Unraid on an R710 Part 3b: BIOS

So you decided to go with Unraid for your home server, you've picked out and purchased your Dell Poweredge R710, you have gotten all your firmware and BIOS and such up to date, and you've finished setting up your Unraid USB. Now, you will want to set up your BIOS to boot from your USB automatically and take your first steps into the Unraid OS!

This is going to be a super picture-heavy post, so I hope you're into visuals.

Unraid USB

Once you follow the Unraid Getting Started Guide (linked in the intro), where do you plug it in? Well, your R710 has two USB slots in the front, two USB slots in the back... and one secret USB slot. Here's a hint: It's inside the server!

Internal USB and SD card headers

Your internal USB header is located in the front of the machine behind the front-facing LCD screen. I suggest plugging your Unraid USB in here for two reasons. First, it's less likely to get snapped off your server by accident. Second, you can configure the BIOS to use it as an automatic boot device. Super convenient.

My Unraid USB installed in the internal USB slot

BIOS Settings

For convenience sake, I'm going to show you (visually!) how to configure your BIOS to automatically boot from your Unraid USB. I'm going to assume that you've followed my other posts in this series, and you have your Unraid USB ready to go. This is largely optional, I didn't do it for years but I wish I had done it sooner. The alternative is manually selecting your boot device every time you restart your server - which is rare, unless you neglect to buy a UPS.

How to configure your R710 BIOS to boot from your Unraid USB:

First, turn on your server, and have a VGA monitor and USB keyboard plugged in, or log in to your iDRAC interface and launch the Virtual Console.

All screenshots here were taken directly from my iDRAC virtual console

On the dell splash screen hit F2 to enter System setup, or F11 to enter the BIOS Boot Manager, and then select System Setup from that screen. Watch the prompts, you will have to hit another key when prompted to actually enter the System Setup.

In the BIOS, go to Boot Settings and hit Enter

BIOS Main Screen

First go down to USB Flash Drive Emulation Type, hit Enter, and set it to Hard Disk using the left/right arrow keys.

Boot Settings -> USB Flash Drive Emulation Type

Then go to Hard-Disk Drive Sequence and use the +/- keys to move Internal USB to the top of the list.

Boot Settings -> Hard-Disk Drive Sequence

Hit Escape and then go to Boot Sequence and use the +/- keys to move Hard Drive C: (Internal USB) to the top of the list

Boot Settings -> Boot Sequence

Hit Escape twice to exit the Bios. Make sure you select "Save changes and exit"

BIOS Exit dialog

Your server will now reboot. If you are in the iDRAC Virtual Console, you can just leave the console open and watch the server restart.

Once your server finishes booting up, you should be met with the Unraid Boot Mode Selector. I always choose the top one, the headless (no visual output) Unraid OS option. Once that is finished booting, you will see this in your terminal on the server's screen:

Console once Unraid is running

Make a note of your IPv4 Address at the bottom. That is the address you will be using to connect to the Unraid web interface. More on that in part 4 of this series.

What's next?

You're pretty much done with the hardware stuff now. All you have to do is connect to Unraid and follow the manual. I will have one more post in this series to summarize how to use some Unraid features and make some configuration suggestions for your new install.

Thanks for reading! Contact me or comment below if you have any questions or comments.