Hack a Snap Sever 1000?

[OzDave]

Has anyone tried putting a larger that 120Gb drive into a Snap 2000? I was reading the specs of the new Snap Appliance devices, and the 4200 model can provide up to 640Gb. If the 4X00 series devices still have 4 drives, then that would be 160Gb drives, ie larger than 120Gb. I am wondering if the SnapOS v4 provides this capability. If I installed SnapOS v4, could I install 2x 300Gb drives? (aside from the heat problem pointed out by deadsenator). I would love to give it a go, but I don't want to shell out the $99 just to find out that it doesn't work.

[otoc]

Originally Posted by OzDave

Has anyone tried putting a larger that 120Gb drive into a Snap 2000? I was reading the specs of the new Snap Appliance devices, and the 4200 model can provide up to 640Gb. If the 4X00 series devices still have 4 drives, then that would be 160Gb drives, ie larger than 120Gb. I am wondering if the SnapOS v4 provides this capability. If I installed SnapOS v4, could I install 2x 300Gb drives? (aside from the heat problem pointed out by deadsenator). I would love to give it a go, but I don't want to shell out the $99 just to find out that it doesn't work.

I'm running the latest version of OSv3 and all it sees on a 160 is 130. Other than that, it initializes the drives just fine. I have some 2000s with a slightly higher bios version and may try putting them in one of those to see if it makes a difference.

I have no plans to put out for OSv4, so I can't say if that will do it.

[OzDave]

Just as an FYI, I did try installing OSv4 and my Snap Server 2000 is now dead.
I installed with the Assist software. It finished the first upgrade file, then it reported that the upgrade was complete, but there was a problem. It can not reconnect to the server.
Looking at the server, I saw that both the power light and the link light were on solid, and the Disk light flashing very quickly.
When trying to reconnect to the drive, I saw the Net light flash, but it failed to connect. Assist also failed to find the server. I rebooted the drive. I noticed when I turned the power off, the server turned off straight away (normally, it went through some shutdown process). After the reboot, same situation occured, ie solid power and link light and rapid flashing of the drive light. Watching the server, I noticed that the drive light would turn off after while, then it would start the rapid flashing again. Leaving the server running for a while, I saw that it rebooted it's self. The server then returned to the same state.

All I can recommend to those who were thinking of upgrading:
DON"T UPGRADE TO SNAP OS v4

[bqute2004]

Originally Posted by otoc

I'm running the latest version of OSv3 and all it sees on a 160 is 130. Other than that, it initializes the drives just fine. I have some 2000s with a slightly higher bios version and may try putting them in one of those to see if it makes a difference.

I have no plans to put out for OSv4, so I can't say if that will do it.

Here some info which might interest you. There is a drive limitation on all OS which are = or smaller the OS3.4.803. to a Ca 120 GB. OS 4 will increase this limit but apparently not on older servers. You need to have a new bois version. I'm not sure if you can flash it but if not you are stuck to your currant limitation. I'm still in the process to research the issue but will keep you posted once I have more info.

Ps. As far as I know old model like the 2000 and 4000 are not supported anymore so no joy on this end.

[otoc]

Originally Posted by bqute2004

Here some info which might interest you. There is a drive limitation on all OS which are = or smaller the OS3.4.803. to a Ca 120 GB. OS 4 will increase this limit but apparently not on older servers. You need to have a new bois version. I'm not sure if you can flash it but if not you are stuck to your currant limitation. I'm still in the process to research the issue but will keep you posted once I have more info.

Ps. As far as I know old model like the 2000 and 4000 are not supported anymore so no joy on this end.

I've never seen a bios posted on the support site. I'm running six 2000's (all hardware version 2's--different than the article Joe posted) which have 2 different bios versions all told. Come to think about it, I've never found a way to do a file dump of the bios either.

Thanks for the info, give a yell if you find something.

Here's what I've found.

A 2000 can be told it's a 4000(for raid 5 with 4 drives) just as this thread mentions the 1000 to 2000 upgrade. The internal powersupply, while piddling, seems to run the four 7200rpm maxtors I've been testing with just fine. The HWrev2 2000's use pc100 dimms which show a speed improvement (slight) when upgraded to 256MB from the stock 64MB when benching file copies.

