Alot of used servers here a few of which would work I think. Opinions?

[rahimlee54]

Hi I am planning on setting up a freenas setup. I wanted to buy a rackmount server and give it a whirl on something that was ready to to while I learned the ropes of freenas. I have read a little here but haven't jumped in yet. A guy on craigslist has a quite a few servers that will meet the requirements for freenas aside from RAM, most DD3 so an easy fix.

I can buy any of these he has just figured I would put it here and see what you would pick. I am not sure what functions I want other than file storage for general home use: Media, documents, and pics. I know freenas can do way more but at this point I am still learning. So any opinions would be great. Maybe I should figure out the scope of what I want to do before purchase? These are pretty cheap though, and look like what I have seen some others use. I have a dedicated service room in the basement so noise isn't really an issue. Text from listing below:



I have a whole stack of rackmount servers that I'm looking to sell. From top to bottom:

HP DL380 G8; 5x 600GB SAS drives, I believe dual Xeon E5-2640 six-core CPUs, 8GB RAM; drive are $50-100 each on Ebay; I'll say $400 for the whole system

Dell R610: 2x Xeon E5620 quad-core CPUs, 4x 146GB HDD, 8GB RAM; $180

Two Supermicro AMD servers: each has FOUR twelve-core Opteron 6172 CPUs. Power draw is pretty hefty, but that's 96 CPU cores across two 1U servers. 8GB RAM; let's assume no drives for now. $350 each; $550 for the pair

HP DL380 G7: two X5660 six-core CPUs, no drives, 8GB RAM, dual PSUs. $250

Four HP DL380 G7s: Each has a pair of X5690 six-core CPUs (the top-end CPU for the LGA1366 socket, these are FAST!), a small amount of ECC DDR3 RAM, and assorted drives (no HDD in the top one, 2x146GB in the second, and 1x146GB in the bottom two). CPUs are $250/pair on Ebay; let's say $350 for each system or $1200 for the four (yes, that's right -- buy all four and you get the entire computer for $50 more than the CPUs cost).

Thanks
Jared

 

[Inxsible]

Given the options, I'd go with HP DL380 G8 -- unless that is a 1U server because 1Us don't offer expandability. I like that it has dual processor which is relatively new compared to the others (although not by much).

Remember however, the older the hardware, the more power hungry they tend to be, all other things being equal. More than that, you might also want to look at the motherboards on each. I am unsure if these old ones would have boards with integrated SAS controllers or not, but if they are that might be an advantage over another. Some boards might have more DIMMs than others. That offers expandability in terms of RAM, if you use it in a way which requires a lot of RAM.

No matter which one you go with, don't commit your data to it unless you are happy with what FreeNAS gives you. Get new drives and use those.

It highly depends on what you eventually plan on doing with the box. Don't buy them just because you think they are cheap....You might get stuck with a lot of hardware that might be very old for what you might want to do with it.

My 2 cents -- decide what you want out of the system and then make decisions about what to buy.

 

[Stux]

I'd be concerned that you're paying a lot for very old hardware with no ram. Can you not find a used supermicro system with a decent amount of ram for similar prices?

 

[rahimlee54]

I'd be concerned that you're paying a lot for very old hardware with no ram. Can you not find a used supermicro system with a decent amount of ram for similar prices?

Given the options, I'd go with HP DL380 G8 -- unless that is a 1U server because 1Us don't offer expandability. I like that it has dual processor which is relatively new compared to the others (although not by much).

Remember however, the older the hardware, the more power hungry they tend to be, all other things being equal. More than that, you might also want to look at the motherboards on each. I am unsure if these old ones would have boards with integrated SAS controllers or not, but if they are that might be an advantage over another. Some boards might have more DIMMs than others. That offers expandability in terms of RAM, if you use it in a way which requires a lot of RAM.

No matter which one you go with, don't commit your data to it unless you are happy with what FreeNAS gives you. Get new drives and use those.

It highly depends on what you eventually plan on doing with the box. Don't buy them just because you think they are cheap....You might get stuck with a lot of hardware that might be very old for what you might want to do with it.

My 2 cents -- decide what you want out of the system and then make decisions about what to buy.

I had the same thoughts as well. Thanks.

I'd be concerned that you're paying a lot for very old hardware with no ram. Can you not find a used supermicro system with a decent amount of ram for similar prices?

I have seen a few on ebay, and planned on eventually just replacing mobo and cpu as needed. I liked the idea of these being local and quick to grab mostly. I'll do a little more learning/planning and then purchase accordingly.

Thanks for the input guys.
Jared

 

[Mirfster]

FWIW, I run pretty old stuff (Dell C2100/FS12-TY) still to this day and am very happy with them. Also, noise is not really an issue either.

Just have to be aware of certain things when looking to purchase one... If only someone had an informative thread about them.... ;)

 

[Chris Moore]

I had the same thoughts as well. Thanks.



I have seen a few on ebay, and planned on eventually just replacing mobo and cpu as needed. I liked the idea of these being local and quick to grab mostly. I'll do a little more learning/planning and then purchase accordingly.

