New server advice needed for home use.

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vl1969

Active Member
Feb 5, 2014
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Hi, my question is simple yet complicated in the same time.
I may have an opportunity to aquire a 2 Dell r730xd servers fully loaded.
Don't have full specs but like 128gb ram dual cpu at 2.3ghz 4 or 6 2tb sad disks each. The servers are about 4 years old but have been off for the last 1.5 year. Not used.
Now, what would be a good fire sale price to pay for them?

Can I easily run a 2 node proxmox cluster on this? I believe the they come with a perc 700 card, can I flash that to it or r mode to use with zfs?

Thanks
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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$100 each ? After about 4 years not much but does depend on actual spec.
 

vl1969

Active Member
Feb 5, 2014
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Well I do not remember the specs as it have been 2 years since I saw them. But overall , a dual xenon 5400 or 5600 series 6 cores in each node. 128gb of ram
A 200gb sad for system and 4x2tb sad drives. Perc 700h 4 gigabit NICs
2 10gigabit NICs. Dual redundant PSU 750w. My old job closed down 2years back but they still finishing up what ever process is going on.
Called me out of the blue to help with network issues. I came out and saw the boxes sitting in the rack.
They say the turned them off a bout a year and a half ago as the buses part stop using them.
I bought them new 2.5 years back. To run a Windows 2016 hyper v cluster. Yes 2 node hyper v cluster

If I am lucky I might get them free , so there will not be a question take it or not.
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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That’s more than 4 years old. More like 8-9 years , 4-5 years would sill be e5 v2/v3
At this point while they can still be usable boxes for people to learn on for a company it’s probably a case of better somebody takes them for free rather than paying for recycling in a responsible way.
5600 Xeon’s launched in 2010.
E5 v3 was late 2014 and that’s first ddr4 systems.

I certainly would not may much or anything for them. (Granted that I already have more modern alternatives for use)
 

ecosse

Active Member
Jul 2, 2013
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Everything I have read on this site says that the e5 e1/r2 chassis are far more power efficient that the 55/5600's. Not sure Windows 2019 will work with CPU's that old (you'd have to check the cpu features against the requirements below

Windows Server 2019 System Requirements
 

BeTeP

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2019
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it's either R710 (5500/5600 CPUs, Perc H700, 9-10 years old, worth just over $100) or R730xd (E5-26xx v3, Perc H730, 4-5 years old, worth $500+). Which ones are those?
 

vl1969

Active Member
Feb 5, 2014
634
76
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They are r730xd.
They are about 4years old but have run only for about 2.5 3 years.
I bought them myself from Dell.
One in 2017 and one in 2018.
I got budget for one, but it soon become apparent that we needed redundancy. So I got second one and built a 2 node hyper-v cluster
I used an old r230 as third(witness) node. Used starwind to built local shared storage.
Run that for a year until company closed.

I thought all was sold at action but it did not.
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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598
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Yep e5 v3 is certainly worth a bit more than the older systems, 200-400 maybe at a guess with that config.