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Generally what do people think about buying old servers on ebay?

mcraftax
By mcraftax
in Servers, NAS, and Home Lab
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Posted
1 minute ago, mcraftax said:

I'm not buying one but was wondering what people through of 'buying a used server off ebay'?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=server&rt=nc&LH_BIN=1

It depends on what your trying to use it for. So... What are you trying to use it for?

My Rig: 2x Xeon x5690 @ 3.45Ghz 24GB DDR3 EEC RAM Asus STRIX GeForce GTX 970 SuperMicro X8DT3 Windows Server 2008 R2

 

Here's a little TL;DR of what you need to know about the GTX 970 and R9 390

R9 390 works better in VRAM-bound scenarios and compute bound scenarios and is best paired with higher end processors

GTX 970 works better in CPU-bound scenarios and tessellation bound scenarios and is best paired with lower end processors

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Posted
  • Author

I not trying to do anything, i was wondering what peoples view were?

Just now, ServerSide_Drew said:

It depends on what your trying to use it for. So... What are you trying to use it for?

 

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What are you looking for?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted
Just now, mcraftax said:

I not trying to do anything, i was wondering what peoples view were?

 

I would only buy a server off ebay if I was trying to get parts to repair another server for someone or if it was for someones personal music solution to listen to music over NAS.

 

Anything else I would build my own.

My Rig: 2x Xeon x5690 @ 3.45Ghz 24GB DDR3 EEC RAM Asus STRIX GeForce GTX 970 SuperMicro X8DT3 Windows Server 2008 R2

 

Here's a little TL;DR of what you need to know about the GTX 970 and R9 390

R9 390 works better in VRAM-bound scenarios and compute bound scenarios and is best paired with higher end processors

GTX 970 works better in CPU-bound scenarios and tessellation bound scenarios and is best paired with lower end processors

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I was planning on doing this earlier this summer, and found one for $80. Eventually went against it. Was planning to buy it just for the sake of gaining more experience in the practical field of servers and server maintenance as well as handling server OS's and possibly setting up a file-storage-server.

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I built my latest server from scratch as a dual role workstation. I user it to play video games but have it set up to allow me to Remote Desktop into it from my ultrabook so I can play graphic intensive video games from pretty much anywhere in the world as long as I have a halfway decent internet connection.

My Rig: 2x Xeon x5690 @ 3.45Ghz 24GB DDR3 EEC RAM Asus STRIX GeForce GTX 970 SuperMicro X8DT3 Windows Server 2008 R2

 

Here's a little TL;DR of what you need to know about the GTX 970 and R9 390

R9 390 works better in VRAM-bound scenarios and compute bound scenarios and is best paired with higher end processors

GTX 970 works better in CPU-bound scenarios and tessellation bound scenarios and is best paired with lower end processors

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The market for dell servers on ebay is pretty reliable. I actually buy all my servers off of ebay for use in a production environment.

My native language is C++

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I don't want to make a new thread when this one fits so well and maby it will help answer the OP's question.

I want to buy a server to use as primarily a file server and maby some virtual machines down the road.

what do you guys think of something like this? worth the money?

Ebay Link

thanks in advance for your advise.

A.J.

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25 minutes ago, area1509 said:

I don't want to make a new thread when this one fits so well and maby it will help answer the OP's question.

I want to buy a server to use as primarily a file server and maby some virtual machines down the road.

what do you guys think of something like this? worth the money?

Ebay Link

thanks in advance for your advise.

A.J.

 

Bare in mind that that has a backplane for 2.5" drives - so you can only fit SAS / SSD / Laptop drives. You cannot fit the 3.5" desktop drives

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The 2.5 drives are fine as I have a lot lying around, what do you think about the price?

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6 hours ago, mcraftax said:

-snip-

I haven't bought a fully built used server myself, but they're fairly reliable, but the hardware might be dated (older gen intel Xeons).

 

I have bought a used empty SuperMicro chassis for $200 and it works fine to date. Can't get 4U (24 drives) for that price. I'm also really lucky that the server seller is like 10 min away from my house so I was able to pick it up without paying shipping. I did spend $300 to get a SAS 6Gb/s backplane (The original was SAS 3Gb/s) and $180 on one SuperMicro Platinum PSU (I need to buy the other one....the server did come with two SuperMicro 80 Plus PSUs, but that sucker is so loud my dog is scared of it. It also removed the SuperMicro stock 80mm server fans and replaced them with a bunch of Be Quiet Pure Wings (There's no place to mount the fans so they're just free standing there...I put 7 of them in there, as it does get fairly toasty when the drives are running at full load.

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I don't get why you guys don't really trust eBay.  It's eBay, you pay with PayPal, PayPal almost always, ALWAYS sides with the consumer in disputes.  PayPal so firmly sides with consumers that you could buy a perfectly working server, throw it off a cliff just for shits and giggles, tell PayPal that it turned up 'with strange, unexplained dents upon opening it from it's shipping box', and PayPal would STILL hold the seller responsible for either getting you a replacement or forcing a refund.

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17 hours ago, area1509 said:

I don't want to make a new thread when this one fits so well and maby it will help answer the OP's question.

I want to buy a server to use as primarily a file server and maby some virtual machines down the road.

what do you guys think of something like this? worth the money?

Ebay Link

thanks in advance for your advise.

A.J.

Can't say anything about the price, since i don't shop in the US marked, but i generally try to buy auction products. You can get lucky and find someone that has no real idea what he is selling and then gives a crappy item description.

 

Another thing:

The description says: "No HDDs or Tray caddies included". So to mount 8x drives in it, you need to buy the caddies (and screws) first. Depending on how popular the case is, that can be cheap or expensive.

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Thanks for all your input. I went ahead with this one as it was the most complete, came with the good remote management card and is the closest. I think it has 3.5 drive bays but not sure ether way ssd are 2.5 so if it is 2.5 thats fine.

Here is the link

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I think if you are going to use it at home you are much better off building one from common parts. Your spouse/parents won't begin to resent you that way.

 

Servers are loud, the old stuff is generally much more power hungry than your modern components, and there are a lot of proprietary components/connectors out there so replacements down the line could be difficult to source and near impossible to source locally if its something you want to fix the same day.

 

 

 

If you are wanting something to just occasionally play with, then old servers are perfect for you.

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My Opinion: Those used servers from ebay are only good for:

 

- home-use where good and cheap is important (rather high availability)

- "testing" - purpose rather production environment

- learning (like IT-Trainings where not the fastest systems are needed and will get re-installed more often)

 

Basically everything non-productive is fine.

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