Hack a Snap Sever 1000?

[mingle]

Just a quick note to say that I managed to upgrade my SnapServer 1000 with a 40gig Seagate Barracuda using Michael George's directions.

Initially, only the original drive size (15 gig) was showing after the upgrade, but I then updated the OS, shut down the Snap Server, and then ran the format command, and voila, the correct space was shown! Probably just shutting down and running the format command would have worked, but I thought I might as well run the update.

The drive upgrade has given the SnapServer a new lease of life; thanks!

[jgantes]

I have upgraded an old Snap! from two 9GB drives to two 40GB drives. However, I was wondering the following and would greatly appreciate any information:

-Where is the OS stored on the 2200 model and 2100 model snap?

-Can you updgrade the 2200's drives? If so how large can you go?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jim

[timinark]

I fried my Snap Server 1000( no lights, fan jiggles) but I would bet that the drive was good. I don't have the cash to send to Drive Savers or to buy a new one, so I hope that someone might have a Snap Server with a bad drive they might want to sell, trade, barter. I really want a piece of data on it.

Thanks

[mg]

I used Norton Ghost 2003 and basicaly used command line switches and told it to do a raw copy. I then used the "secret" debug web page to instruct the server to format and init the drive. So far all I have done is a 15 to 20 GB test upgrade. I am now going to do a 20 to 60 GB upgrade first, then I will attach a 2nd 60 GB drive and see if I can mirror the drive. I will post complete details here once I get the 60 GB mirrored drive up and running. For any who are interested, please stay tuned.

Here's the ghost 2003 command line I used from the section of the ghost manual about command switches

ghost.exe -clone,mode=copy,src=x,dst=x -ir

x equals the source and destination, in my case a disk to disk clone. The -ir switch means "image raw" and "copies the entire disk, ignoring the partition table." The manual goes on to say, "This is useful whe a disk does not contain a partition table in the standard PC format, or you do not want partitions to be realigned to track boundaries on the destination disk. Some operating systems may not be able to access unaligned partitions. Partitions cannot be resized during restore and you need an identical or larger disk."

No problems so far as I have done this with a 20 and 60 GB disk from the original 15 GB disk. I then follow the instructions for the format /reinit command. It has worked so far. I'll let the forum know if I can get it to work with a 120 GB disk soon as that is my next goal.

[mg]

I've cloned the primary drive to a larger drive and got that to work. I've installed a 2nd drive (looks monstrous as it will not fit in the original case). The OS automatically recognizes and formats the 2nd drive and will give me access to the 2nd drive. But, how do I make the 2nd drive stripe (no data redundancy) or mirror (fault tolerance) the 1st drive?

I have tried config devices predict mirror from the debug web page and got this output:

Request to configure a MIRRORRED device with members: 10000 10008
upon reboot will take 180 seconds to complete and result in:
Logical Device 50000 Total Space (KB): 58251896 - data from device 10000 will be retained, leaving Free Space(KB): 0.
Command: config devices info

Logical Device: 10000 Position: 1 JBOD Size (KB): 57455336 Free (KB): 57397864 Public Mounted
Label:Drive1 Single disk
Unique Id: 0x61B3B7CC23363B7A Mount: /0 Index: 1 Order: 1
Partition: 10000 Physical: 10007 FS Size (KB): 58251896 Starting Blk: 45297 Public
Physical: 10007 Drive Slot: 0 IDE Size (KB): 58615296 Fixed

Logical Device: 10006 Position: 0 JBOD Size (KB): 32296 Free (KB): 32200 Private Mounted
Label:Private Contains system files only
Unique Id: 0x61B3B7CC23363B7A Mount: /priv Index: 0 Order: 0
Partition: 10006 Physical: 10007 FS Size (KB): 32768 Starting Blk: 515 Private
Physical: 10007 Drive Slot: 0 IDE Size (KB): 58615296 Fixed

Logical Device: 10008 Position: 2 JBOD Size (KB): 57455336 Free (KB): 57397872 Public Mounted
Label:Drive2 Single disk
Unique Id: 0x631D519A16A7DA80 Mount: /1 Index: 2 Order: 2
Partition: 10008 Physical: 1000F FS Size (KB): 58251896 Starting Blk: 45297 Public
Physical: 1000F Drive Slot: 1 IDE Size (KB): 58615296 Fixed

The server DID NOT mirror the drives upon reboot. Any thoughts or guidance?

