Suggestions for a used server - looking at getting back to a home lab

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Dreamerbydesign

Supreme [H]ardness
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Feb 3, 2008
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Greetings guys and gals.

It’s been a minute since I’ve had a home lab. But I’m looking to buy something if possible, better than what I have now.

Current server I built from spare parts:
Intel 8700t cpu
Evga Z370 few motherboard
32gb DDR4 ram
Tier A 850w psu
Quadro p400 2gb gpu
NzXT h510 case
Hyper 212 “silent” cooler - may swap for a Arctic Liquid Freezer 280 AIO so it’s quieter…

I have someone interested in converting this to a gaming pc. So I’m wondering, can I be on the lookout for a used server that may better fit my needs?

What I currently run: (will obv change in future)
-proxmox on bare metal
-windows 10 vm
-windows 11 vm (for testing)
-at least a Linux distro spun up, usually mint or Ubuntu
-xpenology (for testing)

I have no idea anything about workstations, servers or things like Xeon processors besides the basics. I don’t know their naming scheme. I do know what ecc memory is etc.

Is there a certain model of reliable, decent enough server I could be looking for used? Power efficiency also matters to me. This is just for fun. I build what I did above specifically with efficiency in mind as well as performance when needed.

Anyone have any suggested models to look for? Could be a tower or even rack, but I’m guessing a rack mount would be much louder. It’s going in a basement, but still I can’t have a jet plane in my house my wife would kill me.

Thanks for help in advance if anyone reads through this all.
 
For power efficiency, consider CWWK Mini PCs. You can only use up to 64GB of RAM and it's not ECC compatible. I'm running Proxmox on one with an i5-1235U with 2 x 32GB DDR4 SODIMM and a 2TB NVME and it's solid. It's sort of undocumented but all of them support individual IOMMU passthrough for each NIC which makes it handy for virtualizing a firewall or dedicating a NIC to a specific VM. They have various processors available so you can choose what you think is best. My i5-1235U model doesn't break a sweat running quite a few LXCs/VMs.

Here's a great video on power efficient home servers:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MucGkPUMjNo

When looking at used servers, to get a good deal you usually wind up looking at fairly old architectures that have way slower IPC and considerably higher power draw. There is nothing wrong with them, but maybe someone else can give you some input on what to look for.
 
Dopamin3 said:
For power efficiency, consider CWWK Mini PCs. You can only use up to 64GB of RAM and it's not ECC compatible. I'm running Proxmox on one with an i5-1235U with 2 x 32GB DDR4 SODIMM and a 2TB NVME and it's solid. It's sort of undocumented but all of them support individual IOMMU passthrough for each NIC which makes it handy for virtualizing a firewall or dedicating a NIC to a specific VM. They have various processors available so you can choose what you think is best. My i5-1235U model doesn't break a sweat running quite a few LXCs/VMs.

Here's a great video on power efficient home servers:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MucGkPUMjNo

When looking at used servers, to get a good deal you usually wind up looking at fairly old architectures that have way slower IPC and considerably higher power draw. There is nothing wrong with them, but maybe someone else can give you some input on what to look for.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much. I realized pretty quick if efficiency was not a concern, that I could find hardware that was older but sufficient for a server like I’d be wanting. But as soon as I starting applying some efficiency questions I quickly was not looking at the “affordable” older server gear I was finding for good prices.

My current 8700t setup idles fairly low, and really only reaches around 37w under heavy load.

I will def look into the mini pc you linked. I appreciate the response and help.
 
Alternative would be to pick up an actual used server chassis. DDR4 server memory is dead cheap and older Xeons aren't very fast per core, but they're super easy to get in high core counts for cheap. I have a system based on a Supermicro SYS-7048R-TR with dual E5-2630v4 (10-core/20-thread) CPUS, redundant 920W 80+Plat PSUs, 128GB of RAM and an 8-port Areca RAID card and I'm asking $400 for it. For local pickup at least; shit's too heavy to ship.

You are right, you have to worry about noise with a real server, but these tower based ones aren't terrible. And even with some server ones you can replace fans with quieter ones sometimes. Just avoid 1U systems if you care about your ears.
 
Does it have to be x86-64? Those mini ARM PCs are getting ridiculous.
 
I would look at several nodes that are cheap SFF, run ProxMox, and Ceph for storage/local cluster (no NAS needed) and have fun.
 
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