Got some money to burn and was thinking about replacing my Poweredge R720

[TonyArrr]

You might be interested looking into this: How To Disable The Third-Party PCIe Card Default Cooling Response On PowerEdge 13G Servers. For my r720 the fan speeds jumped significantly when installing an m.2 nvme and increased again when installing an RX580 (regardless of temperature), disabling the 3rd party cooling response dropped the idle fan speeds enormously. This was of course after trying disabling the fan speed offset via racadm.

Here is what my fan speeds looked like in grafana while disabling the 3rd party cooling response via ipmi: View attachment 30257

Yeah, I initially used that when my only addons were some m.2 NVMe disks on risers, however I now have SATA disks installed that the IPMI doesn’t like, and the override does nothing for that…

 

[zac1]

After years with my Poweredge R720, I felt the itch to upgrade. With some extra cash in hand, I scoured the latest server models, seeking the perfect blend of power and reliability. It's not just about having the best, but ensuring the tech evolves with my ever-expanding needs.

Did ChatGPT escape the lab?

 

[Computer cats and more]

So getting closer to a plan. I recently got my hands on a GPU ready Dell T640, but it is too nice for me so probably gonna sell it. I'm buying a R730xd I plan on filling full of 2TB SSDs. I might replace my primary backup with a disk shelf. I will probably rebuild one of the old R720 into a "gaming" and video editing PC when my main PC is busy.

 

[TonyArrr]

I'm buying a R730xd I plan on filling full of 2TB SSDs.

I see you are living my life
At this point though, I'd definitely keep a lookout for something that can do nvme on all drive bays (I think the R740xd can...?). Enterprise SAS and SATA ssds aren't coming into the secondary market nearly as much as NVME 2.5 drives are nowadays and when they do, they are priced a lot higher.

Might mean a little more cost at the outset, but you should pretty quickly make it back when buying your SSDs. And make it back again whenever you hit the point of needing to upgrade SSD capacities

 

[Computer cats and more]

I see you are living my life
At this point though, I'd definitely keep a lookout for something that can do nvme on all drive bays (I think the R740xd can...?). Enterprise SAS and SATA ssds aren't coming into the secondary market nearly as much as NVME 2.5 drives are nowadays and when they do, they are priced a lot higher.

Might mean a little more cost at the outset, but you should pretty quickly make it back when buying your SSDs. And make it back again whenever you hit the point of needing to upgrade SSD capacities

It is really tempting, but prices are still too high for 14th gen Dell if I want NVMe support. I will be using a bifurcation card to add some NVMe though. Honestly it will be overkill for what I will be using it for. My 13TB SSD NAS is half full right now and decided I don't want to have to upgrade every other year. Hoping I can behave and not go too out of control with my 36TB of SSD for my overkill NAS.