Thanks.

[ISPDr]

G'Day,

Okay, after reading this formum I went out and grabbed as many Snap Servers as I could from ebay (2 x 4100 and 2 x 1000) now. I liking hacking thing... ;-) I have had a REALLY good play with every thing in the 'debug' section.... the two drive mirror is a gift on the 1000s! (Raid 5 isn't an option - even with 2 disks - it needs 3 drives minimum). But! To get a mirror, all you have to do is:


1. Make sure you have the latest snapOS on it (3.4.803)
- its the same version on all of the < 4500s (bonus)

2. Go into debug mode

3. bios unlock (this enables perm changes to the bios)

4. bios model 0 (this make it think you now own a 2000.....)

5. bios lock (just to be sure etc)


Done.... go to the disk utilties section.... and bing there you go.... you should now have the 'Configure Disks' option as of course, you now infact have a snap 2000 - which comes standard with two disks ;-) Enjoy!



Now.... if anyone know where to change this:

debug
info nvram

NFS: ENABLED
HTTP: ENABLED
Telnet remote console: DISABLED (0) <<<<<<<<<-------
RCP server: DISABLED (0)
BOOTP server: DISABLED
HTTPd Port: 80
SMTP Port: 25
SCSI Termination: INTERNAL, external devices illegal.
Protocol Daemons: 32
Raid Cache: 0
Raid Threads: 0
Current Code Page: 437 = US English
File System FSync: ENABLED
FileSystem Full Alert: 90%


... then I would be truly greatful! Clearly the units have a lot more of the OS in them than many first thought. So, If you know how to make the Telnet program action PLEASE let me know ;-)


BTW too anyone a bit scared to play with debug.... I wouldn't worry too much. I have pretty much changed every option I could get my hands on and still haven't managed to break it yet! Only two hints ive found:

1) keep the bios lock on unless you know what your doing
2) the bios flup is one to stay away from (somthing to do with OS upgrades... run it and you go to reset the box to factory defaults to get it back).


Ahhh one other one I did find that would be _really_ good for everyone - expecially 2200 / 4000 / 4100 owners - 'QDL - Quick Dir Lookup'. By default this will be turned off (and I dont think there is a way to turn it on other than debuf). Essentially this 'pre-caches' all of the files in the directory structure, so that any reads from client boxes grab it from the cache and not the drive - this REALLY speeds up clicking through directory structures through windows (an order of magnitude if you have 1000+ files in there). Its easy to do.... from debug mode:

qdl start
qdl scantree /0 0 (/0 for first 'logical drive' /1 if you have a 2nd etc)
qdl buildtree /0


Thats it - your directorys should scream along now!


Finally, if you have a 4000 / 4100 (might be the same for the 2200 - but I haven't seeon one). Take the existing sim out - 64Mb, and replace it with the biggest one you have - ive had them running up to 512Mb. This will REALLY help disk performance as the OS sees this and uses it to increase the 'cache ramsize'.


Hope this helps everyone - im totally stoked with the units (just after a cheap 2200 - hint hint) to complete the collection and Im done! Software wise love it too- only two things... id love to know if anyone has the telnet going ;-) And if anyone has a single bloody Java app running it! Ive looked everywhere but, just cant find anything a) worth running on it b) offered by anyone other than snap (err if anyone knows any helpful hints on the S2S key, then please let me know).

This has been a great forum, would love to hear from anyone that knows anymore:
1) Hacks about the OS (especially debug mode)
2) If anyone knows much more about the hardware a) what is that other ide-looking connectots labeled 'isp'; b) what goes into the two 20 pin connectors (currently not soldered in).


If anyone has any other questions on some of the debug bits, please let me know - have spent way to much time playing with it already ;-0



Enjpoy.


