Enterprise grade hardware for home use

[HelloIN]

Hi Team, 

I'm getting a good deal on the IBM X3650 server. It has the following configuration:

Intel Xeon Quad Core x 2CPUs( 8 Cores )

32GB RAM

300GB SAS HDD, RAID 0.1.5..Etc .

2 Port 1Gig LAN, Dual Power Supply. 

 

I checked the product specification page and found that it has 6 hot swap bays for holding hard drives. I wanted to know if I can install consumer grade hard drives eg Seagate iron wolf nas hard drives into the X3650. Further I wanted to gain an insight about this server's use case about home use. I plan to create a file server and home media server. Should I go with X3650 machine to install freenas onto it? 

 

Thanks. 

[BryanNichols10]

Hey man,

 

That's a pretty killer machine. That probably has more than enough power to do absolutely anything you like.

 

You should be able to install any drive that has standard sata data and sata power connectors into those bays, but i would double check just to make sure that it is for a standard drive.

 

I mean i'm running my home server off a AMD A10-6700 from almost 10 years ago and 8 gigs of ddr3 ram so that thing would be able to do file storage and media sever duties without breaking a sweat.  

 

Just make sure those drive bays are for sata drives and you should be in good shape

[Electronics Wizardy]

Wht exact cpu model?

 

Those seems to be the dul 771 systems, so id stay far away. They run hot, use lots of power(about 250-300w at idle), and aren't very faster.

 

Getting a used i5 desktop will be faster, and much cheaper to run, if you want a used server, try to get a dual 2011 generation system.

 

 

[HelloIN]

Model of cpu is L5420 x 2 CPUs. I confirmed with the seller and he said that SATA HDD is not compatible with this server. He suggested me to go for Dell PowerEdge 2950 Server

Intel Xeon Dual Core Processors E5160 x 2 No's

8 GB PC2-5300F ( 667MHz )

250 GB 3.5'' 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive

Dual embedded 5708 Gigabit LAN

Dual 750W Hot-Plug Power Supply

 

This has 6 Hard Drive bays for 3.5″ SAS, SATA or SSD. 

I wanted to know if the system is already too old (ddr2 ram) for home server usage? I would just use for plex server and file storage. 

[BryanNichols10]

13 minutes ago, HelloIN said:

Model of cpu is L5420 x 2 CPUs. I confirmed with the seller and he said that SATA HDD is not compatible with this server. He suggested me to go for Dell PowerEdge 2950 Server

Intel Xeon Dual Core Processors E5160 x 2 No's

8 GB PC2-5300F ( 667MHz )

250 GB 3.5'' 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive

Dual embedded 5708 Gigabit LAN

Dual 750W Hot-Plug Power Supply

 

This has 6 Hard Drive bays for 3.5″ SAS, SATA or SSD. 

I wanted to know if the system is already too old (ddr2 ram) for home server usage? I would just use for plex server and file storage. 

I mean it really does depend on what your budget is, but i would ditto @Electronics Wizardy's comment about an i5. 

 

A capable quad core from a few years ago paired with 8 gigs of ram and on a mobo with gigabit ethernet is a great starting point.

 

I have no clue what a system like you referenced costs, but i imagine a 2nd hand system would be much more economic for a lot better upgrade path.

[The_Ellimist]

If you want plex then I'm with the others. Stuff this old is not really worth it anymore except for some fun or cause you want a computer museum. If i was buying a server today I wouldn't get anything earlier than say a HP G7 or something like that. even G8's are pretty cheap now.

[Pixel5]

do you pay for electricity by yourself?

if yes you want to stay away from old server hardware especially for something as simple as a file and media server.

You would probably save money in the long run if you get more efficient up to date hardware.

[MR-BOND]

Old servers are great fun to play with but...

They can be very load

Awkward to find a place for

Support for newer technologies and other stuff such as SATA can be iffy and fiddly

If some components die then it can be hard to find a replacement (such as the server I booted yesterday which shut off while changing BIOS settings and now has either got a dead mobo or powersupply which you cannot get, anywhere)

But honestly as long as yet a good deal then go for it

[The_Ellimist]

4 hours ago, MR-BOND said:

Old servers are great fun to play with but...

They can be very load

Awkward to find a place for

Support for newer technologies and other stuff such as SATA can be iffy and fiddly

If some components die then it can be hard to find a replacement (such as the server I booted yesterday which shut off while changing BIOS settings and now has either got a dead mobo or powersupply which you cannot get, anywhere)

But honestly as long as yet a good deal then go for it

Thats a good point. I find though if you need spares for the likes of HP or Dell you can usually get them. Although for HP raid card batteries its full macgyver because its much cheaper to use two rechargable AA's in place of buying genuine.

[MR-BOND]

15 hours ago, The_Ellimist said:

Thats a good point. I find though if you need spares for the likes of HP or Dell you can usually get them. Although for HP raid card batteries its full macgyver because its much cheaper to use two rechargable AA's in place of buying genuine.

I live in NZ so finding parts is that much harder than US/CA.

I've got mostly HP G3 stuff lying around with has max 146.8GB SCSI drives and single core CPU's so I've given up on doing much on those.

Haven't had to do replace any RAID batteries but if I ever need to then I'll thank the AA tip there