HPE DL380e G8 Worth it?

[kklokreach]

Hello all,

I wanted to know what people's opinions on old servers are. I built a NAS from an old Dell Optiplex 390 that I got for free from work - it sucks but it works just fine for a NAS. I stumbled upon a used HPE DL380E G8 on OfferUp for $100 USD and I was wondering what your opinions on it are. I know that they are generally good deals, but since I am not nearly as familiar with server hardware as I am with desktop hardware, my question is how hard would it be to replace something vs a standard desktop pc, if something died given that this is by a nature, an old server and would this be worth it? At least with the optiplex, I understand the standard parts to a desktop, so I can go find off the shelf components pretty easily to replace it with. I'm just a bit hesitant to get a server because I am not familiar at all with server hardware. (Yes, I know that my optiplex is an oem machine so it would probably be a pain to get replacement parts for if something died and, I'd probably just replace the whole thing, but that's besides the point).

 

About the actual hardware in question, I went to look at it yesterday, it's really old and dusty as expected. He was missing the power cables so I couldn't see it turn on (I have extra 3 pin power cables so the cables don't concern me, but not seeing it work does), but he says it turns on and there's fan spin (he knows nothing about PC's so I'm taking it with a large mountain of salt). I'm still trying to work out what exactly the specs are but so far I have figured out it has:

Dual Intel E5-2420 V2's

32 GB of SK Hynix ECC DDR3 1600 Mhz ram

2x 750W 94% efficiency Platinum PSU's

12 bay LFF model, and some old drives (2x 100gb intel SSD's, 4x 3TB 7200 RPM HDD's)

I can't tell what exactly is in the PCI-e slot but I'm pretty sure it's not a GPU.

 

Do you think this is worth the $100 USD?

[BondiBlue]

Is there any reason you're looking to upgrade to something so large for a NAS? If all you're using it for is a NAS then I'd just keep the OptiPlex. Lower power usage, quieter, cheap, easy to get parts, easy to work on, decently expandable, etc. 

 

That's a good deal on that machine, but keep the power usage in mind. 

[kklokreach]

Just now, BondiBlue said:

Is there any reason you're looking to upgrade to something so large for a NAS? If all you're using it for is a NAS then I'd just keep the OptiPlex. Lower power usage, quieter, cheap, easy to get parts, easy to work on, decently expandable, etc. 

 

That's a good deal on that machine, but keep the power usage in mind. 

Thanks, that's exactly what I was thinking was the power usage. I don't know what the total draw of my optiplex is, but I know that old i3-2120 is at 65W TDP and that both of the xeon 2420's in that thing are 80W's each, so I'm not exactly too keen to pay higher running costs. I don't have a particular reason for upgrading other than wanting a less janky way of holding all my drives (I have them jerry rigged to a drive rack that I made), and the fact that that thing is a steal, but yeah, all the things you said.

[svmlegacy]

41 minutes ago, kklokreach said:

I know that old i3-2120 is at 65W TDP and that both of the xeon 2420's in that thing are 80W's each

You do know that TDP is not the same as power usage, right? Two idling 2420's will use less power than a highly stressed 2120.

 

For just a NAS though, I do reccomend that you stick to the Optiplex. I use an HP DL380 G6 for a personal server, as well as a NAS. The NAS part basically uses no resources aside from bandwidth and storage.

[Jay Deah]

A dl380 is probably the most common server on the planet so you'll have no problem finding cheap spares if needed. Gen 8 is still good by today's standards for home use hp only just stopped releasing g firmware updates etc. You can't really go wrong.

 

The is it worth it question is really subjective to your own requirements tho, do you need/want it enough to spend 100 on it? If not it doesn't really matter how good a deal it is.