Pretty neat, it doesn't all fit in the case (next project before I electrocute the family cat), but it works. It's not a speed demon, for these things never showed anything but a speed downgrade when using any of the raid features over jbod, but it makes for a cheap and safe stand alone file server running raid 5.

Another experience I've had is no problems running 7200rpm maxtors in the standard 2 drive snap2000 housing from heat related issues. Just have to blow out the cpu fan every now and then as it gets pretty gummed up. hmmm. water cooling on a snap?

Now if we can find a way to get these out of pio mode through the old changes made to freebsd, we be screaming.

[cyrusuncc]

it is possible to break free of the 137 GB limit of LBA 48. The xbox used to have the same problem that the snap server seems to be having too. I'm not saying it would be easy because the xbox scene has a lot more attention then the snap server scene

it would require a complete re-write of the snap server's bios, plus a way to load it. For those who are interested, here's how they did it on the xbox.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.p...97997&hl=lba48

[Hackie]

Does somebody have a disk image of the os area of an original disk? i accidentally mixed up the two disks

thanks

[cyrusuncc]

Originally Posted by Hackie

Does somebody have a disk image of the os area of an original disk? i accidentally mixed up the two disks

thanks

what version snap server you got?

[musicgreg]

I just installed four 250gig maxtor drives in my snap 4100 and upgraded to OSv4.0.830(US) and the drives formatted fine, but they are only being seen as 128,470meg each. I am running bios version 2.4.437. Is there anyone that has had any luck yet getting up over the 137gig limit?

[briansblair]

I think I have found a use for the 16GB Snap 2000 that had a hard drive failure last year!

I have an extra 120GB Western Digital w/8MB cache that I could stick in the Snap, but from reading this thread it seems like that drive might be a bit overkill due to the hardware limitations of the older Snap Servers. Would it be better to just buy 2 - 5400 rpm drives with capacities less than 137GB?

[Hackie]

Originally Posted by cyrusuncc

what version snap server you got?

i have a snap server 1000 and lost the "magic data" in the beginning of the disk...

[cyrusuncc]

Originally Posted by Hackie

i have a snap server 1000 and lost the "magic data" in the beginning of the disk...

well, i'm about to upgrade my snap 1000 to a larger drive, so i can keep a copy of the image for you. Let me know how you'd prefer transfer it.

[spliffstar]

Originally Posted by musicgreg

I just installed four 250gig maxtor drives in my snap 4100 and upgraded to OSv4.0.830(US) and the drives formatted fine, but they are only being seen as 128,470meg each. I am running bios version 2.4.437. Is there anyone that has had any luck yet getting up over the 137gig limit?

I'm currently in that same situation I have installed (4) 200GB Maxtor drives
in my 4100 originally a 240GB model and its reading all drive at 128-130.
with SNAP Version 4

I think its a bios thing because the 2200 supports higher drive capacity for example they have 2x250 configured model.

I been doing some research and it seems that the system will need to be "Flup"
a term they use to upgrade the bios. I'm researching to see how I can perform this.

If I had a box to play with I would load the Guardian OS to see what it does on a 4100. lol

Anyone with any suggestion regarding this issue me and musicgreg has please inform us.

Thanks

[rbt]

Hi,

I've read the whole thread but can't find any links to webpages containing "leaked" software upgrades or custom Java applications. Are the any pages of this sort out there? Almost any other hardware has this.

I have a Snap 1000 (found it as a "leftover" from work last week)
Original disk (haven't filled it up yet, will change for a 80 if I do find some cool apps for this snap)
Thinking about a hardware mod of the 40mm fan. Changing it to one from Papst 17dbA Have anyone done this or any other modifications like this that they want to share info about?

As I sad, I found the hardware, just the box, had to buy a power supply. So I don't have any "standard" software for it, but from what I have found, this isn't free software from the manufacturers site either, with I find strange.

Regards
/rbt

[jimeu]

can anyone share instructions on how to open the snap 1000 ? after I remove the bottom cap it is hard to take out the inner metallic case plus the on/off button sticks through the plastic case.

