I’ve got a PowerEdge r320 and a Poweredge 420 (ha ha, no I don’t do that stuff)
We recently moved into a new home and I’ve wanted to do a few things. Improve my network speed, create a media server for old videos, movies/series so we can watch at-will and teach tech to my son with small projects.
Due to timing, here’s what I’ve accomplished so far:
I’ve previously used the PowerEdge R320 as a File server via windows 10.
I also tried the PowerEdge r420 but that one suffers from some Raid error message that I’m unable to move forward with due to some raid config issue.
I know I have the potential of:
Converting them to a File backup server
Converting to them into a Media server
And even so much more…
How I got these two, is that a friend/co-worker previously gave them to me just for being myself and had no use for them so I was foaming at the mouth at getting two potential servers for nothing but sweat-quity. (sweat equity)
I know, one potential would be to sell them but I want to use these for me and my families benefit, well and save money. What could I potentially do with these? How would I get started?? Any info would be fantastic!
Is power usage a concern for you? If not, then proceed freely.
If so, these servers are from an era of computing that drew a lot more power for a lot less performance than something more recent does. The cost of keeping those running 24/7 is going to make saving money more difficult in the long run once you factor in your power bills.
For the average home server that will be used for file storage and running a hand full of applications that don’t have particularly high performance requirements, you really don’t need much more than a desktop with 2 or 3 PCIE slots that are at least x4 that you can populate with a NIC and HBA or two and a couple of SSDs/HDDs. Even if you don’t have any of these components on hand already, you could easily assemble a system that will run circles around both of those Dell servers while drawing way less power and be much easier to cool for only a few hundred if you trawl eBay for a little while. I would look for hardware that is at least Intel 8th gen or AMD Zen 2 or newer.
Personally I would try to sell those two and put that money towards assembling a more efficient system. If there are any HBA or NIC cards that you can harvest from them, then I would keep those and sell the rest.
Once you get the hardware squared away, Proxmox is an excellent choice for running bare-metal on your home server. It will allow you to create virtual machines and containers for each of the services you want to run and make splitting up the hardware for multiple uses easy. FOSS gives you the power to do all of this for free. Just from what you mentioned, you could setup a container to run an NFS/SMB file server to host your media collection as well as a container to run PiHole with Unbound which will improve your internet speeds by having a local DNS server.
thanks @AbsolutelyFree this is exactly what I have been thinking. I really wanted to retro-fit those servers but hearing the loud fans really made me think… Well I can’t leave these running plus the wife and I would have a drastic uptake on the conversation for Cost vs Convenience.
Depending on your needs you may find that choice of fans (including power supply) allows for a quiet computer even at high performance levels.
If you’re looking for a rack-mountable chassis, there are inexpensive options available using standard ATX ps and that can be easily refit with quiet, but well performing fans (e.g. Noctua).
After that, the mainboard/cpu/ram config is completely up to you to choose for an efficient system at the performance level you desire.
I’m going to see if I can find some part builds that I can put together via pc part picker as a reference if you want to offer any additional suggestions, so with that in mind, I should focus on:
AMD Zen 2 Arch. or intel 8th gen (I’d probably find better luck with intel 8th gen)
Would a GPU even be worth the attempt?
I’m just trying to be as accurate as this would be my first HS build.
I’m comfortable with Windows should I focus more on Linux instead?
I may even just take my current PC which is Zen + architecture but I can add the AMD Ryzen 7 2700x, i think that has Zen 2 architecture?
Also fine, but I believe they only cover major retailers that are selling new hardware. If so, this means you won’t see older hardware that is no longer being sold new by major retailers. If you spend some time combing through eBay and make use of the best offer feature, you can get some great deals on used hardware that will be perfectly fine for your use case. You can also get much better deals on used enterprise-grade NICs and HBAs on eBay, which will be drastically better in terms of hardware and driver quality than any consumer grade stuff that you can buy new.
Honestly whatever you can find that is cheaper will be fine. A 4-6 core processor should be plenty for a simple at-home use case. With intel you are stuck with mobos that don’t have much ability to be upgraded since they only keep a socket for 2ish generations. If you were to go for a lower end Zen 2 processor right now to keep expenditures low, you could upgrade to a higher end Zen 3 processor later on if you find you need more performance and get a significant upgrade at the cost of just a processor.
