Dell Poweredge 2850 server

[JoePro87]

So, my brother works for a company that makes electronic signs....and he gave me one of their old servers that they were getting ready to scrap out. He was using it for a little bit as a Minecraft server, but wiped it before he gave it to me. It is a Dell Poweredge 2850, with 2 3Ghz processors, and 2 hard drives that I think were only like...133 GB, but 10,000 RPM. Anyway, it only has 4GB of Ram in it currently, but I know I can put more in.

 

Okay...question is...what should I do with this thing? It's a MONSTER of a server, and honestly is taking up quite a bit of room in my house, considering it isn't even being used right now. Obviously the graphics card is crap, as it is a server, and not meant to do much with graphics.

 

Point is, I have this thing sitting on my living room floor, and I keep stubbing my toes on it. I don't want to just throw it away if it could be put to good use, but I've never used a server before, and I'm not sure what to do with it. Oh, and it is currently running Ubuntu.

 

 

Um...any ideas?

[manikyath]

the garage is a perfect place for these things, chuck it in a corner, toss a server distro on it together with some remote management stuff.

 

sadly the hard drives are scsi, meaning you cant easily chuck in bigger drives, and USB storage doesnt seem the brightest idea here either.

 

if you can find a PCI-e USB3.0 card and a sizable USB 3.0 external HDD you could turn it into a home server, with storage, and all the things.

 

you might as well just use the thing to explore linux, experiment, distro-hop, breathe the opensourcy goodness, etc.

[harrynowl]

Given that the CPUs are quite old and 2P I imagine they eat a lot of power so I probably wouldn't fold. It could be used for a gameserver if that interests you; failing that put it out the way for a rainy day.

[JoePro87]

Well, as harrynowl said, it is rather power hungry. I don't need to use it as a media server, as my computer handles that task quite nicely. However, using it as a game server is one thing I have always wanted to do...but I can't imagine where to start.

 

 

Well, when I say game server, I don't mean like Minecraft. I mean like...something like XBC does, where it essentially becomes a server for console games, whose servers have been taken down. However, I know my limits, and I know I'm nowhere near smart enough to undergo a task like that.

 

 

So, pretty much....I have a 50lb piece of junk taking up space on my living room floor? =( Also, sadly...I don't have a garage. >_<

 

 

Anyone wanna buy it? I can't imagine the shipping cost would be cheap though. 

[manikyath]

Well, as harrynowl said, it is rather power hungry. I don't need to use it as a media server, as my computer handles that task quite nicely. However, using it as a game server is one thing I have always wanted to do...but I can't imagine where to start.

 

 

Well, when I say game server, I don't mean like Minecraft. I mean like...something like XBC does, where it essentially becomes a server for console games, whose servers have been taken down. However, I know my limits, and I know I'm nowhere near smart enough to undergo a task like that.

 

 

So, pretty much....I have a 50lb piece of junk taking up space on my living room floor? =( Also, sadly...I don't have a garage. >_<

 

 

Anyone wanna buy it? I can't imagine the shipping cost would be cheap though. 

if you have no use for it at all, there may be some schools in your area interested in it. schools usually are happy with whatever computers they can get at a cheap price, and its a great learning experience for students to see an actual server.

[Eniqmatic]

You can do a load of things with these, I have someone who runs a 2900 and they are pretty stable. I know what you mean about size, weight and noise. Move it somewhere else as mentioned like garage or something.

[JoePro87]

if you have no use for it at all, there may be some schools in your area interested in it. schools usually are happy with whatever computers they can get at a cheap price, and its a great learning experience for students to see an actual server.

 

That's a really good idea! I have a step son in high school right now, and I know their school is trying to expand their computer center. I would LOVE to know that my server could go to helping the future generation of IT students! Thanks!