Worth it?

[qwerty]

Hey guys, im looking at getting some really cheap blade servers and was wondering if you guys think it would be worth A. mining on and B. folding on?

I can grab 5 old HP Proliant BL20P G2 servers for about $40 AUD a piece. They have dual Xeons clocked at 2.8 ghz with 2gb of ram each and dual 36GB HDDs which i would probably upgrade to 300GB 15k SAS drives. Im still in school and have a part time job and some money saved up and i have a huge intrest in Servers as well as computers. I was just wondering if you guys think it might be worth buying them for not only this but just to play around on and learn off? here is the link for them:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/HP-Proliant-BL20P-G2-Server-Blade-Dual-Xeon-2-80Ghz-2Gb-RAM-2x36GB-HDD-/181161213240?pt=AU_Servers&hash=item2a2e0cbd38&_uhb=1

 

 

[ERSCreeper]

Doesn't seem too bad for the price but I haven't a clue on the folding/mining performance.

[BenDreadful]

you could fold on those in theory, who knows what kind of PPD would you get, but it they could be in the background, silent, folding all the time with low-ish power consumption then it would be great.

 

for mining, I'm not that sure tbh. since you need some sort of profit to make mining worthwhile and at these times the only mining that's worthwhile is the one done on amd cards and those ASIC thingies, I really don't think you would be able to do anything at all with this.

 

BUT, for playing around and learning off of it? perfect. try folding, try mining, try whatever you can do with it. will be fun, I'm sure.

[warmon6]

Well if i'm looking at it correctly, http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11567_na/11567_na.pdf

 

 

Looks like to me these Xeon's cpu from the Pentium 4 era.... 

 

 

Mining, I would have to say is certainly not worth it. Certainly when people are saying that HD 7970 is becoming difficult to recommend as it not paying for itself like it used to and that's much faster at mining than all 5 of those blades put together.

 

Folding,  because of my Penitum 4 2.8 GHz HT cpu in the past, I can guess with SMP, it'll be about 800 PPD to 1K+ PPD per blade. (ppd = points per day). *My single Pentium 4 back then could earn about 400 to 500 ppd when folding 24/7* So times 2 my cpu should be close to the same numbers. So about 4k to 5k PPD for an entire farm is my guess.

 

Although is it's worth the electrical cost or not is another matter as newer machines are much faster today using less electricity.

 

Just an example, My 5 year old lenovo 3000 N200 laptop with a Pentium T2390 (core 2 duo based), can produce 1K to 1.2K ppd (1k with WIndows and 1.2K with linux). That's pretty much me carrying around one of those blades and my laptop at max draws around 70 watts at the wall. I'm certain that 1 of those blades draws far more power than that....

 

 

So, I'll say it's up to you on the folding matter.

 

 

As for learning off, Heck yeah! There's nothing better than learning new things off old and cheap computers. Trying new software, adjusting hardware settings, ect, it better IMO to do it on those than a new expensive machines that everyone uses everyday.

[Whaler_99]

As Warmon says - they won't crank out much PPD, but they will do some. They would be a no go for mining. CPU mining is dead.

 

But, you could easily load, Windows Server 2008, 2008R2, 2012 on those to play around with, as well a Linux, Ubuntu, etc...

 

Just remember, to use those, you also need to propper chassis, multiple power supplies and fans, networking in it, etc. That there may run you a bit... the blades themselves are useless without the chassis...

[qwerty]

 you also need to propper chassis, multiple power supplies and fans

So do you eman i would need to buy a Blade case specific just for them? So that would probably be the reason they are dirt cheap.

[xXxYOLOxSWAGxXx_420BlazeIt]

So do you eman i would need to buy a Blade case specific just for them? So that would probably be the reason they are dirt cheap.

You need the enclosure made for those blades.

 

They are extremely loud.

[Whaler_99]

Yes - the beauty of Blades is they are easy to expand, very space optimized, etc... But, yes, you need a chassis. The Blade itself has no native networking, Power supply, baseboard management, etc. That is all provided by the chassis. So at least, you need a chassis for that model of blade, two power supplies, networking switch and a HyperVisor... That could be pricey. :)