AshleyOops! Might have treated myself to a new(er) server to replace my old one...
Cue days of firmware updates, RAID migrations and setups.
Could have worse hobbies! 😂
Graeme C.@Smash_1980 Thats quite a homelab server, I used to use them in companies!
What are you planning to do with it projects wise?
@glc This R730XD is replacing my older R710. Wanted the 13th Gen for the better modern driver support etc better power management and also increased drive bay capacity. This accepts GPUs properly so transcoding will be more efficient.
I'll slowly migrate over services over the next few weeks but essentially it will be running a selection of VMs like Home Assistant, Blue Iris, Plex, a retro gaming Steam PC (a little pet project of mine) and some other Linux/Windows VMs for some other "stuff".
@glc I don't have a rack but this is my current little setup. It's been great fun learning.
@Smash_1980 often tough to find a small rack thats deep enough for those server(and circulates air enough). I used to have a 9u with a micro server, switch, patch panel in it.
Thesedays im all about reducing the noise and power usage. I tend to use Synology for NAS and raspberry Pis for individual projects.
@glc the IT cupboard is away from everywhere so the noise isn't an issue. Plus the R7## servers aren't too loud for commercial servers.
Energy... That's a different issue! 😂. I do want to move my pfsense pc into a lower energy device but my logic with the server is I would need several PCs for the same tasks so it's not too bad. I know a lot of this could be run by Raspberry PIs etc but I wanted to play with servers and learn more.
@Smash_1980 yeah its good to learn on the "big boxes". Before I left working in IT there was definitely a shift towards dedicated Blade servers connected to SANs for storage, but for smaller organizations a device like that with a stack of drives in the front was the way to go.
If I ever need to scale up again I'll probably rent a cloud server with Hetzner. The rental cost on some of the auctions is equivalent to the power cost running at home. Server for free
@Smash_1980 re. The server rentals, it was this post got me thinking and doing the math.
https://mast.solarisfire.com/@solarisfire/109800342365739812
Stephen Greenham (@[email protected])
I just did the math... If you say the average home server draws 150W from the wall. That's 3.6kwh per day. At current UK electricity prices that's £39.06 per 31-day month. You can get a decent server in a hetzner server auction for €40.44 (~£36.10). So it's actually cheaper to pay for datacenter power and get a free server and networking than to run lab boxes at home right now 🤯
@glc I've looked at it before but never seen auction prices like you have said. Plus when I consider storage costs also it doesn't work for me.
@Smash_1980 yeah storage can get pricey and bandwidth can be an issue. which is why i tend to always have a low powered NAS at home.
Those servers on the lower cost brackets are handy when you need a fair bit of reliable 24/7 CPU power for a project without overheating your house
@glc yeah. In the summer the heat is a problem but in winter it's like a really inefficient space heater! 😂