I have a snap1000 with a 30GB and want to upgrade it with a 120GB drive.

jaime

[rbt]

Originally Posted by jimeu

can anyone share instructions on how to open the snap 1000 ? after I remove the bottom cap it is hard to take out the inner metallic case plus the on/off button sticks through the plastic case.

I have a snap1000 with a 30GB and want to upgrade it with a 120GB drive.

jaime

It shouldn't be too hard to open the casing.

1. Remove the 4 screws in the rubber feet’s
2. Hold the device in your lap and press the plastic cover out on the sides, then try to shake the metallic box loose by shaking up and down. Flip the snap over so you can se the bottom and check that all the plastic clips are out of there sockets. If not, help the one needing attention, and flip it around to get some help from gravitation while you shake it up and down
3. While/after the plastic cover is coming of check for the little plastic bit that deliver the lights to the front. (Saves an assembly if you have it in place)
4. If not already lose, open the lid of the box, it doesn't require any screwing and was very loose on my device.

Regards
/rbt

[parisoft]

Originally Posted by Hackie

Does somebody have a disk image of the os area of an original disk? i accidentally mixed up the two disks

thanks

I have the same one ploblema. if it finds the mmagine snap1000 you send it to me. thanks

[basmul]

Hi!

I tried two of the methods described in the thread with my Snap 1000.
Both from dos 1 with ghost and 1 with some downloaded cloneutil, Sector by sector copy. Upgrading from 40G to 120G
New disk is a maxtor.

When i reattach the cloned drive All it does is blink the powerlight twice in succession all the time and the harddiskled is constant orange.

I can't access the snap server from my network (not even a ping)

Does anyone have any suggestions/solutions/comment

Help is highly appreciated since my original quantum harddisk of the snapserver starts making more noise by the day an I fear it's going to crash soon.

Greets,
Bas

[HLouie]

Hi

I'm wondering if any Snap 4100 users could take some pictures and measurements of the mounting bracket for the hard drive.
I've fixed up a dead Snap 4100, with cpu and memory, but it's missing the hard drive mounting bracket. Maybe I could build one or have them made.

Thank-you
Herman Louie
hlouie@hotmail.com

[rbt]

I have now upgraded (?) my Snap 1000 with a 8GB drive from my 40GB, just for a test. Worked very well, I didn't strap the disk to master at first, but after that all I did was a "config devices format 10000 /reinit" from http://snapserver/config/debug . After the reboot, the disk was formatted automatically.

The way I did it was by copying the first 50000 blocks of the original disk.
This was done with "clone-n-recover" from www.e-mart.com/www that someone spoke about earlier in this thread. (Expert options, sector copy.)

Then I wanted to backup the data to file, and I had to make that by booting a slackware Linux installation CD, mounting a fat partition, and dd the first 50000 blocks from the snap disk.

If you guys still haven't got an image of the "boot" area of the disk, PM me for it.

regards
/rbt

[OzDave]

Originally Posted by spliffstar

I'm currently in that same situation I have installed (4) 200GB Maxtor drives
in my 4100 originally a 240GB model and its reading all drive at 128-130.
with SNAP Version 4

I think its a bios thing because the 2200 supports higher drive capacity for example they have 2x250 configured model.

I been doing some research and it seems that the system will need to be "Flup"
a term they use to upgrade the bios. I'm researching to see how I can perform this.

If I had a box to play with I would load the Guardian OS to see what it does on a 4100. lol

Anyone with any suggestion regarding this issue me and musicgreg has please inform us.

Thanks

I thought that I would add an update to larger than 137Gb support in older Snap Servers.
I was able to upgrade two other Snap Server 2000 machines (Merridan BIOS:1.1.0 and Quantum BIOS:2.0.180) with SNAP Version 4. (My original snap server 2000 is still dead.) I tried a 300gb drive in both of them. Both of them recognized the drive as a 300gb drive, however, neither of them could format it. The Merridan failed around 30%, and checking the log, it had a couple of write errors, and stopped. The Quantum did not stop, it tried to format the entire drive, with - I believe - every sector being tried, and every sector above the 137Gb failing.

[geneius]

Just upgraded my 2200 from two 80s to two SeaGate 120s. I downloaded DigitalDolly (like the cloned sheep, not porn related!) from download.com and did a raw copy on both drives. DigitalDolly is linux based on a bootable CD-ROM and worked like a charm, took a couple of hours though.

