Fun Ideas to Utilize a Former Server

[NoxiousOdor]

Hello, I am currently upgrading a Dell Poweredge T410 for personal use at home as a daily driver. I live alone and my job does not require use of a powerful computer but I am getting some parts for free and many parts for a very good deal. I am looking for creative ideas on how I could utilize my computer's potential because most things won't need the hardware I have/will have. I am posting this before I finish the build in case there is a cool idea that needs to be implemented during the build.

 

Your ideas/thoughts are appreciated

 

The parts that are planned to go into this are as follows:

CPU: Dual xeon x5690's

Storage: I have 2x2tb in it at the moment

Ram: I don't have the ram yet but it goes up to 128 and I found a place where I can get it inexpensivly if I decided to max it out

GPU: I'm not sure yet

Everything else I'm not sure yet

 

Sorry for the lack of more information

 

This will be the primary computer I use for everything I might want to do, the only computer I have is low end laptop.

[JCBiggs]

host something useful with it like an opennic dns server

 

[xc3ll]

You could install chrome, it would love the ram

 

I would use some kind of enterprise grade hypervisor to host some VMs. Of course for your Main OS, but also for other things like:

- Cloudserver to access your data remotely and share with others

- Mail, Calendar and Contact Server to sync all of those with your phone

- Other Client OS Vms for trying a new OS or securely browsing some shady websites...

[RedWulf]

24 minutes ago, xc3ll said:

You could install chrome, it would love the ram

Might even be able to open 3 tabs at once

 

Perhaps a media/file server, freenas and plex

[NoxiousOdor]

55 minutes ago, RedWulf said:

Might even be able to open 3 tabs at once

 

Perhaps a media/file server, freenas and plex

That is actually a pretty cool idea. I don't have much use for a nas but I had never heard of plex before

[RedWulf]

Just now, WhisperingKnickers said:

That is actually a pretty cool idea. I don't have much use for a nas but I had never heard of plex before

Most people don't have use for one til they get one

Plex actually makes a nas much more practically for "streaming" your media remotely. I just recommend using freenas since it has a plex addon and it allows you to make more use of the server in the same manner. 

[Mikensan]

I would install either ESXI or Hyper-V (Microsoft Server) and then virtualize Plex. Very powerful processor to dedicate a single task to :-( If you have enough ethernet ports you could also spin up a virtual firewall (pfSense etc..). (1 dedicated for WAN, 1 dedicated for LAN etc..)

 

 

[Dark]

I have a plethora of 8GB DDR3 ECC sticks (out of dell servers) if you're interested and in need of memory.  They aren't worth much.

[NoxiousOdor]

18 minutes ago, Dark said:

I have a plethora of 8GB DDR3 ECC sticks (out of dell servers) if you're interested and in need of memory.  They aren't worth much.

How much would you charge for 8 sticks?

[Electronics Wizardy]

12 hours ago, Mikensan said:

would install either ESXI or Hyper-V

no love for kvm or xen?

[Mikensan]

10 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

no love for kvm or xen?

No love for xen, but definitely some love for kvm/proxmox. 

 

(Xen disclaimer, classic I've never tried it so I'm afraid of it)