Dell R900?

[GeckoBoy84]

Hi there,

I was about to purchase a Dell R900 when I started panicking about it’s age. The one I was looking to purchase is roughly $150. It has 128GB ram and 4 older Xeons. The noise is not an issue for me, however I was looking to run some Minecraft servers on it by installing the pterodactyl panel. Should I keep looking for another server or do you think the R900 would be alright for my use case? I have never used servers before, and when I first saw it I thought it was a bargain but I do not want to purchase it if it would be too old to run the things I need.

[Misguided Penguin]

There are a few things that you need to think about before purchasing

 

1. Minecraft servers rely heavily on per core performance so depending on the age of the Xeon it might not be the best

 

2. If the Minecraft server is just you a few friends you won’t need nearly that much ram my server is running a mod pack for about 8 people including me and I probably only use half of my 32 gb of ram.

 

3. Servers especially old ones consume a low of power and assuming you pay for your electricity you might want to keep that in mind.

[GeckoBoy84]

3 minutes ago, Misguided Penguin said:

There are a few things that you need to think about before purchasing

 

1. Minecraft servers rely heavily on per core performance so depending on the age of the Xeon it might not be the best

 

2. If the Minecraft server is just you a few friends you won’t need nearly that much ram my server is running a mod pack for about 8 people including me and I probably only use half of my 32 gb of ram.

 

3. Servers especially old ones consume a low of power and assuming you pay for your electricity you might want to keep that in mind.

Thanks for the reply! The machine runs 4x Xeon E7450 CPUs. I used to run a Minecraft network and have since been requested to start it back up again. It will probably end up being fairly large so am worried mainly about the CPUs.

 

Luckily enough, I do not pay the power bill, but I do want to ensure it can do everything I need before I purchase.

[Misguided Penguin]

18 minutes ago, GeckoBoy84 said:

Thanks for the reply! The machine runs 4x Xeon E7450 CPUs. I used to run a Minecraft network and have since been requested to start it back up again. It will probably end up being fairly large so am worried mainly about the CPUs.

 

Luckily enough, I do not pay the power bill, but I do want to ensure it can do everything I need before I purchase.

The per core performance of the Xeon E7450 does leave a lot to be desired since its only 2.4 GHz so I wouldn’t count on having a lot of players on one server however with the amount of cores that you have you could run multiple servers on that system. I do know that 1.14+ can offload other tasks onto multiple cores (but per core performance is still king) so I would give each server 3 cores making you able to run 2 Minecraft servers per CPU.

[GeckoBoy84]

1 minute ago, Misguided Penguin said:

The per core performance of the Xeon E7450 does leave a lot to be desired since its only 2.4 GHz so I wouldn’t count on having a lot of players on one server however with the amount of cores that you have you could run multiple servers on that system. 

Ok thanks. I will probably stick with the R900 then. I will keep an eye out and ask if I think I have found a better option. Thanks for the support!

[GeckoBoy84]

Does anyone know if it would be possible to use Ubuntu or would I have to purchase a separate OS?

[SorryBella]

6 minutes ago, GeckoBoy84 said:

Does anyone know if it would be possible to use Ubuntu or would I have to purchase a separate OS?

It should be able to boot with Ubuntu or Windows Server.

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, GeckoBoy84 said:

Ok thanks. I will probably stick with the R900 then. I will keep an eye out and ask if I think I have found a better option. Thanks for the support!

Id really avoid the r900, those chips are basically core 2 quads, not fast at all single threaded. Something like a newer optiplex would be much faster for this use case, and cheaaper.

 

Its also really hot and power hungry, uses about 500w idle and about 1000w at load.

 

There is a reason why its so cheap, its not a great system these days. Its also missing some instructions so many newer apps or oses won't run.

[NelizMastr]

If you’re looking for a rack server, you’re much better off buying a HP DL380 Gen8

or Dell Rx20 (520/720). Put in some high clock CPUs and cheap 16GB DDR3 ECC DIMM’s. More power efficient (25% of the R900 both idle and under load usually) and they’ll easily pull the rug from under R900.

good budget CPUs for these are the E5-2650v2

[GeckoBoy84]

On 4/16/2021 at 8:37 PM, NelizMastr said:

If you’re looking for a rack server, you’re much better off buying a HP DL380 Gen8 or Dell Rx20 (520/720).

Would you recommend the Dell R710?
What is the difference between the R710,R720 and the R520?

Would there be a benefit to an R610?

 

Does anyone have any 2.5 inch server hard drives they would recommend?

 

Sorry for the very late reply!

[NelizMastr]

6 hours ago, GeckoBoy84 said:

Would you recommend the Dell R710?

Only if you're going for the very highest clock speed Xeons you can afford. Single core performance is not great, which will hurt your Minecraft servers.

6 hours ago, GeckoBoy84 said:

 

What is the difference between the R710,R720 and the R520?

R710 and 720/520 differ mostly in CPU generation. The R710 uses Nehalem/Westmere Xeons, the 520/720 use SandyBridge-EP and IvyBridge-EP.

Those are significantly faster even at a lower clock speed than the previous generation.

6 hours ago, GeckoBoy84 said:

Would there be a benefit to an R610?

Still very very old.

6 hours ago, GeckoBoy84 said:

Does anyone have any 2.5 inch server hard drives they would recommend?

You don't really need server hard drives. Any 2.5" drive should work, granted it has a compatible temperature sensor (mostly important for HP/HPE servers)

[GeckoBoy84]

1 hour ago, NelizMastr said:

Still very very old.

Would the R610 be better than the R900?

[Electronics Wizardy]

38 minutes ago, GeckoBoy84 said:

Would the R610 be better than the R900?

Yea for your uses it would be better. Quiter, faster in mc server uses, much less power usage, and newer generation.

 

 

Id probably just get a used optiplex or other desktop here. Even faster for MC server, super low power, and cheap.

[NelizMastr]

14 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea for your uses it would be better. Quiter, faster in mc server uses, much less power usage, and newer generation.

 

 

Id probably just get a used optiplex or other desktop here. Even faster for MC server, super low power, and cheap.

Considering OP wants to run multiple Minecraft servers, having more than 1 physical CPU makes sense, as most of those desktops top out at 4 cores 8 threads. That said, you can get current gen 8c/16t (AMD) and 10c/20t (Intel) in 1L form factors now, like the Thinkcenter M90q, Saw it on Servethehome the other day. Getting two of those is more expensive now, but cheaper and easier to maintain in the long run.

[GeckoBoy84]

Hi there,

I ended up purchasing 2 R610s. 1 of them is working fine however the other is having trouble when I try to install the OS on it. It is not finding my disk. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[Lurick]

29 minutes ago, GeckoBoy84 said:

Hi there,

I ended up purchasing 2 R610s. 1 of them is working fine however the other is having trouble when I try to install the OS on it. It is not finding my disk. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Does the second one have a PERC or raid controller installed and the cables connected to said card from the backplane?

[GeckoBoy84]

3 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Does the second one have a PERC or raid controller installed and the cables connected to said card from the backplane?

I believe so. All cables appear to be connected and I think I have identified a PERC or RAID controller

[GeckoBoy84]

I have since fixed this issue. Thanks anyway!