Server Hardware

[rmlhhd]

Hello All,


I'd like to get some pointers on buying server hardware as I'll soon be in the position where I can colo for a decent rate and want to take the opportunity. 


My plan at the moment is to try and get a deal on eBay but I'm thinking to myself would this be the best/cheapest option?


I've heard there's a few sites that offer refurbished hardware and some people personally have hardware for sale but I don't really know where to look for the best deal. 


The plan was to get a server with a v2 or v3 E3, 32GB RAM and two 2 or 4TB drives and space to fit two SSDs but although I'd like to keep the drive spec I'm thinking would the E3s be the best deal? 


I'm only going to use the server to run Proxmox with a few VMs, Windows Server, Mail Server, Plex etc... Oh and BGP of course so an E3 maybe overkill? Or would a dual E5 series CPU setup be adequate?


What are your suggestions?


I'm looking to colo in Manchester so all hardware I purchase should be in the UK with cheapish shipping to that area. I'm looking to rack around mid February.


Thanks!

 

[drmike]

Is this for a personal project?  Not for hosting as a business?


E3 v2 or v3 will be fine.  You should consider more drives and RAID redundancy.  Drives fail and losing data is brutal.


There are many E3 workstations at better price than rack unit if your DC accepts tower form cases.


Ebay is fine, been buying from big off lease companies there for? Decades I guess at this point in time.


Dual E5 is nice, going to cost a good bit more.

 

[willie]

If this is for just one server and you don't have very special requirements, it's probably cheaper and less hassle to get a dedi from a big provider.

 

[Nikki]

If this is for just one server and you don't have very special requirements, it's probably cheaper and less hassle to get a dedi from a big provider.

Depending on the server you require, possibly. It goes back and forth often, on one hand, you have the whole rental idea, where you'd get hardware replacement, better support, etc. On the other hand, Colocation is sometimes cheaper, and you get to control the hardware yourself, doing any customization you wish, though with a higher upfront cost.


If you're looking to put together your own server, you can use whatever you want. L5520s/L5639s are cheap, and quite easy to source, still packing quite a bit of bang for the buck. E3s would do great too, and as long as it's a personal server used for basic things and nothing specifically production ready, you could get by with RAID 1 on SSDs or HDDs, though I'd suggest RAID 10 if possible.


You'll probably be able to whatever you'd want on ebay or through a hardware reseller that sells off lease equipment (like drmike stated.) Depending on the configuration, owning the hardware might be cheaper month to month, but also comes with the cost of any failed hardware replacement, remote hands if it does happen, etc.


A warning, though, if you decide you do not like the host and wish to move, you'll have to worry about the downtime related to it, the cost of packing and shipping (if you aren't local), rather than the rental option where you could just rent a new server and migrate it over as you wish. Colocation is only truly worth the hassle if you're local, can justify traveling to the datacenter, have a server configuration already that'd cost a lot (E5, high performance E3, etc), or just cannot stand rented hardware.

 

[rmlhhd]

Thanks for the replys. 


@drmike this will be for a personal project. I've had a look at some tower server options and have found some much better deals however the data centre doesn't allow tower racking. My initial thought was to use eBay and for the E5's I was aiming for the older dual E5 setup.


@willie @Nikki in this case it'll probably work out cheaper to colo and I'll be working at the data centre so no hastle having to travel etc...


I wanted to go for a setup with lots of drives, maybe 5 or 6 and go for RAID 10 but that adds to the already high cost of building the server for redundancy I don't really need. Unless something cheap comes up it'll probably just be 2 x 3.5" hard drives in RAID 1.


So for the older generation CPUs, are they still worth going for? How much longer are they likely to last? Are they worth it?


I can see an L5639 on eBay for £60 so in a dual setup that'd be £120 whereas I could go for an E3-1220v2 for £160 in a single CPU setup.


What I'm trying to get at is would it be better performance wise to go for the cheaper and lower performance L5 series CPUs in a dual setup over a faster and more expensive E3.


I recall you having some hardware for sale @MartinD is this still available and what's your take on this?

 

[drmike]

Thanks for the replys. 


@drmike this will be for a personal project. I've had a look at some tower server options and have found some much better deals however the data centre doesn't allow tower racking. My initial thought was to use eBay and for the E5's I was aiming for the older dual E5 setup.


@willie @Nikki in this case it'll probably work out cheaper to colo and I'll be working at the data centre so no hastle having to travel etc...


I wanted to go for a setup with lots of drives, maybe 5 or 6 and go for RAID 10 but that adds to the already high cost of building the server for redundancy I don't really need. Unless something cheap comes up it'll probably just be 2 x 3.5" hard drives in RAID 1.


So for the older generation CPUs, are they still worth going for? How much longer are they likely to last? Are they worth it?


I can see an L5639 on eBay for £60 so in a dual setup that'd be £120 whereas I could go for an E3-1220v2 for £160 in a single CPU setup.


What I'm trying to get at is would it be better performance wise to go for the cheaper and lower performance L5 series CPUs in a dual setup over a faster and more expensive E3.


I recall you having some hardware for sale @MartinD is this still available and what's your take on this?

You aren't going to go wrong with the L5639, old yes, but very capable.  There are other chips after that including the X series that still do well.  How long will they last? Who knows, as long as fans are running good, thermals healthy, and dust free or cleaned now and then, should last a very long time.


I think those chip prices were just for the CPU   Or I'd buy 10 units   Look at prebuilt off lease units, especially on the older stuff.  No reason to be custom building the L's and E's and X's at this point.


Depends on what your bottleneck is going to be - do you anticipate CPU contention? Do you expect IO clogs?  I'd consider SSD if it is in your budget.  No reason to go big or enterprise. SSD makes a world of difference.

 

[rmlhhd]

@drmike


Not many servers on eBay in the UK with those L5639's. I do think that's the way to go though.


The budget max is £500 with some decent drives, I've already got two 480GB SSDs waiting for a server as a home.


I'm currently renting a dedi with an E3-1270v2 which idles around 3% CPU usage with running VMs and probably doesn't go over 50% very often even when I'm doing heavy tasks in my Windows VM. IO wise the SSDs will sort me out for that but the hard drives should be able to sustain at least 100MBs. In this case the OS and important VMs will be on the SSDs and the hard drives used for storage volumes.