Cannot get SATA mode set to AHCI. Only Option is ATA or off

[techprofessional1027]

I know this is supposed to to be a Proxmox forum and my apologies for asking a Dell question. I'm kind of at my wits end though. And I am praying that someone on here knows a little about Dells considering I cannot seem to get any support from Dell support unless they charge me an arm-and-a-leg.

I have a Dell poweredge R610 that a friend of mine was kind of to give me. I was able to get Proxmox installed successfully, however it is having a hard time reading my drives because of the SATA mode it is in.

After reading and watching countless forums (reddit, STH, etc) and Youtubes, apparently I am supposed to have the SATA mode set to AHCI mode. So I look up the instructions on how to do this, (go into the BIOS pressing F2) and go to SATA mode. Apparently it is supposed to give you a choice between ATA, RAID, or AHCI.

That is not the case. It only gives me a choice between "ATA" or "off". So I did more research online and found that it could be due to an out of date BIOS. So I upgraded the BIOS to the latest version possible. Still same options of only "ATA" or "off". I looked to see if the poweredge r610 even supports AHCI. It does (at least supposed to).

A thought had crossed my mind to set SATA mode to off in the hopes that, that would disable the RAID and give me the option to set it to AHCI on the next reboot. However, I'm concerned if I set it to "off" I will be locked out completely and will not be able to do anything.

Is there anyone on this forum who have fiddled with Dells who had possibly also had this problem, who can offer me some insight or know of any other resources I can turn to? Thank you in advance for the help.

 

[Kingneutron]

Bruh, according to Wiki the R610 was released in 2010. This is a 15-year-old server.

I would recommend putting it on Ebay or the like and investing in a better potato. You can benefit from less electricity usage and better performance with a mini-pc or off-lease refurb workstation these days. There is stuff available out there for pretty much every budget.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CY27348C?ie=UTF8&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CD7Y4C5...CE142KLT&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D5XNYVH...CE142KLT&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N12D43...CE142KLT&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it

https://www.amazon.com/MOGINSOK-Firewall-Appliance-N100-4xIntel/dp/B0CYH1Q7XG

https://www.servethehome.com/the-ev...outer-and-nas-appliance-qotom-qnap-teamgroup/
^ This is my 1st proxmox server

https://www.ebay.com/itm/235612480746?var=535864636876

.

BTW, Amazon offers credit and monthly payment plans.

Alternatively, if you really want to pursue this rabbit hole - look into changing out the PERC card with an HBA in IT mode. But keep an eye on your electric bill if you're running it 24/7.

Of course, all depends on what exactly you want to accomplish with proxmox. If you want e.g. 50TB of reliable storage, you need to invest in proper equipment. If this is just homelab getting-started experimentation, you could probably get away with 8 cores and 16GB of RAM + 1-2TB SSD. But don't forget you need space for snapshots, and you NEED to be backing everything up somewhere.