Buying C6100 from eBay

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AndrewT

New Member
Jun 17, 2014
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Hey Guys
So Im thinking about buying a C6100 from Ebay to get a home lab up and running so i can can work towards a VMware vSphere Certification. From what i have read the Dell C6100 seems to be a good option for this.

Just wanted to get some advice from the people of this forum who likely have much more expertise than me.
What do you guys think of this:
Dell C6100 C6105 Cloud Server 6X 1 8GHz AMD 6 Core HEX Core 144GB RAM 4X 250GB | eBay

Its got three Nodes with all the ram ill ever need and 6 Core AMDs @ 1.8Ghz.
Im pretty sure I will go with this however as a point of comparison i also looked at an Intel version:

Dell Poweredge C6100 2U 4X Xeon QC L5520 2 26GHz 2X Nodes 4X Trays 48GB DDR3 | eBay

Its only got 2 Nodes max but uses XEON 2.26Ghz processor, which i think would provide abit more power if I ever decide to run up a VM for video rendering (i like to dabble in video editing) or some other CPU intensive task. Am i right in this assumption? The other thing Im worried about it the Two Node maximum, I think with the three Node of the AMD version i can test and learn some more dynamic configurations, Which after all is the primary reason i am getting this.
So at the moment I think Im going to get the AMD version, just means i will have to track down some PCI risers as they are not included and I would like to put a 4 port NIC in each node (im a network guy), i get the impression that these PCI risers are hard to track down, am i right?

Anyway just wanted to get some opinions on this before I make the purchase in case im missing any gotchas. Any thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Andrew
 

Clownius

Member
Aug 5, 2013
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The Intel version of the C6100 should support 4 nodes unless it was custom built not to. I have two of them personally with 4 nodes each plus a spare node.

The one you linked looks like a custom job built to only support 2 nodes for some reason. It may or may not have other customisations that cause trouble. Some DCS versions like this are fine while others are stuck on old BIOS's and have real issues.

Also the AMD you listed doesnt have riser cards so no pcie cards for you unless you buy some.

I would keep looking personally. These are poor examples of the C610x series.
 

AndrewT

New Member
Jun 17, 2014
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I would keep looking personally. These are poor examples of the C610x series.
Yeh your right, after talking to the guy selling the Intel one, it is a custom Rigged job.

Do you think the AMD one is OK minus the lack of riser cards? because it seams reasonably priced and I could try to source the risers separately. Just worried i might get one that is stuck on old bios or something, like you mentioned.

I only ask because there isnt much else on ebay at the moment and im not sure where else to get one for a decent price, I think i will take your advise and keep looking to see if anything better comes up.

Does anyone know if any good places to pick up a descent C6100, preferably for sub $1000?
 

Chiron

Member
Feb 21, 2014
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Dayton, OH
I bought one of the 2 server Xeon C6100 versions and regretted it. Ask them if they can add a second psu and power board and see what they say. I tracked down the extra pdb boards and cables. The psu itself is the easiest part. However, there are 2 different versions of the power boards and fan control boards. They all need to be the same revision. One set/version has 8 pin power cables between the power board to the fan board and the other has 10 pin power cables. There are other differences as well, like the fan connectors on one are 5pins while on another they are 7 (I don't think the extra 2 pins are all used though).

Regardless, you might ask if they can make it dual psu or if they have a 4 server one that they can sell as 2 servers and 2 barebones boards. It's MUCH easier to track down heatsinks, cpu, and ram than power boards.