Dell R210-II E3-1240v2 16GB RAM 500GB HDD + rails + internal bits $215 + S&H

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BLinux

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Jul 7, 2016
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This is about the same price as the btregv seller who's listing was mentioned a while ago here. But this one includes rails and the internal bits like the hdd sleds. photo show no idrac express/enterprise though, that can be had for $15. And shipping to CA is a lot more reasonable than btregv (btregv was charging $55 to ship to S.CA).

Dell Poweredge R210 II Server E3-1240 V2 3.4GHz 16GB 500GB with Rails | eBay
 

frogtech

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Jan 4, 2016
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Perfect pfsense machine? It's good to go just throw in a drive and another nic if desired.
 

Dhiru

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Aug 14, 2016
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The processor itself sells for around $100. Seems like a good deal on a full server.
 

Samir

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Jul 21, 2017
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Does the r210 II have at least one onboard sata3 capable port?
From https://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/poweredge-r210-ii-technical-guide.pdf:
The chipset has two integrated SATA host controllers that support independent DMA operation on up
to six port: 6 x 3Gb/s SATA. The SATA controller contains two modes of operation, a legacy mode
using I/O space and an AHCI mode using memory space. Software that uses legacy mode will not have
AHCI capabilities.
 

ViciousXUSMC

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Nov 27, 2016
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Perfect pfsense machine? It's good to go just throw in a drive and another nic if desired.
Very good, not sure about perfect.
All the power you could need even for heavy plugin use and VPN for 1gb/s WAN, great 1U form factor, 2 NIC ports and a PCI slot to add another NIC if needed.

AES-NI support as needed for future versions of PFSense.

But... The NIC is not Intel based, and if you want to use Suricata with NMAP for in-line IPS it seems that Intel is the only tried and true product to use. Mine will occasionally crash and require a reboot.

I never had any issues with SNORT and I think Suricata will work fine with Legacy mode, but in-line mode the NMAP driver just is not perfect yet.

If I could find a similar server that used an Intel NIC I would have done different, otherwise this is a really great server and I like the dell IDRAC and other features of the server.
 

KC8FLB

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Aug 12, 2018
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I use a R220 as a ESXI host for my virtual PFSense server. Works great. Added intel 4 port nic in PCIE slot. Only time I touch it is to do PFSense updates.
 
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BLinux

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I got mine yesterday. Came in very good condition. All the internal mounting brackets are included, but no idrac express as was expected.

The system idles around 25W (with 500GB SATA WD RE4 HDD). Underload, it peaked around 50~60W.

It isn't super loud, but it isn't silent either. Using a phone app sound meter, i got 33 dBA 1-ft in front, and 35 dBA 1-ft from the back. Ambient with server off was 20 dBA.

Mine came with a really outdated BIOS (2.2.3), but the BMC firmware was relatively new (1.92). I updated BIOS to the latest 2.10.0 (from 2018). The latest BMC firmware I could find is 1.95, but you can't find it on Dell.com searching by product; i found it via google, so here's the link:

Dell PowerEdge R210II 1.95 BMC | Dell Canada
 
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BLinux

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BTW, for anyone else who ordered this and plan to add the iDRAC6 modules (express + enterprise), the R210-II seems to be very picky about the iDRAC6 express module. Dell has several part numbers for what seems like the same module, but based on what I've read online, only the one with Dell P/N: 0PPH2J seems to successfully work on the R210-II. The "enterprise" module seems less picky, but make sure to get the 0PPH2J part for the express module.
 

pricklypunter

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In my experience with these fabulous wee 11th Gen servers, pretty much any iDRAC6 module will work fine in them, even the cheap Chinese knockoff's. However, what does screw the pooch is when the BMC and Bios get's out of sync with the firmware stored in express module. The express module is nothing more than a fancy interface for a flash memory chip as I discovered. Sometimes you can get around it by regressing the BIOS and BMC versions and then updating them all together, but more often than not, I have found anyway, that once the express module refuses to play, that's all she wrote. If you are unlucky and find yourself in this situation, don't abandon all hope just yet...

Have a read here
 

BLinux

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Does anyone know what are the drawbacks of using the iDRAC6 enterprise vflash slot with a SD card as a boot drive? Just looking at the possibilities for boot drive; i know there are internal USB ports, but wondering about the vflash slot. I understand it can take any SD card up to 256GB, but will be limited to a single partition; for OS boot drive that seems just fine.
 

Samir

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Does anyone know what are the drawbacks of using the iDRAC6 enterprise vflash slot with a SD card as a boot drive? Just looking at the possibilities for boot drive; i know there are internal USB ports, but wondering about the vflash slot. I understand it can take any SD card up to 256GB, but will be limited to a single partition; for OS boot drive that seems just fine.
I don't know this for certain, but it seems like the sdcard will be using the same usb interface so you'll be limited to usb speeds for read/write. Hopefully someone that has one of these can confirm/deny. :)