What to Do with a 3 Year Old Server? - Page 1

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - What to Do with a 3 Year Old Server?

Posted: 2/24/2017 11:58:36 AM EDT

Hey, I'm not in the IT world but we pulled an old server our of a customers rack and put a new one in for a larger controls project. The server is about 3 years old and functioning with Six 300GB drives in it and I'm trying to figure out what I can use it for at home. First thing I was think was to re-encode all of my video files over to HEVC but I'm coming up short after that. I've already got a 4ghz 8 core machine that i run full time for a plex server and I was curious if it would be worth moving over to this machine since it is designed to run full time. Anyway's give me your thoughts as I have searched google and the ideas over there are pretty run of the mill.

Posted: 2/24/2017 1:14:48 PM EDT

[#1]

What OS was on it?

Video surveillance console maybe?

Posted: 2/24/2017 1:38:47 PM EDT

[#2]

What brand server is it and what OS is running. I'm think that it's 3 years old it might have Windows server 2008. You can set it up as an offline file server or a media server. You can use remote desktop or FTP to login from your computer to save documents or even to play movies and music. I am setting up a full network at home now and it took me about a year to figure out what I wanted to do.

Posted: 2/24/2017 2:58:24 PM EDT

[#3]

I haven't booted it up yet so I'm not sure if it was ever upgraded to server 2012 but the sticker on it says 2008.

Quoted:
What brand server is it and what OS is running. I'm think that it's 3 years old it might have Windows server 2008. You can set it up as an offline file server or a media server. You can use remote desktop or FTP to login from your computer to save documents or even to play movies and music. I am setting up a full network at home now and it took me about a year to figure out what I wanted to do.

View Quote

@3M1201 I do not have a rack to mount this thing and I'm afraid it is going to be too loud to be honest with you. What did you do to mitigate the noise and heat?
Edit: and it is a Dell 520r.

Posted: 2/27/2017 11:32:48 PM EDT

[#4]

slap some WD Red or Seagate Ironwolf 2-4 TB drives in it, mirror them, and use it as a home network backup target with Veeam, turn it into your new household file server, etc.

I'm looking at buying an R515 for a similar job, but for me it will be a VM host, domain controller, Starwind vSAN box, etc.

Oh, yeah... whatever you decide to do with it, use either ESXi or Hyper-V to make is a VM host first, then load up your functions as VMs.

Posted: 3/1/2017 11:47:24 PM EDT

[#5]

Quote History

Quoted:
slap some WD Red or Seagate Ironwolf 2-4 TB drives in it, mirror them, and use it as a home network backup target with Veeam, turn it into your new household file server, etc.

I'm looking at buying an R515 for a similar job, but for me it will be a VM host, domain controller, Starwind vSAN box, etc.

Oh, yeah... whatever you decide to do with it, use either ESXi or Hyper-V to make is a VM host first, then load up your functions as VMs.

View Quote

Ive definitely been thinking about that. Not sure if running a power hungry server as a network address storage unit is a good idea.

Posted: 3/2/2017 3:19:53 AM EDT

[#6]

Quote History

Quoted:

Ive definitely been thinking about that. Not sure if running a power hungry server as a network address storage unit is a good idea.

View Quote

The only way to use it in a manner that isn't as a power hungry server is if you make it into a coffee table.

Posted: 3/2/2017 3:27:20 AM EDT

[#7]

The main difference between a PC and a server is simply redundancy and reliability. A server is like a 4 wheel drive snow plow, and a PC is like a Chevy Malibu. If you have no need for the high availability of a server then you might wanna just sell it.

Posted: 3/2/2017 4:13:48 PM EDT

[#8]

Quote History

Quoted:
The main difference between a PC and a server is simply redundancy and reliability. A server is like a 4 wheel drive snow plow, and a PC is like a Chevy Malibu. If you have no need for the high availability of a server then you might wanna just sell it cheap to AB.

View Quote

You missed a few words in your post.
As someone actively looking at an r515, I took the liberty of fixing it for you.

Posted: 3/8/2017 3:19:59 AM EDT

[#9]

Bill how much are the Dell Poweredge R515 going for? I can get r630 and r710 for $399 over here in Santa Clara. All the servers come from all the big tech companies. I picked up a 2950 poweredge for $100 and I can't wait to set it up in my office.

