1st Server Build. Help needed.

[Xeon3D]

Hi.

So, after fiddling with a few older 4th gen laptop motherboards as tiny servers (for which they are great, power consumption is ~10/15w on 4th gen i5's), I think I'm ready to do the big jump into a full-fledged server.

Budget is ~400€ (+\- 100€ if it's really worth it).
I plan to run either ESXi or Proxmox and then some VMs on top. GPU-Passtrough possibility would be very nice, but not a killer.

I've seen the thread of the Huawei RH2288H V3 Servers on ebay, but from my calculations it'd be a bit more expensive than the budget since I haven't got any spare parts I could use to offset the cost.

Currently I've got an offer on a Dell EMC GEN4S M1200 with 32GB of RAM and a Xeon E5-2603 and 12 HGST 2TB Drives for 350€ shipped.

Sadly, there's hardly any info on these, apart from a thread here where I learned that they support V2 CPU's so there might be a upgrade later if I decide to go this route.
Apart from that, there's no info if the controller card can be flashed into IT mode, nor basically anything else (maximum RAM?).

I'm EU based, if you know of any better deals, I'm all ears.

 

[i386]

I see esxi vs. proxmox, gpu passthrough and it mode (= zfs?).

But what are the use cases?
Plex?
Os testing (will windows 11//server 2022 work with mainboards without tpm 2.0 and unsupported cpus)?
It's hard to give feedback without knowing what you want (or have) to do...

 

[Xeon3D]

I see esxi vs. proxmox, gpu passthrough and it mode (= zfs?).

ESXi or Proxmox so I can run a "couple" VMs.
GPU Passthrough so I can do a gaming VM (but this is in the future).
IT Mode mainly due to the reasons in this post.

But what are the use cases?
Plex?
Os testing (will windows 11//server 2022 work with mainboards without tpm 2.0 and unsupported cpus)?
It's hard to give feedback without knowing what you want (or have) to do...

Use cases:
Learning (never had a full-fledged server before)
Plex (with a few clients, nothing big)
OS Testing (Windows 11 installs on motherboards without TPM and unsupported CPUs. I've got it running perfectly on a couple of 4th gen i7's)
A few Linux VMs with docker containers
NAS

Edit: Also, I understand that the server will chug kw/h like a maniac, specially compared to what I'm currently running (couple of 4th gen laptop boards) so I'd prefer nothing too old.

I'm really liking the offer I got, because it already has lots of storage (which is rare in the ebay listings I get) and there's always the possibility of "cheaply" adding another CPU or maybe even upgrade to apair of v2 cpus and to a better model + more RAM later. It's just the lack of info online about it that is throwing me off when compared to more "common" servers like Proliant G8 series or Dell R720/710/730.

But again, if there are any tips on better servers \ sellers, or if anyone who's EU based has an "old" server that he's willing to let go for cheap... again I'm all ears.

Thanks for replying!

 

[MichalPL]

I have few EMC M1200 and M2400 (2 years ago for ~120€), didnt have chace to test it properly, bud done some "benchmark"

Fastest what you can insert is 2x 12 core ~3.6GHz boost, I dont remember the cpu model (top E5 v2).

Or 2x 8 core 4.0GHz boost.

V2 after bios update.

512GB max in M1200 or 768 in M2400.

Avoid v1 models with more than 4 cores (slow)
1620 v1 works ok @3.9 if i remember correctly.

But... single socket overclocked 1660 v3 @ 5.1GHz is faster than any v2.