Regs
Matt

[OzDave]

Matt,
You asked about Java apps on Snap OS. I have actually got 3 different ones running. I was not satisfied with the FTPd, so I replaced that with a Java FTPd.
Also, I have written my own Web server as I wanted to add some extra capabilities - it can now scan my MP3 files and pull the IDv3 tags from them and dynamically generate a web page.
Finally, I have been working on adding DynDNS (dyndns.org) support to it, using a java client. Still working on a DNS client, as the SnapOS does not have any DNS support.
Would be glad to help you out in what needs to be done to adapt Java apps for the SnapOS.

OzDave

BTW: I have an original Meridan 2000 Server, with Java installed using a hack from a newsgroup I found.

[jackyjong]

I had snapserver 2200, one of the harddisk fail. I try to rebuild a new harddisk for the 2200, but unsuccess. But i been heard someone selling the harddisk image for $300.

Do anyone had the os image for the snap2200? Because many of my friends say, it is IMPOSIBLE to a harddisk failure snapserver. But i never giveup. Please help me.

Thks

[Gravity Slave]

I also have a few Snap Server 4000 units that I would like to try upgrading as well.

I see people on eBay selling modified units and wonder how they did so.

Does anyone know if it is as simple as dropping in 4 new drives or do I need to rebuild the server one drive at a time?

Thanks for any information.

[shen]

Hi everyone,

I just purchased two brandnew (really) 4000 models for less than 500 EUR each ;-)

Glad to have found this thread because I'm also interested in playing around with harddrives and other modifications, so if anyone has some hints with the upgrade procedure, please let us know.

Someone said that upgrading memory should be no problem - what is the max. amount of memory which is supported by SnapOS or by the Hardware / Bios for a SnapServer 4000?

And can someone tell if it really makes a difference in performance if memory is upgraded?

Greetings from Germany ...
S.

[fixfox]

http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/sho...&threadid=8616

[yvette176]

just looked at the snapappliance dot com site. they want $199 *per copy*, and one copy *per server*, to upgrade to snap/os v4. sounds outrageous to me. and the new software *still* doesn't let you install stuff - other than what "they who know what is good for us" dictate.

we've just bought two new x345's from ibm, and once they're in and configed - and we've moved everything off the snap boxes - i'm going to drop linux into a snap box. yes, it'll void my warranty, blah blah blah. the snap software isn't bad, but when someone tells me what can and cannot be run on a paid-for out-of-warranty box that my company owns, well, we take a dim view of that. afa we're concerned, it's a mobo, p/s and four drives. we'll swap in b-i-g *huge* drives, drop in a version of linux that doesn't require a console *and doesn't prevent telnet logins*, and then we'll tell everyone how we did it. if anyone wants to help, we'll be glad to do a "team thing" on this project, and share the techniques.

we've got 4 x 4000's, and they'd make a fabulous cluster, or just four fabulous linux boxes. the hardware is good. imho linux will make them better.

really, this *we know what's good for you* attitude - to not let people run what they want on a box for which they've paid - is absurd and overcontrolling. i understand that they probably don't want to support user-installed software - fine. tell users that if they install their own software, their software support warranty is void. but to prevent software installation on a box that we own? sounds like 1963 eastern-bloc politics to me.

[Chip]

I managed to get Snap server 1000 booting properly with the help of a free tool called Diskprobe from the NT Resource Kit. The kit is now free to download from Microsoft. basically I used the good HD with the Diskprobe and copied out the sectors 0-4096 and saved them as a file then turned around and wrote them back to a new HD. When the Snap boots it did not go into the maintenance mode but rather booted normally. The only problem was the new drive had the old drive's partition table. Long story short...the answer lies in the partition table. That's why you can't just slap any old drive in. The Snap drive also contains any customizing you mave have done such as failure notification email addresses and such. I only managed to get the Snap to boot and bring up the http interface. The drive was not in good enough shape to format or repair but I'm still working on that.

Chip.

