Buying used servers off Ebay?

[cynod]

Hi all

I'm about to move to a new house that has a storage area that's of a decent size, has ventilation and is sound insulated. As such, I am looking to setup a FreeNAS box (to replace my current hopeless piecemeal arrangement of drives dotted on various machines syncing with Syncthing) with a server machine that will be rack mounted along with my switch, router etc. The main purpose is for general household storage of music, movies, docs and possibly eventually for a circular cache/store of video from home cameras when the budget can stretch.

I was browsing Ebay, and there are some good looking second hand systems on offer. Obviously caveta emptor but these look to be quality Supermicro mobos and cases, somewhat recent Xeons, ECC RAM etc. What's the general feel or experience with buying from ebay?

Examples:

1. $375 http://www.ebay.com/itm/2U-Plex-Ser...554198?hash=item212dc12816:g:x6oAAOSwhChZrxzN
2. $528 http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Proliant...977699?hash=item2f0302cb63:g:494AAOSw~y9ZCJeY
3. $773 http://www.ebay.com/itm/2U-FreeNAS-...386718?hash=item238bfbbe9e:g:AlQAAOSwjW9ZlgMf
4. $309 (not super spec but includes 5 x 2TB drives.. would need to check controller compat) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PowerE...105084&hash=item465e0f5103:g:jSEAAOxy4jxSLpcp

While I am here, thanks to all the moderators and writers of all the great guides! Some big time, money and heart aches I'm sure have been saved from your words! (any newbies, go read the guide now! )

Cynod

 

[Dice]

Hey
I suggest you do a forum search on used ebay servers. There are loads of information on the forum that will provide a total of better responses than any single thread.
Some things that come to mind that I'll leave as sort of important, but still succinct teasers:
- Backplane compatibility vs drive size vs freenas (strive for built in expander)
- Power consumption vs Xeon family (X8 are powerhogs)
- RAM capacity
- Decide RaidZ width (amount of drives per vdev) and make room for upgrading
- Get more drive slots than you think you need.
- It is useful to have +1 drive slots during resilvering.
- Read the hardware guide in the resource section. It is extremely useful in your situation.

To get in your head:
- What's the motivation to look for ebay servers other than you <can> ?
From what I read out of your requirements, you'd be fine with a very low powered system. That is in the hardware guide - low performance terminology.
Assuming this avenue is interesting, I'd look for the pentium/celeron (forgot which is suitable atm), SM X11 motherboard, potentially a LSI card, a Fractal design case for up to 8 drives.
What really decides if this is the way for you, is the amount of drives you plan to use. It will make more sense to go rack mounted once you're surpassing about 8-10 drives. Again, the hardware guide will lay out some additional meat on this decision.
A final word on performance on how much "non-plex" stuff you can do on a budget CPU - I run FreeNAS, pfSense, Debian x2, windows 7 x2 as VMs, all of a low buck i3-6100 CPU. The vm's are running dropbox accounts, several resilio sync, synchthing, and sometimes seeding freeware through torrent. Only time I run out of CPU power is when windows borks up and processes crash drawing 100% cpu cycles. However - I recon that is not a problem related to the beefiness of CPU ;)

Cheers!

 

[Chris Moore]

I was browsing Ebay, and there are some good looking second hand systems on offer. Obviously caveta emptor but these look to be quality Supermicro mobos and cases, somewhat recent Xeons, ECC RAM etc. What's the general feel or experience with buying from ebay?

As you said, "Let the buyer beware," there are some items that are not really as good a deal as they might first appear, but you can get some great second-hand hardware that still has plenty of miles under the hood. I bought a 4 year old used car back in 1994 and I am still driving it today.
Servers are like that, you might have to throw a new motor in (CPU / system board / RAM) but the chassis can go and go and go. That said, I think the most important thing is to get a chassis that will serve your purpose not only now, but six to ten years from now. You might not need a 24 bay unit today, but a few years down the road all you need to do to expand your storage is put a few more drives in the empty bays. It is nice to have that option without needing to make significant changes. Additionally, if you stay away from the proprietary systems that use odd shaped system boards, you can easily replace the system board if you find that you need more horsepower later and the drives and data can stay where they are and be connected to the new system board with minimal down time. That is easier (in my opinion) than needing to migrate data to a whole new server.
All that said, I would stay away from the 1U and 2U servers, the purpose of those is to put a lot of compute power in a little bit of rack space. For home, and I follow my own advice, I would suggest 3U or 4U servers because you are probably not space constrained. The 4U servers that give you full height over the system board, not the ones that only give you 2U over the system board, give you many more options. Think of it like having a van to go on vacation instead of an economy car. You can carry more things to have fun with.
Many of the solutions on eBay are pretty turn-key, meaning that you just add drives, install an OS and your in business. There is also the possibility of buying parts and brewing your own server, which might save you a little money, but probably not much.
It sounds like your purpose is similar to mine, but how much storage are you looking to obtain? Don't think about the minimum you have stored right now, round up when you do your math and then double it so you have room to grow. Also, consider what you will need for a backup. Me, I built a whole second server as a backup but in addition to that I have a second pool of disks in one of the servers as an additional backup, but I am super paranoid about loosing my data.

