Upgrade Dell or start new?

[sdh9]

I have a Dell PowerEdge T30 "server" that I got for next to nothing back when things were cheap. I was able to somehow shoehorn in 6x 3.5" drives and 2x 2.5" drives. In addition I use 2 expansion cards, one for M.2 SSD (because while there is a slot on the motherboard it is disabled), and a LSI HBA in the other. I have 48GB of ECC UDIMMS in there (I probably could get away with 32GB but more is better). Temps are ok enough, and it idles at about 70 W, which is fantastic.

I run Proxmox and use this as my home server. Nothing mission critical happens here. I host 4 or 5 VMs and about 10 docker containers, in addition to NAS duties.

I'm getting the itch to upgrade, though. There are a few issues with the setup: zero expandability and the 4C/4T of the E3-1225 v5. Ideally, I'd like to add more drives, and the gigabit ethernet isn't super limiting now but might be one day.

So far I've identified a few solutions:

• Upgrade the E3-1225 to something with more grunt. But, this is the highest CPU that Dell validates, and the PSU is probably the limiting factor here. I have seen reports that an E3-1240 v5 works... but at the cost of losing onboard video which I don't really need.
  • This doesn't solve the lack of expandability. I could migrate the components to a larger case, but then I'd need to fix the Dell-specific PSU cable and things like that.
  • I don't see a ton of value expanding this system unless I could get something done inexpensively.
• Start new, maybe with an eBay H11SSL-NC+EPYC 7282 or 7302p. This would absolutely demolish the E3-1225 in terms of multi-threaded operations, but at the cost of single-threaded being a tad slower and higher power consumption. I saw somebody on here with a similar setup said their 7282 idled at about 60W, which would be well in the range of acceptable. I don't mind tuning for energy efficiency over performance, but I can't really stomach 100W idle just for the chip and motherboard.
  • I could get a larger case for future expandability, and since the H11SSL-NC has an integrated 3008, I could ditch my HBA.
  • I would gain IPMI, which would be nice to have.
  • The price is reasonable and I'm ok with old tech.
• Hack up some sort of desktop or workstation-class CPU & motherboard combo that would support the DDR4 ECC UDIMMs that I have. I haven't done much research in this arena. Maybe somebody knows off the top of their heads what would work.

Priorities are (in rough order): Low noise, energy efficient, performance, and future expandability.

Any advice would be appreciated! I'm sure that there are options that I have not considered.

 

[tinfoil3d]

I have a W-1290 system based on supermicro X12SAE which runs at less than 90W(as reported by two different metered PDUs, APC and Raritan) idle with two 4090s attached and 2 noctua 120mm fans running full speed. That means, it's probably <70W or so without GPUs. Pretty sure you can find a used board for that generation and it'll run very efficiently. SAE doesn't have IPMI, only the buggy AMT which just loves to go offline and be useless.
Unfortunately E3 is only 4 cores max. Clock is great but 4 cores aren't.
EPYCs are indeed power-hungry and clock is generally low, ryzen and TR are way higher clock per core. Haven't measured any of 7003 or newer family EPYCs because those are too expensive now, 7002 provides a good bang per buck at this point.
(X12SAE btw takes and runs the ECC UDIMMs, which I'll be maxing out at 128GB as soon as I receive new sticks and will be okay with selling my 4x16GB 2933 kingston RAM)

 

[sdh9]

Hmm, that’s interesting. It appears that it’s not much less expensive than the EPYC setup, although I would save money by reusing my RAM (although I need to check the timings of it as I didn’t really buy it for a future system).

Ryzen seems like the best bang for the buck. I agree the 7003 is out of my price range, and the few TR chips I looked up on eBay are super expensive as well.

 

[sdh9]

Ok, I think I’ve come to a consensus. ASRock X570D4U-2L2T, plus a cheap Ryzen 5 5600 or something should give me 6C/12T at a reasonable price. My 2x16GB UDIMS are already on the QVL list, but I might just go 4x32GB to max out the RAM and sell what I have. I’ll keep the Dell as a backup. This will give me 10GbE, 2xM.2, and while I’ll still need my HBA, there’s enough SATA if I want to add more in the future.