Posted: 3/8/2017 11:28:37 AM EDT

[#10]

Quote History

Quoted:
Bill how much are the Dell Poweredge R515 going for? I can get r630 and r710 for $399 over here in Santa Clara. All the servers come from all the big tech companies. I picked up a 2950 poweredge for $100 and I can't wait to set it up in my office.

View Quote

Not sure. Ebay has them all over the place.

Posted: 3/8/2017 11:39:18 AM EDT

[#11]

This is the one that keeps tempting me.
https://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/sys/6007420755.html

r515 - $300 asking price
2x 6 core AMD
H700 Raid card
add-on 4 port gig ethernet card
dual power supplies
4x8GB = 32GB Memory

Its nice, but not absolutely perfect. I really want the 4x1gig card, H700 and dual power supplies. I'm ambivalent about the amount of RAM, and would rather have low power Xeons than AMD.

The ones that are tempting me away are the R710s that can take 18 DIMMs (vs 8 for the R515) They only have 6 3.5 bays vs 8, but I think the memory will be more useful than two more drives.

Posted: 3/8/2017 11:48:46 AM EDT

[#12]

Quote History

Quoted:
This is the one that keeps tempting me.
https://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/sys/6007420755.html

r515 - $300 asking price
2x 6 core AMD
H700 Raid card
add-on 4 port gig ethernet card
dual power supplies
4x8GB = 32GB Memory

Its nice, but not absolutely perfect. I really want the 4x1gig card, H700 and dual power supplies. I'm ambivalent about the amount of RAM, and would rather have low power Xeons than AMD.

The ones that are tempting me away are the R710s that can take 18 DIMMs (vs 8 for the R515) They only have 6 3.5 bays vs 8, but I think the memory will be more useful than two more drives.

View Quote

Yes I agree that I'd prefer the Xeons and that is what mine has. I have 4Gig ports as well with dual power supplies, 32GB of ram and 6 300GB drives in a raid.

Posted: 3/8/2017 8:57:44 PM EDT

[#13]

Quote History

Quoted:
This is the one that keeps tempting me.
https://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/sys/6007420755.html

r515 - $300 asking price
2x 6 core AMD
H700 Raid card
add-on 4 port gig ethernet card
dual power supplies
4x8GB = 32GB Memory

Its nice, but not absolutely perfect. I really want the 4x1gig card, H700 and dual power supplies. I'm ambivalent about the amount of RAM, and would rather have low power Xeons than AMD.

The ones that are tempting me away are the R710s that can take 18 DIMMs (vs 8 for the R515) They only have 6 3.5 bays vs 8, but I think the memory will be more useful than two more drives.

View Quote

Higher core count Opterons are CHEAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted: 3/8/2017 9:17:08 PM EDT

[#14]

I would be interested to add it to my home lab for pentesting and configuring.

Posted: 3/8/2017 10:00:50 PM EDT

[#15]

Oy, the power consumption of olone makes it not worth it. But... if you need a heater in your room, sure, why not.

If you really want it, load up esxi and load up a bunch of vms on it for different functions. Nas, firewall, plex server and so on. Also, if you really want to get crazy, get the f5 virtual appliance demo license and load balance your vms or something.

V

Posted: 3/9/2017 12:22:34 AM EDT

[#16]

You want crazy, try on my 48 core quad proc dl585. I keep it at work so I don't have to deal with the noise, heat and power draw at home. I really should make it do more work...

Posted: 3/9/2017 12:39:24 AM EDT

[#17]

Quote History

Quoted:
slap some WD Red or Seagate Ironwolf 2-4 TB drives in it, mirror them, and use it as a home network backup target with Veeam, turn it into your new household file server, etc.

I'm looking at buying an R515 for a similar job, but for me it will be a VM host, domain controller, Starwind vSAN box, etc.

Oh, yeah... whatever you decide to do with it, use either ESXi or Hyper-V to make is a VM host first, then load up your functions as VMs.

View Quote

Or instead of full VMs, install Docker and bring the apps up as containers

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - What to Do with a 3 Year Old Server?

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