Thanks for the input guys.
Jared

Having a idea what you want makes looking for it easier.
Also, what kind of budget are you looking at?
If you give me some guidance, I will find the best deal I can for you.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[rahimlee54]

Having a idea what you want makes looking for it easier.
Also, what kind of budget are you looking at?
If you give me some guidance, I will find the best deal I can for you.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

My main goal was ripping movies and music then sending them to the server for distribution, probably plex. The my cloud function seems like a pretty good fit as well. I'd like to get out around 1k for computer and HDDs. The budget isn't a huge issue, I'd like to get the setup going properly. Staying on budget is nice but if that isn't a reality I can reevaluate. However, I dont see a problem used gear to get a strong backbone at a decent price. Depending on how the raids set up, I'd have to adjust the figure as well to accommodate the correct amount of HDDs, need to read up on the best practices for that. I have plenty of rack space with lots of shelves so any size will do.

Thanks
Jared

 

[rahimlee54]

FWIW, I run pretty old stuff (Dell C2100/FS12-TY) still to this day and am very happy with them. Also, noise is not really an issue either.

Just have to be aware of certain things when looking to purchase one... If only someone had an informative thread about them.... ;)

I saw that one a couple days ago and briefly read through it. Kinda what got me to check around on craigslist.

 

[rahimlee54]

Having a idea what you want makes looking for it easier.
Also, what kind of budget are you looking at?
If you give me some guidance, I will find the best deal I can for you.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

I'd like to circle back around to this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2U-Supermi...m=132617778035&_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850

How do you feel about the above? Usage maybe Plex server, couple of VMs to run logitech media server, and pihole. Based on my current knowledge that looks like it'll do everything I want. I wanna start with 4x4 tb drives and see how far that gets me.

Thanks

 

[Inxsible]

I'd like to circle back around to this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2U-Supermicro-8-bay-SAS2-Low-Power-Xeon-Sandy-Bridge-12-core-FREENAS-JBOD-SERVER/132617778035?_trkparms=aid=222007&algo=SIC.MBE&ao=2&asc=44039&meid=0a3a0f0618544b8698021b5357d03452&pid=100011&rk=2&rkt=12&sd=152977254701&itm=132617778035&_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850

How do you feel about the above? Usage maybe Plex server, couple of VMs to run logitech media server, and pihole. Based on my current knowledge that looks like it'll do everything I want. I wanna start with 4x4 tb drives and see how far that gets me.

Thanks

For your use case, you probably don't even need a dual processor board, but it helps. The system that you linked to should be able to handle your use case easily.

 

[Chris Moore]

For your use case, you probably don't even need a dual processor board, but it helps. The system that you linked to should be able to handle your use case easily.

Why is it you are answering for me?

 

[Chris Moore]

I'd like to circle back around to this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2U-Supermicro-8-bay-SAS2-Low-Power-Xeon-Sandy-Bridge-12-core-FREENAS-JBOD-SERVER/132617778035?_trkparms=aid=222007&algo=SIC.MBE&ao=2&asc=44039&meid=0a3a0f0618544b8698021b5357d03452&pid=100011&rk=2&rkt=12&sd=152977254701&itm=132617778035&_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850

How do you feel about the above? Usage maybe Plex server, couple of VMs to run logitech media server, and pihole. Based on my current knowledge that looks like it'll do everything I want. I wanna start with 4x4 tb drives and see how far that gets me.

Thanks

I don't like it. Those Xeon E5-2630L processors only run at 2 GHz which gives them a CPU Mark score of 8001 each:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-2630L+@+2.00GHz&id=2222
That is very low, considering that they are 6 core processors. I think you could spend your money much more wisely.

 

[Chris Moore]

I'd like to circle back around to this:

Do you really want the hot-swap bays?
Is a rack chassis a requirement?
Does it need to be 2U or is a 4U chassis possible?

 

[Inxsible]

Why is it you are answering for me?

I don't see where I am answering for you !! As you can see I quoted @rahimlee54 , not you.

Last I checked it was an open forum !!

 

[rahimlee54]

Do you really want the hot-swap bays?
Is a rack chassis a requirement?
Does it need to be 2U or is a 4U chassis possible?

I have a 42u rack in my basement I am working on filling in so rack mount is preferred. Right now the only things in it is 1 switch, 1 patch panel, and router/modem. Eventual plan is to add a UPS or 2, a server, another switch, and an open source router (looking at pf sense). Space for a 4u setup is fine I just couldn't find a 4u setup that was close to my price point. $6xx for the computer, 4xx for the drives, and expand later as needs arise. More cpu power is always nice so if I can do better for the cash I am game.

Thanks

 

[rahimlee54]

For your use case, you probably don't even need a dual processor board, but it helps. The system that you linked to should be able to handle your use case easily.

I thought so as well, gonna explore around a little more as that vendor has quite a few of that unit available, most all the time based on what I saw. I'll probably add features and tinker with it so I want to go ahead and have extra power hanging out because well more power.

Thanks