Home server

ChrisD. · 16 Aug 2014 at 19:05

Looks like my G6 ML110 is having issues, so I'm looking for something to replace it. I do a lot of virtulisation, so I'm looking at a minimum of Xeon quad core with HT and 16GB+ of RAM. Ideally a tower with not so noisy fans, if not I'll look at putting something into my garage in a small rack.

ChrisD. · 17 Aug 2014 at 13:46

Cheers but not really what I'm looking for.

My server has started working again, but it doesn't fill me with much confidence. Got a screen attached to it now to find out why it's hard resetting.

ChrisD. · 18 Aug 2014 at 12:31

Looks good, will look when home.

ChrisD. · 18 Aug 2014 at 17:45

I presume a SATA setup with consumer SSD's would be ample for home use?

ChrisD. · 19 Aug 2014 at 18:18

Are the Dell hot swap caddies compatible with consumer level SSD's? As on HP servers IIRC they are not and you need specific caddies?

ChrisD. · 19 Aug 2014 at 22:01

Ah, sorry. I've been looking at the T420.

Looks like I can get a converter for 3.5" to 2.5" and as long as I get a PERC H700 or above it'll support SATA SSD's. Only problem is that the Dell site won't allow me to choose no HDD's, so I might call them up. They have good discounts at the moment on the T420.

Also I need to research which exact converter to get for the HDD's.

ChrisD. · 20 Aug 2014 at 17:41

None that suit the spec I want in the outlet. I can get nearly £1000 off a T420 hence looking at that.

ChrisD. · 21 Aug 2014 at 16:42

I've ordered a T420, dual E2420v2 and 32GB of RAM. Around 1/3 off the retail price. It's to sit at home but I'm self employed so it's used as a training tool more than anything. Going to order some SSDs for it shortly.

ChrisD. · 21 Aug 2014 at 16:58

It's a shame I had to order the Dell 500GB SATA drive, it won't let you order with no drives.

I've just ordered 3xM100X's from OcUK, 3x in RAID6 should be fine and limit loss thorugh drive failures while giving more than enough storage for multiple VM's. Will work out some way to back it up to the 500Gb drive and/or my Synology NAS.

ChrisD. · 21 Aug 2014 at 17:12

512GB.

ChrisD. · 21 Aug 2014 at 17:28

Half way, went for the H710 with 512MB of NVRAM. More than enough for home use. Should see some decent IO from the drives which is what would otherwise be the limiting factor when running lots of VMs.

Also went for the 16 bay 2.5" hot swap option, which means I can keep en eye out for regular SAS drives which seem to go for cheap on the bay now and again. Either that or over time build a larger array out of SSDs.