.

I ended up going with a third party card. Back then it was a cheap Sil3114 I think, Sil chips were cheap and you could get some neat features.

The one thing that worries me about 10 is that even with a robust machine like that, new builds could render it useless. There seems to be sort of like, a hidden "minimum platform level" required to run 10, and as the OS evolves, some systems may be left in the dust. 10 doesn't exactly play nice with all machines. It also tends to rely heavily on features like hybrid power that tend to be the most buggy and problematic features on older boards.

I would install a supported OS first, even say, 7, just to get all your firmware updates. Dell Workstation/Servers tend to have some rather complicated updates, so once you get 10 installed, you can mostly forget about updates as the update package will likely not run.

When you do install 10, be sure to use a custom media that is MBR enabled, and has EFI disabled. Many early PC's have some early implementation of EFI like version 1 or something, and that won't fly with Windows 10. Just use plain MBR. Otherwise you get crashes, BSOD etc.

It's been a while since I have worked with storage in great detail, bit of memory serves, JBOD means if one disk dies all data is lost because it's like a chain and when you lose one piece of the chain, the rest is gone too. I think Windows 10 has dynamic disks that you can use as quasi raid. Better than JBOD.

 

[SAFCasper]

No experience running W10 on server hardware but I come with a potential alternative - Dell Precision 7920

It's basically server hardware fully supported to run desktop OS. Xeon processors, ECC RAM, hot-swap drive bays (SATA/SAS) and the ability to run beefy GPU's which you generally wouldn't get in a server (I think it's a 900W PSU).

They aint cheap, but neither are servers, so possibly an option to consider.

 

[Markverhyden]

You'll want to use W 10 Pro, not Home.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I have a t330 and I think the largest headache you're going to face is the BIOS. It doesn't support Server 2019 without very recent BIOS's and firmware in the raid card. Driver support has been rather delayed.

So right now I can say yes, Windows 10 would probably work on that platform rather well. Since Server 2019 is Windows 10 1809, and the driver model hasn't changed much through 2004. However, I cannot say that will remain the case with the next Win10 release.

 

[sapphirescales]

Dell Precision 7920

That's great except it only supports up to 6x front hot swap hard drives. Do they make a model with 8 hot swap drive bays like the server?

 

[sapphirescales]

@Sky-Knight The server has a PERC H330 RAID card. I know it's a crappy card, but I'm going to be turning off RAID completely and using it in passthrough mode. I'm hoping the drivers won't be a problem then.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Sky-Knight The server has a PERC H330 RAID card. I know it's a crappy card, but I'm going to be turning off RAID completely and using it in passthrough mode. I'm hoping the drivers won't be a problem then.

The PERC H330 and H730 would cause BSODs in Server 2019, but not 2016 for over a year... so... again careful!

 

[SAFCasper]

That's great except it only supports up to 6x front hot swap hard drives. Do they make a model with 8 hot swap drive bays like the server?

They make a 2U rack mounted version of the Precision 7920 with 8 bays. Could be worth a look.

 

[sapphirescales]

Well my friend got wind of the fact that the T640 can be customized with 18 drive bays. EIGHTEEN! Even I didn't know that. Because of that, he ordered the T640. I was hopeful that the T340 might be able to run Windows 10 Pro since it wasn't a "real" server (I mean, the thing only has 4x memory slots and supports 1151 socket processors like i3/i5/i7, etc.), but I don't have much hope for the T640. The T640 is pretty impressive, supporting dual scalable Xeon processors, up to 3TB of memory, 18 3.5" drives or 36 2.5" drives, up to 2400w dual redundant hot plug power supplies, etc. That sucker is definitely going to need Windows Server. I mean, I *might be able to get 10 Pro to install, but I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving automatic updates intact, and I'd always be afraid that some sort of weird incompatibility will rear its ugly head and bite him in the butt.

 

[timeshifter]

How about running Windows 10 inside a Hyper-V VM with Windows Server as the host?

 

[Sky-Knight]

Yeah the best way to get a desktop OS to run on a server platform is as a VM guest. Hyper-V, or vSphere... pick one and let it roll.