This depends on if you have a use case that requires one. A server itself shouldn’t require much local access after the initial setup, you can just control it over the network. For that reason a server doesn’t need an inherently powerful GPU, just some form of video out. If you use a processor that doesn’t have integrated graphics, you could use a GPU during the setup phase and then remove it afterwards and just control it over the network after.
Some people use GPUs for performance acceleration for certain workloads like AI/ML. If you needed a GPU for that, you would know. Others use them for transcoding videos, which I don’t do because it degrades the quality. This is really up to you and how you use it. If you aren’t positive that you need a dedicated GPU, you don’t need one. It would just be a waste of power.
My response to this question is biased towards Linux because it is my preference, although anyone who takes the time to type out a response to this kind of question is going to be inherently biased in one direction or another.
I think that if you are interested in servers and self-hosting, then Linux is absolutely worth learning. It gives you a lot more control over your hardware and a better understanding of how it actually works under the hood. It is much more common in the world of servers than Windows is these days, even Microsoft themselves use it for all of their Azure infrastructure. The only place I personally see Windows server used much is for proprietary software and legacy applications that are Windows-only.
Linux is also vastly more commonly used in the world of self-hosting and home labs because the FOSS nature of it means that you can fully understand and solve all of your own problems without being at the mercy of a for-profit corporation that couldn’t care less about your use-case. The tools to learn how to do absolutely everything, from simple day-to-day usage and troubleshooting to writing code that fundamentally changes the way how the kernel works, are all freely available. If you have a solid grasp of how to work with computers already, I think you will find that making the jump to learning Linux isn’t that major and that you will reap a lot of benefits by doing so.
Check the manufacturer’s website for your motherboard for the CPU compatibility list to be certain. If you were thinking about upgrading your desktop anyway, then converting the old desktop into a server is a great way to get started and very common in the world of home labs.
So I’m checking a few NIC’s out at the moment from Ebay, below is the one I’m looking at for a quick buy for now. This seems like a good one, unless you have a recommendation?
Also sorry if I’m bothering you, let me know if its better just to send a direct message i guess?
When it comes to add-on cards in servers, it is a good idea to stick with cards that were/are used in the world of enterprise hardware because those cards were deployed by the thousands and have been heavily used by customers who know exactly how they should work, and the vendors for those cards put a lot of developer effort into ensuring that the driver quality is top-notch. Intel networking hardware is usually always superb and have high-quality driver support in server operating systems. Since all these cards use PCIE, it is all perfectly compatible with standard desktop PC hardware. You just want to make sure your case has decent airflow to keep them cool.
Here are two good links for more reading about good NICs to choose:
Also that’s exactly what I’ve been planning to do eventually is to have everything self-hosted. That way I can actually offer solutions and create backups and control certain aspects with convenience and security.
Thanks Jode, Yeah I plan to research and decide which solution need I would “need” for my home. I know for sure that We need to setup a nextcloud instance either via RPI, RPI Alternative, barebones PC build, or what not.
I’ve also considered researching on Ebay exactly a small enough config from 3 - 4 years ago that I could run linux on and configure for better and more efficient power draw w/o too much power demand.
Main Desktop is currently just a good base to follow and improve my internal network speed capacity.
For small barebones project PCs I tend towards HP machines like the Z240. These are small form factor workstations, so you get a 7th gen processor and 4 HHHL PCIe slots for $50-$100. They’re rock solid and I’ve had two running pretty well non-stop for the last 5 years. Add to that something like a Quadro P1000 and 32-64 GB of memory and you’ve got a capable little machine that can drive four displays.
You can only take them up to 4 cores and 7th gen, but the chassis has plenty of space for 2-3 of the HHHL quad port i350-T4 type NICs. Depending on your storage requirements, etc. though you may want a bigger chassis.
so this thread Home Server New home is very similiar to what I’d like to accomplish. but i dont’ want to just make all this easily accessible anyone got any input?
I’ve seen some ideas about setting up a DMZ honeypot but I’m quite new to doing some things like the thread i’ve looked into.
Absolutely this. What you “save” on buying older tech will be spent in the long term on power bills and indirect air con expenses. Not to mention additional noise from the fans cooling them. You’re also missing out on modern performance, presuming you’ll be running up to date software on them.
Check out the Serve The Home site for hardware reviews. They do a lot of small form factor reviews and have videos for deeper investigation. It’s not free, but free usually costs you.
