Supermicro 1U Server X9SCI-LN4F Barebones (Add Your CPU / Memory / Hard Drives) | eBay
LGA1155 machines are getting pretty inexpensive, this includes the 1U chassis, HSF, PSU, 4 caddies, + mobo. You can't throw a ton of cores in it to make a hyper-converged server, but Sandy/Ivy Bridge 1155 machines sip power pretty nicely. Not sure how performance/watt is compared to the Xeon-Ds, but I have an E3-1265L running pfsense and my NAS with 2 7200rpm and 2 SSDs, and it hums along in the high 30W/low 40W range.
It has quad GbE Intel NICs, and a 5th IPMI one as well, which works nicely for pfsense. Fans are PWM controlled too, so it's one of the quieter systems in my rack. They're on the CSE-815 chassis, which is current, so parts are plentiful. Single PSU only, and not hot-swappable though.
$49 each + $49 shipping, BUT the seller offers combined shipping that drops it $82 shipped for each if you order more than one. For some reason though, it doesn't continue dropping, I tried quantities from 2 to 100, and it all hovers around that same $80 shipped per unit range. They pack nicely in boxes specific for shipping 1U servers, which has pre-cutout foam and everything.
Unbuffered ECC DDR3 is still not cheap ($4-5/GB), but processors are pretty inexpensive. You could have a functioning server under $200 if you stick to dual core w/ 16GB RAM, quad core Xeons, add $50 or so.
I have four of these now, and all of them together consume less power than my other X10 dual Xeon setup.
LGA1155 machines are getting pretty inexpensive, this includes the 1U chassis, HSF, PSU, 4 caddies, + mobo. You can't throw a ton of cores in it to make a hyper-converged server, but Sandy/Ivy Bridge 1155 machines sip power pretty nicely. Not sure how performance/watt is compared to the Xeon-Ds, but I have an E3-1265L running pfsense and my NAS with 2 7200rpm and 2 SSDs, and it hums along in the high 30W/low 40W range.
It has quad GbE Intel NICs, and a 5th IPMI one as well, which works nicely for pfsense. Fans are PWM controlled too, so it's one of the quieter systems in my rack. They're on the CSE-815 chassis, which is current, so parts are plentiful. Single PSU only, and not hot-swappable though.
$49 each + $49 shipping, BUT the seller offers combined shipping that drops it $82 shipped for each if you order more than one. For some reason though, it doesn't continue dropping, I tried quantities from 2 to 100, and it all hovers around that same $80 shipped per unit range. They pack nicely in boxes specific for shipping 1U servers, which has pre-cutout foam and everything.
Unbuffered ECC DDR3 is still not cheap ($4-5/GB), but processors are pretty inexpensive. You could have a functioning server under $200 if you stick to dual core w/ 16GB RAM, quad core Xeons, add $50 or so.
I have four of these now, and all of them together consume less power than my other X10 dual Xeon setup.
Last edited: