Home Lab of HP ML310e G8 Servers - Advice Please

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cgtechuk

Member
Dec 27, 2016
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Hi All , first of all if this is in the wrong forum please move it, I couldn't really see where else it would fit tbh.

I have a collection of 5 x HP ML310e G8 Servers with the Following Spec:

Intel Xeon E3-1220 V2 Quad Core CPU
- 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM
- ILO v4
- HP P410 Raid Card
- Intel Quad NIC Card
- 4 Bay HotSwap Sata Cage with Caddies (3.5")
- 5.25 drive bays into 3 more SATA Bays (3.5")

One of them is the HP V2 version of the server which has:

Intel Xeon E3-1220 V3 Quad Core CPU
- 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM
- ILO v4
- HP P410 Raid Card
- Intel Quad NIC Card
- 4 Bay HotSwap Sata Cage with Caddies (3.5")
- 5.25 drive bays into 3 more SATA Bays (3.5")

Running Esxi 6.5 on both with PFSense, Windows VMs, Linux VM's, Plex etc...

So here is my question/s

I am considering selling 3 of them and keeping 2 as 5 is totally overkill lol.

The HP V2 for some reason is a noisier server and even though the power settings and configs in the bios are identical to the other hosts it is noticeably louder, Other than the fact that the server has a V3 Intel and not the V2 Intel is there much difference other than USB3 (Sandy / Ivy I believe) ? Future upgrades are possibly to 1230 Processors to get HyperThreading although looking at the stats at the moment I am not hitting a bottleneck with CPU. I have no issue keeping 2 of the older models if the only difference is Sandy vs IVY unless anyone knows any other differences?

Also to add to the mix I have another Desktop PC that I have with some larger hard drives in it 6TB models that I want to use for keeping backups fo the VM and critical data from the ESXi hosts, Am I better doing away with this and just have a freeNAS VM on another esxi host or will native FreeNAS on the spare desktop machine with iSCSI be better although the desktop wont be ECC?

Sorry for the long post

TL:DR is the HP ML310e V2 better than the V1 what are the diffs as the V2 is a lot noisier for some reason and also FreeNAS VM or Native machine
 

pricklypunter

Well-Known Member
Nov 10, 2015
1,708
515
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Canada
Don't go storing your backups on a machine that doesn't have ECC RAM on board, that would be a bad idea, especially so if you are planning on also using the strengths of ZFS :)
 

whitey

Moderator
Jun 30, 2014
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868
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@pricklypunter hit it on the head, I'd keep 3 nodes and get rid of two, 2 node cluster is always a lil' wonky IMHO, especially when you consider maintenance or any one-off testing/validation where it may be highly desirable to 'borrow' a node for a bit.

No real 'dog in the fight' as to v2/v3 E3 1220 proc/system, there were pretty darn close/nothing seriously earth shattering in perf envelop if memory serves me correct, more of a tick release than a tock release if I remember my terminology right :-D

Put an AIO stg appliance on a couple hosts, develop RPO/RTO and setup snapshot/replication schedule based around that.

An awful LOT of us have been running in AIO stg configs for quite a long time and have great success w/ this strategy.
 

cheezehead

Active Member
Sep 23, 2012
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Midwest, US
Beyond CPU gen with the V2, it also has USB3.0 onboard which comes with the newer C222 chipset....the original's have the C204 chipset. The V2 noise could also be a different fan vendor...not sure if they are swapable or not.