Storage for IBM System x3650 M2 server?

[Omni-Owl]

Hello people!

 

This is my first post so I apologise if I posted in the wrong place or didn't follow decorum.

 

A couple of months ago I bought an old IBM System x3650 M2 server (Geekbench score here for more info) for about 200 dollars.

I wanted to buy it primarily to play around more with server hardware without having to worry about pricing or buying myself in on a VPS somewhere in the cloud.

 

It runs Ubuntu 20.04 (which is also something I want more practice in) and I want to use it for various things. Mostly to run a bunch of docker containers for local network services I want as well as acting as a PLEX server.

Now the thing is; I'm rather new to all this and while I will watch LTTs videos on PLEX again to get familiar with that part, I do want to ask the smart heads here about what storage you think might make sense to buy?

 

I am not looking for anything overkill. I am an average consumer and I'm looking for affordable storage that should fit the 200 dollar server. Perhaps even a RAID setup might make sense, which I've never tried to setup before. I believe it has trays for 2.5'' and should be able to do SSD and HDD.

Any suggestions?

[Electronics Wizardy]

How much storage spacea do you need? Id probably just get a pair for 1tb ssds here. The 2.5in hdds all kinda suck now(most are smr, made for low power laptops, and many have reliability issues) and the 15k 2.5in sas drives just don't make any sense with current ssd pricing. Id just get a normal sata ssd. Your likely never going to get close to the write endurance limit on a new ssd.

[Omni-Owl]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much storage spacea do you need? Id probably just get a pair for 1tb ssds here. The 2.5in hdds all kinda suck now(most are smr, made for low power laptops, and many have reliability issues) and the 15k 2.5in sas drives just don't make any sense with current ssd pricing. Id just get a normal sata ssd. Your likely never going to get close to the write endurance limit on a new ssd.

In terms of a possible RAID setup, how would that work out? Would two 1TB drives be good enough you think?

I'm planning to mostly just add things to the server and rarely delete as I store my own media on it.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Omni-Owl said:

In terms of a possible RAID setup, how would that work out? Would two 1TB drives be good enough you think?

I'm planning to mostly just add things to the server and rarely delete as I store my own media on it.

How much media do you have currently? Id be tempted to go raid0 and keep the system backed up as ssds are normally pretty reliable.

[Omni-Owl]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much media do you have currently? Id be tempted to go raid0 and keep the system backed up as ssds are normally pretty reliable.

I have a mountain of Blu-rays, some of them 4K, as well as quite a few images from over the years.

[Omni-Owl]

I guess another important question would be to ask "What SSDs would you recommend if any?"

[Omni-Owl]

I've looked a bit at the SSD Tier list (I know it's probably outdated and whatnot) and I found three that might be nice:

• Crucial MX500 CT1000MX500SSD1 - 1TB
• WD Blue 3D NAND SSD 2.5" - 1TB
• OCZ Vector 180 VTR180-25SAT3-960G - 960GB

Though I'm not sure. The first two use TLC and the last one uses MLC.

[Electronics Wizardy]

32 minutes ago, Omni-Owl said:

• Crucial MX500 CT1000MX500SSD1 - 1TB
• WD Blue 3D NAND SSD 2.5" - 1TB

Both of these are good options. Skip the OCZ drive, its a dead company now and a old SSD.

 

If you need many TB of storage, 2.5in servers really aren't great for this. A external HDD might be your best option for cheap, or a sas jbod if you want lots of drives

[Omni-Owl]

41 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Both of these are good options. Skip the OCZ drive, its a dead company now and a old SSD.

 

If you need many TB of storage, 2.5in servers really aren't great for this. A external HDD might be your best option for cheap, or a sas jbod if you want lots of drives

Well surly I wouldn't want external storage when I have a server with bays for internal ones?

[Needfuldoer]

If you have a SAS controller, you can get 1.2 TB SAS hard drives for a lot less than new 1 TB SATA SSDs. They won't be new, but they're an order of magnitude cheaper so you can just keep some shelf spares.

 

Still get at least one SSD to store your Plex database on, but spinning rust is fine for your media files.

 

That server's going to chug power, too. If running a rack server is something you're interested in doing long term, you're better off with something that can run v2 or v4 Xeons (like the Dell Rx20 or Rx30, HPE Gen8 or Gen9, or Cisco M4 or M5). Your IPC and core density will be dramatically higher than that IBM.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, Omni-Owl said:

Well surly I wouldn't want external storage when I have a server with bays for internal ones?

The 2.5in drives limit you a good amount. You can get used sas drives off ebay, but they probably have been running for 5 years already. You can get ssds, but there not cheap, and you can get 5tb 2.5in smr drives that are slow and may be unreliable. A external hdd would be like 14tb for 200 bucks, much better than any of the 2.5in combos and probably what Id go with.

[Omni-Owl]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The 2.5in drives limit you a good amount. You can get used sas drives off ebay, but they probably have been running for 5 years already. You can get ssds, but there not cheap, and you can get 5tb 2.5in smr drives that are slow and may be unreliable. A external hdd would be like 14tb for 200 bucks, much better than any of the 2.5in combos and probably what Id go with.

What is the issue with 2.5 inch drives? I don't quite understand.

[Omni-Owl]

31 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

If you have a SAS controller, you can get 1.2 TB SAS hard drives for a lot less than new 1 TB SATA SSDs. They won't be new, but they're an order of magnitude cheaper so you can just keep some shelf spares.

 

Still get at least one SSD to store your Plex database on, but spinning rust is fine for your media files.

 

That server's going to chug power, too. If running a rack server is something you're interested in doing long term, you're better off with something that can run v2 or v4 Xeons (like the Dell Rx20 or Rx30, HPE Gen8 or Gen9, or Cisco M4 or M5). Your IPC and core density will be dramatically higher than that IBM.

I'm not switching out the server. I bought it months ago already. I'm just trying to learn from running at home and also using it as a media/other project hosting server.

So whatever I'm going to do will be on that IBM server

 

The question I want answered is just what kind of storage to go with. I don't know what SAS stands for in this context. Could you elaborate?

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 minutes ago, Omni-Owl said:

What is the issue with 2.5 inch drives? I don't quite understand.

How many tb do you want usable total?

 

2.5 in drives are either old sas drives, expensive ssds, or unreliable and slow smr drives. You don't have the good high capacity hdds like you do with the 3.5in drives.

 

6 minutes ago, Omni-Owl said:

I'm not switching out the server. I bought it months ago already. I'm just trying to learn from running at home and also using it as a media/other project hosting server.

So whatever I'm going to do will be on that IBM server

 

The question I want answered is just what kind of storage to go with. I don't know what SAS stands for in this context. Could you elaborate?

SAS is serially attached scsi, basically a server version of sata.

 

Id probbly get 2x1tb ssds for vms, and store the rest of the large videos and photos on an external 3.5 in hdd. 

[Omni-Owl]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How many tb do you want usable total?

 

2.5 in drives are either old sas drives, expensive ssds, or unreliable and slow smr drives. You don't have the good high capacity hdds like you do with the 3.5in drives.

 

SAS is serially attached scsi, basically a server version of sata.

 

Id probbly get 2x1tb ssds for vms, and store the rest of the large videos and photos on an external 3.5 in hdd. 

Alright. Well thanks for all your help so far! I'll give it a look. Maybe I can fit 3.5 in and I just didn't properly check.

[Needfuldoer]

8 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

A external hdd would be like 14tb for 200 bucks

Add a USB 3 card too, otherwise USB 2.0 will be a bottleneck.