[Maccydo]

Upgrading the drives in my SNAP has been a partial success. Original 2 16gig drives were replaced with a couple 120gig western digitals. The SNAP fires up fine but only sees them as 38gig or so each. I'm not sure what model number it is, 1000 or 1100 because it doesn't have the markings on the outside of the case that most do.

SNAPs document for the 4100, 4100__disdrive.pdf has some information on pages 7 to 9 on using the reinit command. I tried it but it didn't change anything. It could be that I didn't have the correct information in the config device format 100## /reinit /nocore command line or that this is not the correct command to change the size of the drives.

I plan on another attempt this weekend since the SNAP is down and apart to replace the CPU fan. eMail me if anyone is able to come up with commands that worked or might work for me.

forum@ezend.com

Thanks,
Don

[jawzzz]

Greetings all,

This is my first time posting here, but I've been reading the forum for a little while now. Thanks for all the info already posted.

I'm having a problem trying to upgrade my SNAP 4000 (SNAP OS: 3.4.803 (US) with 4 x 120GB WD1200's. Interestingly enough, Either of the two channels function perfectly well with two of the drives by them. That is to say that I can successfuly get the Primary IDE channel to detect both 120GB drives and I can get the secondary IDE channel to detect the two 120GB drives, but as soon as I have all four drives plugged into two channels, the SNAP server doesn't detect any of the drives. Could this be an addressing issue?

I've tried all the alternate jumper settings for both CS as well as Master/Slave with no luck. If anyone has run into this scenario, and found a work a round I'd be really eager to hear it.

Thanks in advance.

[csiebert]

Wanted to pass on my experience with my Snap 1000. It was one of the 'originals', a 1000 I guess. two 8.5 Gig IBM hard drives. Following the advice on this thread, I installed 2 160 gig drives. The machine booted fine and formated the new drives. Problems: the snap server only sees them as 130gig drives. Also, I turned on mirroring at approx. 10PM last night and this morning at 9am (11 hours) it is 12% complete.

Also tried to buy some of these on Ebay but I guess word is out on such an easy hack that the prices are very over inflated so buying used ones really isnt too bright, especially since there is a device called reByte (found it while searching for the snap server hack) for only $150. Also, it is so easy to build your own with a pentium/pentiumII/AMD and FreeBSD or Linux. But the snap has the appeal of being quite and small in size. But anyone that happens to have a snap laying around can give it new life.

[jawzzz]

Well, I just wanted to followup and pass on my experience successfuly upgrading a SNAP 4000 server. I had nothing but problems with the first Western Digital EIDE drives I tried. I RMA'd them back to the vendor in exchange for 120GB IDE (non-EIDE) Seagate drives (model# ST3120022A). I installed all four drives in Cable Select mode and to my suprise and relief the were immediatly recognized and formated.

There were no problems with the OS or any data on the HDD's. The OS on the 4000's seem to be completely in ROM, and I've got tape backups (and my old drives) to restore my data from.

Total cost to upgrade from 120GB to 480GB: $432. I'd say it's worth it.

Good luck to all of you.

Jawzzz

Originally Posted by jawzzz

Greetings all,

This is my first time posting here, but I've been reading the forum for a little while now. Thanks for all the info already posted.

I'm having a problem trying to upgrade my SNAP 4000 (SNAP OS: 3.4.803 (US) with 4 x 120GB WD1200's. Interestingly enough, Either of the two channels function perfectly well with two of the drives by them. That is to say that I can successfuly get the Primary IDE channel to detect both 120GB drives and I can get the secondary IDE channel to detect the two 120GB drives, but as soon as I have all four drives plugged into two channels, the SNAP server doesn't detect any of the drives. Could this be an addressing issue?

I've tried all the alternate jumper settings for both CS as well as Master/Slave with no luck. If anyone has run into this scenario, and found a work a round I'd be really eager to hear it.

Thanks in advance.

[jdeagles]

I have also had trouble trying to get my snap server 2200 working properly. One of my drives failed, but not the one with the OS on it. The problem is, the disks were set up for striping and I can't delete my failed stripe off the working disk so even when I replace the other disk I still have 80 Gb of wasted space I can't do anything about!!!

