Is this server good for my needs?

High-Performance Computing Workstations & Servers
1

Yes I know the used server listed below is outdated. But I believe its only outdated for large businesses server rooms and are perfect for my home needs. If you disagree feel free to express your opinion.

What I would like to use it for: (Things marked with * are going to be run 24/7)

    • NAS: 2-3 Clients at a time streaming 1080p videos and storing encryption keys (FreeNAS)
  • Virtualization: Kvm 1 guests running Windows.
    • VPN Server: 1 Client
  • Build Server: Running jenkins one project. Building only 1-2 times a month (Not important)
    • DHCP Server: Max 15-20 devices connected
    • pfSense
    • DNS Cache server: Cache everything
    • Hard drives: 2-3 SATA drives running in RAID 1

Dell Poweredge 2950
CPU: Dual Intel Xeon 2.66 Quad core 8 Core
Ram: 16 GB DDR2 ECC Buffered Memory DDR2
Network: Two gigabit ethernet ports
Bays: 6
PSU: Single 750 W
Price: USD $145.28 (CAD $200) Seems okay

Overkill? need more power? What do you think?

2

Probably won't be able to do all of that, but it's pretty alright for the money, you'd probably be able to at least do the NAS part

3

Hmm okay. I edited the post marked things that need to run 24/7. I'm not going to be running everything all the time at the same time. What kind of power bill am I looking at, is it going to be very high? People said it would be $300 per year.

4

Just throw the TDP on the chips to the max and calculate it for a year

5

you could do most of that but im not sure about the vm and we need to know what game server as some need more power than others.

6

If you're planning on virtualising pfsense (I'd suggest running in on dedicated hardware instead) then you should use vmware as kvm and zen and probably virtualbox aren't supported.

EDIT: If you were to run pfsense either virtual or physical it will be able to take care of DHCP, VPN and DNS caching

2 Likes
7

I just saw you said freenas aswell. I wouldn't recommend running that as a VM either. If you want to use RAID1 then I'd suggest using btrfs on linux. You could run freenas as the host system but that will make running everything else much harder.

8

The game servers not important I removed it from the list. But If I did run a game server it would be minecraft or terraria.

9

Thanks for the help full info. I want to run pfsense and freenas both in a vm as I cant afford another system. I could run one of them with out a vm and the other in a vm would that work? If so witch one should be in a vm?

10

I've had pfsense running on xenserver just fine

1 Like
11

I'v also found others running it in kvm without any problems.

12

I haven't tried, but I've heard that the paravirtualisation drivers for the NIC isn't supported which caused performance issues.

13

I will note that. I wasn't ever able to get past 100Mbps connection and I think that had to do with the virtual switch config but I never dived to deep into it because I was fine with how it did run

14

2950s are ancient, I wouldn't recommend spending a penny on them.

15

I had a 2900 and I loved it but you are right they are very old and power inefficient

16

If the hardware is fast enough the emulated NIC will run okay, but when you have the drivers for whatever hypervisor you're using you can get almost no loss of performance from the NIC with no CPU overhead.

17

I'll be upgrading from raspberry pi 2 to that server the pi can only do 11MB so 100MB is a major upgrade for me. lol the pi was just to see if I would benefit from a NAS and now I tax the pi NAS everyday.

18

Not really. I think the current version of freenas can run VMs, I'm not sure about that. If so then you could try it but it will probably not work or not work very well.

Unless you can pass the sata controller through to the freenas VM you shouldn't run it as a VM. Freenas needs direct access to the disks and won't work properly with virtual disks.

I would just not use freenas and instead set up your storage and network shares manually on whatever host system you decide to use, it will be much easier and more reliable than trying to get everything working in VMs.

If you can get pfsense to work well enough in a VM then it's fine, there are some security risks with doinf that but for a home environment then it's probably okay.

19

But im not doing much with it. What other options are there in the CAD $200 dollar range?

20

Hmm okay thanks for the information, noted. Would just running samba instead of running freenas in a vm work better then?