R610 Home Lab Upgrade

[Sylent]

Hello everyone!

 

I'm usually a lurker of this forum, apologies if I get anything wrong.

 

I have a Dell R610 server home server that my work was throwing away. It uses dual X5680s, 48gb of RAM, and I use Proxmox for the hypervisor. 6x 1tb HDDs in a Raid 5 if it matters.

 

I've noticed that the CPUs that are this old are pretty cheap. I don't need as many cores, as I mainly just run private game servers. Any suggestions for a CPU upgrade, and for those who have used Dell servers before. Can I just drop them in it'll work fine? It's all free software, so I shouldn't have to worry about licensing.

[Needfuldoer]

You already have the second-best processors available for that server, and the best (dual X5690s) would just be a mild clock bump. If you want more performance, you'll have to switch platforms. (Honestly I think you should anyway; subsequent generations were a big efficiency and density boost over Nehalem/Westmere.)

 

A 12th gen PowerEdge (Rx20) would let you retain the memory you have and run Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge processors.

 

13th gen PowerEdge (Rx30) gets you up to Haswell/Broadwell, but they use DDR4 so only your storage would carry over. If you go this route, you could also switch to an LGA2011-3 workstation like a Dell Precision 5810 or HP Z440, which would be a lot quieter than even a 2U rack server (but you wouldn't have IPMI to play with anymore).

[Sylent]

1 hour ago, Needfuldoer said:

You already have the second-best processors available for that server, and the best (dual X5690s) would just be a mild clock bump. If you want more performance, you'll have to switch platforms. (Honestly I think you should anyway; subsequent generations were a big efficiency and density boost over Nehalem/Westmere.)

 

A 12th gen PowerEdge (Rx20) would let you retain the memory you have and run Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge processors.

 

13th gen PowerEdge (Rx30) gets you up to Haswell/Broadwell, but they use DDR4 so only your storage would carry over. If you go this route, you could also switch to an LGA2011-3 workstation like a Dell Precision 5810 or HP Z440, which would be a lot quieter than even a 2U rack server (but you wouldn't have IPMI to play with anymore).

Kind of what I was worried about. Thank you for your help! You're very correct about how loud this thing is. I can tell from across the house when somebody joins the Palworld server. I think I'll start scanning for deals for something 13th gen.

[Needfuldoer]

1 hour ago, Sylent said:

Kind of what I was worried about. Thank you for your help! You're very correct about how loud this thing is. I can tell from across the house when somebody joins the Palworld server. I think I'll start scanning for deals for something 13th gen.

Yeah, rack servers aren't exactly known for their stealthiness. As long as you've got iDRAC set up and ipmitool installed on another computer, you can do a few pokes to disable "third party PCIe fan curve" and even manually control fan speeds. (The fans automatically ramp up if you install PCIe cards.) That can usually calm them down a bit, and knock off a dozen or two watts of power consumption. 

 

https://github.com/White-Raven/PowerEdge-shutup

 

If you want a rack server to play with and it's not going to live in a closed room in the corner of a basement or something, I'd recommend getting a 2U (R7x0) chassis. Look for a PowerEdge R730, XC730, or Precision Rack 7910. (They're the same hardware, but sometimes the R7910 is cheaper.) The "XD" variant just means it has a dozen 3.5" bays or twenty-four 2.5" bays. You're buying used, so if you're looking at listings for specific servers (not a generic "X sold, Y available" bulk listing) try to read the Service Tag from the photos. You can pop that into Dell's support site and see what it left the factory with.

[Lurick]

In addition to the link posted by @Needfuldoer

Check out: https://www.spxlabs.com/blog/2019/3/16/silence-your-dell-poweredge-server

I posted a similar script here a while back but now I can't find the topic, haha

 

I remember trying to find a way to make those scripts work with ESXi (rip) but if you go Proxmox I suspect they would work much better at boot to keep the server quiet

 

 

Edit: Found it