Does anyone know of any way to edit the partition table on these things so I can take out the reference to the failed stripe and reclaim the space once again (this time for a mirror ;-) )

Originally Posted by jackyjong

I had snapserver 2200, one of the harddisk fail. I try to rebuild a new harddisk for the 2200, but unsuccess. But i been heard someone selling the harddisk image for $300.

Do anyone had the os image for the snap2200? Because many of my friends say, it is IMPOSIBLE to a harddisk failure snapserver. But i never giveup. Please help me.

Thks

[bilbo69]

Hi all,

Have anybody succeeded in replacing disks on a Snap Server 2000 with Deskstar disks (7K250 here) ? They are just not recognized, the Snap gives warning : "File System : MakeNewLabel(): Requested partitions exceed drive size", then error "LCD Message : FAILED: Disk 1" and "Disk Driver : Cannot Read Device 80070007 Block 13"...

Any idea please ?

Bilbo69

[comiston]

Ye recipe -
First backup all contents - this method destroys all data !!
Make a byte for byte image of existing disk with utility in winhex or g4u ( copydisk ) to put image of existing disk onto new larger harddrive .
Install the new harddrive physically back into the server and reattach to network.
At this point the harddrive should function normally but will only accomodate the same amount of data as the original .
To update the software to take account of new harddrive size -
Enter into http://"snapserver ip"/config/debug
type into command line " config devices format 10000 /reinit "
Reboot and be patient - it can take a long time to format a large drive .
If this command fails then double check the logical id of your drive is 10000 ( mine is ) by typing " config devices info "

Have upgraded using this method from 20gig to 40gig to 120gig
also downgraded from 20gig to 8gig ( just to experiment )

Pass this knowledge on as it is certainly not widely available . Comiston

Originally Posted by meswartz

I encountered Joe's article on hacking a Quantum Snap Server 2000 < http://www.procooling.com/articles/h...oe___10_.shtml > while looking into the possibility of doing the same to my model 1000. A cynic (which I am not) would point out that happily it's a pretty modest hack: Joe took out the old Western Digital 7 Gb drives, dropped in new WD 40 Gb units, booted the box (which runs Linux in flash) and it just took off, formatted the new drives automagically, and said "fill 'er up, boss!" A nice piece of robust engineering, and an interesting bit of investigation on Joe's part.

Looks like My Mileage Does Vary, though. My model 1000 is not NEARLY as accommodating. I tried replacing the original Quantum Fireball CX (10Gb) with a Western Digital Caviar 30Gb I had on hand. No joy: system wakes up OK but lapses into a 1-sec LED blink that means entering (but not =IN=) maintenance mode. Tried all the reasonable and unreasonable jumper settings on the drive: same result. Tried updating the flash software from v2.1 to v3.1, which gets me FTP server capability among other things, but no improvement on the disk situation. Tried slapping an ancient Quantum ProDrive LPS (with a staggering 340 Mb) just to see if it liked the flavor of a Quantum drive better. Nope.

Joe indicates that three other folks have attempted an upgrade to a model 1000 with similar dismal outcome. Has anybody out there tried it and succeeded? Any references to other hack sites covering this?

[CM]

You say they were nonEIDE drives but looking up that part number they show as EIDE drives?
Seagate Barracuda ST3120022A 120GB Hard Drive
(EIDE ATA-100, 7200 RPM, 8MB)

Is that the correct part number? Want to be sure before I go plunk down $350

Originally Posted by jawzzz

Well, I just wanted to followup and pass on my experience successfuly upgrading a SNAP 4000 server. I had nothing but problems with the first Western Digital EIDE drives I tried. I RMA'd them back to the vendor in exchange for 120GB IDE (non-EIDE) Seagate drives (model# ST3120022A). I installed all four drives in Cable Select mode and to my suprise and relief the were immediatly recognized and formated.

There were no problems with the OS or any data on the HDD's. The OS on the 4000's seem to be completely in ROM, and I've got tape backups (and my old drives) to restore my data from.

