2x Dell R510, What to do with them?

[MEDDERX]

Just picked up two R510 servers, trying to decided what to use them for.

 

I'm planning on at least VMware, freeNAS/Plex, Boinc and y-cruncher if I have the space. Any other ideas? I'm definitely better at the hardware side of things than software so nothing crazy complicated please. 

 

Right now one of them has a Xeon X5672, 32GB ECC, and 12x600GB 15k drives,

the other has a X5672, 16GB ECC, and 4x450GB + 4x600GB 15k drives.

 

I will be upgrading both of them to to dual cpu, either sticking with the x5672 for both or x5670 in one and putting the now extra x5672 in the other. Ram not too sure how much ram yet, probably 24 or 32gb/cpu.  

 

 

[kelvinhall05]

What does your current system consist of right now? It might be a good idea to upgrade one to dual CPUs, max out the RAM, and throw in a nice GPU. X58 is awesome even in 2019.

 

If you already have a good system, use both for Folding@Home.

[MEDDERX]

13 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

What does your current system consist of right now? It might be a good idea to upgrade one to dual CPUs, max out the RAM, and throw in a nice GPU. X58 is awesome even in 2019.

 

If you already have a good system, use both for Folding@Home.

I said what they have in the original post.

 

Boinc is like folding@home but there are a lot more things you can help compute like unsolved enigmas and physics/astrophysics things. 

[Razor Blade]

So one is a 12 bay and the other is an 8 bay?

 

Just FYI that 12 bay is going to eat some power (also may be louder) as it has those double fan modules. If you want my honest opinion, maybe check the L5640's for the 12 bay. You can get a pair for around $20 US. It gives you 6 cores (each) and are only 60W TDP CPUs which will help keep heat in check and in multi threaded tasks should (in theory) be on par with the X5672. You could use it as a killer NAS box as long as you're okay with the power consumption. Put FreeNAS or Unraid on it and call it a day.

 

The 8 bay should do okay using it as a Boinc box, just pop a couple CPUs in there and let it go to town. The only problem I see with using either of these servers for Boinc is you're only going to be able to use CPU for any of those folding tasks...which to be honest...isn't going to yield amazing results for the power consumption. This is coming from someone who was literally heating a room with a dual CPU X58 system, 2 old GPUs, and folding@home. I had about 400W power draw for about 80k PPD...which is pretty terrible...but it was a heater made from spare parts so I didn't care.

[kelvinhall05]

4 hours ago, MEDDERX said:

unsolved enigmas and physics/astrophysics things

Wow, that's cool! I don't think I'll switch to Boinc, but I had no idea it could do stuff like that.

 

EDIT: What I meant by your current system is not the Dells, but your personal, pre-existing PC.

[MEDDERX]

7 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

EDIT: What I meant by your current system is not the Dells, but your personal, pre-existing PC.

Oh ok, I have a e5-2695-v3, 32gb ram, evga 1070 hybrid, 2x500gb ssd and 1TB + 4TB HDD all of which are getting pretty full. 

 

4 hours ago, Razor Blade said:

So one is a 12 bay and the other is an 8 bay?

 

Just FYI that 12 bay is going to eat some power (also may be louder) as it has those double fan modules. If you want my honest opinion, maybe check the L5640's for the 12 bay. You can get a pair for around $20 US. It gives you 6 cores (each) and are only 60W TDP CPUs which will help keep heat in check and in multi threaded tasks should (in theory) be on par with the X5672. You could use it as a killer NAS box as long as you're okay with the power consumption. Put FreeNAS or Unraid on it and call it a day.

Yeah one is 8 and the other is 12 bay. I'm not too worried about its power consumption or loudness, I had a MD3200i for awhile and that thing seemed to have about twice the idle volume than either of these. It will also have it in a back room as a heater. I will defiantly take a look into the L5640s, both them and the X5670 are pretty cheap so I may just end up buying both and seeing what kind of difference there is.

 

Thanks

[Razor Blade]

1 hour ago, MEDDERX said:

Oh ok, I have a e5-2695-v3, 32gb ram, evga 1070 hybrid, 2x500gb ssd and 1TB + 4TB HDD all of which are getting pretty full. 

 

Yeah one is 8 and the other is 12 bay. I'm not too worried about its power consumption or loudness, I had a MD3200i for awhile and that thing seemed to have about twice the idle volume than either of these. It will also have it in a back room as a heater. I will defiantly take a look into the L5640s, both them and the X5670 are pretty cheap so I may just end up buying both and seeing what kind of difference there is.