 

[Chris Moore]

By the way, if you are interested in a system that needs a little assembly, I think this is a good option to look at: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperMicro-...xCaddy-SAS2-6Gbp-Expander-2xPSU-/162665582038

It needs some parts to make it go. The CPU, Memory and SAS controller were all stripped out along with the drives, but you can easily pickup good used RAM, CPU and SAS controller from eBay, slap in some drives and your off to the races.

I totally have nothing to do with this item, I just found it on eBay, but if I could afford it, I would buy two of these.

 

[danb35]

By the way, if you are interested in a system that needs a little assembly, I think this is a good option to look at: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperMicro-...xCaddy-SAS2-6Gbp-Expander-2xPSU-/162665582038

I'd prefer at least an X9 series board; this unit looks like a good option. Add RAM and HBA, and you're set. The 2620s are kind of slow, but still respectable, and probably overkill for OP's needs. This one's a bit more expensive, but includes RAM and HBA, and gives 36 bays rather than 24.

 

[Chris Moore]

I'd prefer at least an X9 series board; this unit looks like a good option. Add RAM and HBA, and you're set. The 2620s are kind of slow, but still respectable, and probably overkill for OP's needs. This one's a bit more expensive, but includes RAM and HBA, and gives 36 bays rather than 24.

That first one looks like I nice deal but I just don't like the 36 bay chassis because it only allows 2U space in the system board portion of the chassis. I know it is just a preference of mine but I don't like being cramped like that and having to use low profile cards for expansion. Even at work I order 4U servers when I have the option instead of the thin ones.

 

[danb35]

I know it is just a preference of mine but I don't like being cramped like that and having to use low profile cards for expansion.

De gustibus non est disputandum. The only cards I'm interested in for the FreeNAS box are 10G NICs and HBAs--in my case (which is also one of the 847s), the HBA is onboard, so it isn't a factor; the Chelsio 10G NIC was also easy to find in a low-profile model. If you're buying an HBA, get one where the SAS ports are on the back rather than the top. But it's a valid point, and the 36 bays are overkill for me anyway (I don't even have the front bays full yet).

I also went from a 2U box to the 847, so the restricted space wasn't new to me.

 

[Evertb1]

caveta emptor

De gustibus non est disputandum.

Wow, I start to feel a bit undereducated now. Barely handling English ;)

 

[Chris Moore]

I start to feel a bit undereducated now. Barely handling English ;)

They don't still teach Latin in school?

 

[Evertb1]

They don't still teach Latin in school?

Uhh Latin, is'nt that a way of dancing? But it's a long time ago that I saw the inside of a school.

 

[ethereal]

cornelia est puella parva

 

[javcarbe]

Now which is the best option

 

[Chris Moore]

Now which is the best option

What is the goal? The way forward depends on the destination.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[javcarbe]

try to have all hard drives same place, noise level minimum. Use hard drives more than 2tb.

 

[Chris Moore]

try to have all hard drives same place, noise level minimum. Use hard drives more than 2tb.

If you buy a system like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro...-2-6ghz-8-Core-128gb-24-Bay-JBOD/292399861990

You will need to make a few modifications to get it quiet, depending on how quiet you want it, but it is basically a "just add drives" solution.

It isn't really a one size fits all solution though. How much storage are you looking to implement?

 

[javcarbe]

The AMD servers are good?, not 100% compatible with freenas? need more power?

 

[Chris Moore]

The AMD servers are good?, not 100% compatible with freenas? need more power?

There are some compatibility issues with the AMD systems. I wouldn't suggest going that way.

 

[javcarbe]

I have 2 old servers from my job maybe from 2012
Dell Poweredge T300
HP Proliant ML350g6
if i try to build a server using one of this motherboards? and a 24 bay(3.5) chassis ?
area 100% compatible this servers? I need get better card to read hard drives more than 2 tb?
Thanks

 

[Chris Moore]

Dell Poweredge T300

I would not attempt to use the Dell because that generation system used DDR2 memory and it just isn't worth the effort to get it in usable condition.

HP Proliant ML350g6

This system uses a better processor and memory type but it has an built in disk controller, "Embedded HP Smart Array P410i", and that is totally not usable for FreeNAS but it is built into the system board and probably can't be disabled.
You might be able to use the system, but it would need a replacement SAS controller at the least and I am not familiar enough with that hardware (the HP) to tell you what might work.
One of the nice things about the Supermicro systems is that they are basic building blocks that can be put together in different ways depending on what you need. The big companies like Dell and HP integrate components that are often too specialized to be useful for anything besides their original design purpose.

 

[javcarbe]

Also i have this
Mini-ITX Motherboard with Intel i7 CPU & 16GB RAM (AIMB-272G2)