Total cost to upgrade from 120GB to 480GB: $432. I'd say it's worth it.

Good luck to all of you.

Jawzzz

[jawzzz]

HI CM,

Really? I just looked on the Seagate website on the part number page ( http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/...t3120022a.html ) , and I don't see EIDE anywhere. The drive is an Ultra ATA/100 standard, but the term EIDE is a term coined by WD, and loosely accepted throughout the industry. Either way, I know this drive works with my SNAP server. I've now been running for a couple months without incident. If it helps, I bought my drives through CDW ( http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/def...spx?EDC=467103 ). They have a fantastic return policy if they don't work.

Good Luck!

Jawzzz

Originally Posted by CM

You say they were nonEIDE drives but looking up that part number they show as EIDE drives?
Seagate Barracuda ST3120022A 120GB Hard Drive
(EIDE ATA-100, 7200 RPM, 8MB)

Is that the correct part number? Want to be sure before I go plunk down $350

[abombss]

What is the max size hd that a snap server can handle? Are there any bios upgrades to get around this limitation?

[deadsenator]

Originally Posted by abombss

What is the max size hd that a snap server can handle? Are there any bios upgrades to get around this limitation?

I must admit that I'm just now looking at drives over 120GB to purchase and own none at the moment. I would think that Quantum will never supply us with a bios upgrade to handle larger drives. That's not what they would like for us to do. Instead, were supposed to buy their next over priced and under engineered product.

As far as the Snap 2000 goes, I think the 120's are all that you want to do. The temperatures inside get way too hot with the faster and larger drives. I just completed repairs on my 240GB Snap 2000 because someone put two 7200RPM 120GB drives in and cooked the CPU fan AND the disk that was positioned immediately over it in a short period of time. If I had known what was going on, I'd have done something before I lost 200GB of data in a (default) RAID 0 configuration. Do not save data in this fashion if you value it. Make backups. Thankfully, (and fortuitously) I've recovered most of it. There is also some suspicion that the RAID 0 configuration does not give better performance in this device. Use the QDL option instead and adjust memory/buffers.

I struggled for a while to re-invigorate the dead disk, but no amount of trips to the freezer would make it spin again. I found a new WD 120GB for $60, plopped it in and read web pages like these to learn about this device. Everyone talked about upgrading these things, but not about repairing them. Ergo why I've posted this drivel. The new disk came up fine, but the logs constantly complained about the old disk. It kept seeing the old 240GB 'drive' and it's shares from the earlier RAID 0 and consequently would not allow for the creation of anything until that was resolved. The 'configure disks' menu pick led to a error message that ended with a vapid suggestion to contact technical support. It seems that all the documentation brings that one up a lot. I will not go quietly into that good night. I've found the meat of the information here. Another good reason to contribute. So others can see and read another variation.

I finally understood that I simply had to wipe the older healthy drive from the old configuration. I had initially been afraid to do this for fear of losing O/S data. Fear not, it's all in flash. I then used a wipe program to erase the disk and simply reattached it. Voila! The old 240GB disk was gone and the disk was now free to join the newly installed one in a proper RAID 1 configuration. I use this at home for live backup storage.

It is worth noting that a heavier or beefier CPU fan needs to be mounted before installing a 7200RPM disk. Unfortunately, there is precious little clearance for this. The cooler 5400RPM disk are much better suited in this application. If you can mod the case with an extra fan that would be even better. I replaced my CPU fan with one off a P-II 300. A bit fatter, but functional.

In my reading, discovering the debug prompt was the greatest boon (http://192.168.0.x/config/debug - replace x with your correct #). I'd really love to discover the telnet switch. This article was great:

http://www.procooling.com/articles/h..._joe___10_.php

You may email me if you think I can help or if you want to send me v4 of the SnapOS. ;~P Thanks to all the others for their insightful posts and for Google for steering me here. Now, if we could just fit it with a gigabit interface...

DS

[abombss]

deadsenator -- i think i can help you out but I do not have your email. drop me a line at abombss at hotmail