HPE EC200A Xeon D-1518 'hybrid server' on ebay ~$150

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Dark

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Mar 9, 2019
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So far I’m in to this at $240

EC200a - $150
2x 16GB Samsung 2133 RDIMM - $70
Add-on NIC - $20

I’ll either throw a $10 optane in it for ESXi boot or use a usb stick.

@ $250 I’d be perfect happy with what I ended up with (my x10sdv 1U with a 1518 was almost 3x this price).
 
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Dark

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Mar 9, 2019
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I have a few HP Mini 800 units but they never seem to be worry free—

earlier one with a 4770T will red light every so often (power issue from what I’ve found)

6700T version routinely crashes with SMART errors (swapped drives and cable)

7700T version is probably the most stable I have but will occasionally flicker any display regardless of output choice, cable, or monitor.
 
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Dark

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Senses3

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May 11, 2013
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Hey. Found this post after finding these on my local craigslist page, these things are literally right down the street from me. Hopefully going to go check them out soon (possibly today) and I'll report back with more details on it.

I'm definitely interested in that weird nic addon card that @Dark is talking about. Could make a nice low footprint hypervisor/router/nas box.

EDIT: Anyone know where you can get the 3.5" bracket?
 
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Marsh

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May 12, 2013
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Thanks, I have few HP 180w 19v brick on-hand.

I am ready to pull the trigger on Monday, after someone report a successful OS install ( any flavor of OS )
 
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Senses3

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May 11, 2013
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Hey so I picked mine up and it's pretty nice. Had a bit of a time fighting with ilo4 to get the remote console working. The .net console requires some firefox addon that was removed years ago so that's no good and I had some java issues on my main linux system I temporarily got around by going through a windows vm on my other server.

I threw in 2x32GB HP RDIMM and a 256GB NVMe drive. I'm installing esxi7 on it now then updating the firmware. Will report back with results.

Here's some pictures for you:
 

Senses3

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May 11, 2013
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So vsphere is up and running. All the sensors are reporting from the IPMI and I found out the NICs support SR-IOV so you could pass each through to a different VM. I really hope it does the same with the four port expansion card I'm most definitely going to get now.

Cool little box. I love embedded stuff (also have an asrock epyc 3251) so this is a nice addition to my lab. I just wish HP wasn't such a jerk about firmware updates. I know the box is EoL but I can't even add the serial to my warranties to see if there is a newer version available. However I was able to get ilo4 updated to 2.73.

Also, the guy I got it from says he bought a lot of 500 of these things. He didn't seem very computer savvy but I think he made a good buy :p.

Oh yeah, it came with a 120W power supply.
 

Senses3

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May 11, 2013
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Ah yes. He also told me the people that decommissioned them couldn't be bothered to remove the drives from their caddies so they just threw them all into the shredder :(.

Still trying to figure out what part number the drive caddies correspond with.
 
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WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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New York, NY
So vsphere is up and running. All the sensors are reporting from the IPMI and I found out the NICs support SR-IOV so you could pass each through to a different VM. I really hope it does the same with the four port expansion card I'm most definitely going to get now.

Cool little box. I love embedded stuff (also have an asrock epyc 3251) so this is a nice addition to my lab. I just wish HP wasn't such a jerk about firmware updates. I know the box is EoL but I can't even add the serial to my warranties to see if there is a newer version available. However I was able to get ilo4 updated to 2.73.

Also, the guy I got it from says he bought a lot of 500 of these things. He didn't seem very computer savvy but I think he made a good buy :p.

Oh yeah, it came with a 120W power supply.
What’s the onboard NIC as seen by VSphere? I can’t figure out what it uses. From what I see on the board there is an Altera Cyclone II, which is typically used to lower latency in FPGA controller network setups, but I also know that the Xeon-D 15xx has an embedded X552/557.

That quadport NIC might turn out to be Broadcom 5705 (if the write ups on their quickspecs are to be believed).
 
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gregsachs

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Aug 14, 2018
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Hey. Found this post after finding these on my local craigslist page, these things are literally right down the street from me. Hopefully going to go check them out soon (possibly today) and I'll report back with more details on it.

I'm definitely interested in that weird nic addon card that @Dark is talking about. Could make a nice low footprint hypervisor/router/nas box.

EDIT: Anyone know where you can get the 3.5" bracket?
Hello fellow clevesburger.
 
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Senses3

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May 11, 2013
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@gregsachs mmm sounds good I could really use one of those right about now :D

Another update. Sadly it seems as that the SATA controller cannot be passed through. It's not listed anywhere on the vsphere hardware management page. However the NVMe controller appears pass through capable, which doesn't really help me figure out a good storage solution for this box whenever I figure out how to get/print some 3.5" caddies

There are four "Xeon Processor D Family QuickData Technology Register DMA Channel" devices available. Not quite sure what's up with those.
 
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zack$

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Aug 16, 2018
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@gregsachs mmm sounds good I could really use one of those right about now :D

Another update. Sadly it seems as that the SATA controller cannot be passed through. It's not listed anywhere on the vsphere hardware management page. However the NVMe controller appears pass through capable, which doesn't really help me figure out a good storage solution for this box whenever I figure out how to get/print some 3.5" caddies

There are four "Xeon Processor D Family QuickData Technology Register DMA Channel" devices available. Not quite sure what's up with those.
This might be a more ESXI thing than pass thru issue with the sata ports.

ESXI generally doesn't let you pass thru the main sata ports.

On ESXI 6.5 you can edit passthru.map to force a pass thru of the sata ports. However, from 6.7 onwards, you can no longer edit passthru.map.
 
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