 

Thanks

The X5670 and X5675 are wonderful CPUs The only concern I would have about putting higher TDP in the 12 bay is CPU2 might get a bit warm if you load the server up with SAS drives and still want to fold with it. Probably would be fine but just the way those R510s are designed, CPU2 and it's RAM get cooled last. It is still a pretty good system, Originally I wish I bought a R510 instead of the R710 when first starting out. Not only do you get more HDD spots with the 8 or 12 bay but I like the PSU design better and if you get a rail kit, face plate, and/or cable management system for an R510 I believe those items also fit the R720 and R730 chassis as well so you wouldn't even have to re-buy those things if you upgrade to one of those models in the future.

 

What really sucks is trying to find the heat sinks at a reasonable price...IMO having to paying more for the heat sink than the CPU you're cooling is insane... Especially a proprietary heat sink for an aging system (it isn't like they're collectable lol). Most times I've seen R510 heat sinks on ebay for about $25 each but several have best offer so I would suggest taking advantage of that.

[MEDDERX]

14 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

The X5670 and X5675 are wonderful CPUs The only concern I would have about putting higher TDP in the 12 bay is CPU2 might get a bit warm if you load the server up with SAS drives and still want to fold with it. Probably would be fine but just the way those R510s are designed, CPU2 and it's RAM get cooled last. It is still a pretty good system, Originally I wish I bought a R510 instead of the R710 when first starting out. Not only do you get more HDD spots with the 8 or 12 bay but I like the PSU design better and if you get a rail kit, face plate, and/or cable management system for an R510 I believe those items also fit the R720 and R730 chassis as well so you wouldn't even have to re-buy those things if you upgrade to one of those models in the future.

 

What really sucks is trying to find the heat sinks at a reasonable price...IMO having to paying more for the heat sink than the CPU you're cooling is insane... Especially a proprietary heat sink for an aging system (it isn't like they're collectable lol). Most times I've seen R510 heat sinks on ebay for about $25 each but several have best offer so I would suggest taking advantage of that.

Yeah I wanted a R7xx but I get my stuff at my old school district surplus sale so I have to settle with older mid end equipment, but at $30 a system I cant complain. 

 

Thanks for mentioning the heat sinks, I totally would have forgotten to get them when I buy the CPUs. Not too surprised they charge so much for them, anything that is associated with servers is always expensive because they think big corporations are the only ones that buy the stuff. Its the ECC ram prices that really grinds my gears.

[Razor Blade]

10 minutes ago, MEDDERX said:

Yeah I wanted a R7xx but I get my stuff at my old school district surplus sale so I have to settle with older mid end equipment, but at $30 a system I cant complain. 

 

Thanks for mentioning the heat sinks, I totally would have forgotten to get them when I buy the CPUs. Not too surprised they charge so much for them, anything that is associated with servers is always expensive because they think big corporations are the only ones that buy the stuff. Its the ECC ram prices that really grinds my gears.

Man I wish that stuff existed around here...the majority of businesses and such I've been able to contact lease their equipment or it is really really old equipment...I do look occasionally still but the only thing I've found locally lately was a guy on craigslist selling a couple IBM X3650 7979 servers for $350 each...its a 13 year old server with Harpertown Xeons

 

[MEDDERX]

21 hours ago, Razor Blade said:

Man I wish that stuff existed around here...the majority of businesses and such I've been able to contact lease their equipment or it is really really old equipment...I do look occasionally still but the only thing I've found locally lately was a guy on craigslist selling a couple IBM X3650 7979 servers for $350 each...its a 13 year old server with Harpertown Xeons

 

Yeah on FB and craigslist here people ask silly prices for there stuff, a handful of it that is decent but it usually lacks drives and/or ram which are the two things I care about most.

 

Also do you have any idea how to setup DNS on FreeNAS? I am trying to get plugins to show up but I am not finding a straight somewhat simple answer on how to do it. Getting this error if that helps, 

 

<urlopen error [Errno 8] hostname nor servname provided, or not known>

[Razor Blade]

7 minutes ago, MEDDERX said:

Yeah on FB and craigslist here people ask silly prices for there stuff, a handful of it that is decent but it usually lacks drives and/or ram which are the two things I care about most.

 

Also do you have any idea how to setup DNS on FreeNAS? I am trying to get plugins to show up but I am not finding a straight somewhat simple answer on how to do it. Getting this error if that helps, 

 

<urlopen error [Errno 8] hostname nor servname provided, or not known>

Under "Network" then "Global Configuration", make sure you set "IPv4 Default Gateway" as well as "Nameserver 1:" as your router's IP address.

 

If you're using a static IP on your FreeNAS and want to access it using it's name instead of IP, you'll have to add it to your hosts file or to your router's DNS (how will probably vary depending on router type, model, etc.)