Anyway, at first the 2200 saw the drive as only 80 then I did the reformat dev /reinit command and voila!

OS is v3+ and so is the BIOS. I have another 2200 with a v4.0 os and 3..4 bios and may try it on a 160G drive.

Thanks all for your other posts, it really helped.

Oh, for the person who had a failed 2200 at RAID 0 (striped array), I had the same issue. Here's what I'm doing:

1. Find out which drive failed.
2. Find the exact drive (mine's a Maxtor D540X0-4K, P/N: MX4K080H4 that I found at driveguys.com for $79) to replace it.
3. Raw copy it
4. swap it in and try it out. - the SnapServer should do a disk scan a boot.

I'm still waiting for my drive to come in so I can't tell you if it worked yet or not. However, I did try to recover the data using my two 120s to bypass the 'frozen' scandisk procedure and it completed. The only hiccup was that the RAID 0 was looking for a particular cylinder set on the drive, and...well, the 120 is much different that the 80. So, in theory, getting the same exact drive should work. One more thing: not all 80G drives are the same, get the EXACT one to be safe... :shrug:

**UPDATE**
(5/25/04) - All did not go well. The SnapServer keeps attempting to fix the disk but would give me a error: "File System Check : FSCK fatal error = 15 " and "File System Check : Cylinder group 4044: bad magic number" then it unmounts the drives. When cloning the drive earlier it did show numerous errors, so it's probably missing vital info that it needs to 'stripe' correctly. I'm still trying. If anyone can give some advice, it is welcomed.

[INT 20h]

Greetings,
I opened up my Snap 1000 server today to see just what was inside. When I pulled the hard drive, I found what looks like a second IDE connection. Do any of you know if this is indeed a second IDE channel? If it is, does this mean I could put in up to four hard drives? I know the case won't be able to handle that many. I also found that the fan inside does not come on when the server powers up. Is this a thermally controlled fan like inside of a notebook (comes on when the temp reaches a certain point)?

I also have a Snap 2000 server that is running fine. I've downloaded all of the software for both servers. I upgraded the 1000 to SnapOS 3.4.803. The Java framework did not install with the upgrade. I have a copy of it for the 2000. Can I install the version I downloaded for the 2000 on the 1000? I didn't see it listed on the 1000's downloads section.

I think that covers the questions I have for now. Thanks for any help/suggestions you can provide.
Cheers,
R

[geneius]

Originally Posted by INT 20h

I also have a Snap 2000 server that is running fine. I've downloaded all of the software for both servers. I upgraded the 1000 to SnapOS 3.4.803. The Java framework did not install with the upgrade. I have a copy of it for the 2000. Can I install the version I downloaded for the 2000 on the 1000? I didn't see it listed on the 1000's downloads section.
R

Actually, someone 'tricked' the 1000 to be a 2000 just by unlocking the BIOS and giving it a command. Check one of the past posts in this thread and you should find it.

[jmcable]

I have a Snap 1000 series server with 3.4.805 OS and 3.1.1 hardware and 2.1.364 Bios. The drive came with a 30 Gig Quantum HD. I purchased a 300 Gig Maxtor HD and I had success in installing it as a second drive.

I replaced the IDE cable that was in the unit with a standard 40 pin dual connector ribbon cable. I then got an extra P/S I had around and connected both drives external to the case. I set the 30 Gig to Master and the 300 Gig to Slave. When I turned on the Snap server all the lights flickerd on and off and then I noticed the Disk LED started flickering and did not stop. Druing this time I could not web into the Snap server nor could I use Snap Assist application to see the Snap server. I was hoping during this time the drive was automatically getting formatted. I was correct. After about 10 minutes the Drive LED stopped and I noticed I now could see the Sanp Server from the Assist app and I could also web into it. I went to view Disk Status from the web interface and I noticed that the new Maxtor drive showed up as a 300 Gig drive. I was very surprised. After reading this forum I thought for sure it would not recognize more than 120Gig.

The next step is to copy the contents of the 30Gig to my 300Gig and see if I can boot up with just the 300 Gig.