The "Which Server Should I Get" Buyers Guide

[F4S4K4N]

It seems like a lot of people are asking the same question, which is along the lines of “I'm new to servers and I'm not sure which one I should buy, do you have any recommendations?”.

 

I think it's great that we have people interested in servers! However, since we all seem to be answering this question a lot I figured we should put all of our responses in one thread. Maybe we can get it stickied?

 

You basically have two choices, buy a manufactured server or build you're own. I am going to mostly focus on used gear here as anyone who has a $10,000 budget for a new server probably isn't asking this question.

 

I'm only listing x86 servers in this list. There are servers that use different ISA's such as IBM's Power CPU's or Oracle's (previously Sun Microsystems) SPARC CPU's, but most people will not be interested in and / or don't have the knowledge to use these machines, so I will not be listing them here. If you guys really want to see these listed let me know, but be aware that they pretty much will only run Linux, BSD, or some other proprietary Unix based OS.

  

 

 

Wait… I want a home server???

 

Basically you don't want a server in this case unless you consider the HP MicroServer or Dell PowerEdge T20 actual servers. Both of those products are basically desktop computers that support Xeon CPU's. If you don't want to go that direction then you should look at Dell Precision or HP Z workstations. These support Xeon processors, enterprise chipsets, hardware RAID / HBA cards, etc… without the added noise, power consumption, and heat production of a full fledged server.

 

At the end of the day any computer can run server software (yes, even a Raspberry Pi). Most home users simply don't need the power / redundancy / reliability of an enterprise class server.

 

However, If you don't care about a computer that's as loud as a vacuum and blows out heat like a space heater sitting under your desk, then continue below…

 

 

 

Last Updated March 10^th, 2016

 

 

 

I Want to Build a Server

 

Ok, so this really isn't that hard. You'll pretty much want to base you're server around one of these two sockets. Ill list what you'll get with each socket. Keep in mind that you'll generally get more for you're money by buying a used manufactured server.

 

Intel Socket 604 / 771 ~ $200 - $500

 

Pre-Nehalem Xeon CPU

No EPT Support

DDR2 Memory (In Most Cases)

PCIe 1.0 (In Most Cases)

USB 2.0 (In Most Cases)

 

 

Intel Socket 1155 / 1156 / 1567 / 1366 (Best Price / Performance) ~ $300 - 600

 

Post-Nehalem Xeon CPU

EPT Support

DDR3 Memory (In Most Cases)

PCIe 2.0 (In Most Cases)

USB 3.0 (In Most Cases)

 

Most of your cost is going to be in hard drives, especially since most of this gear you'll be buying is used. It's up to you if you want to buy used or new hard drives or whether those drives will be SAS or SATA drives. SAS is always recommended for server use as SATA does not have any of the advanced error correction features of SAS. If you're going for used drives make sure you purchase them through a reputable seller who can tell you how many hours the drives are reporting. You want to stay away from any drives that have near or over 40K hours on it. That may sound like a lot of hours, but keep in mind that these drives are usually left on 24/7 for years at a time, which is a lot less stressful that turning them on and off constantly. My personal recommendation is to buy drives with between 10K and 20K hours on them.

 

You also want to go for ECC memory, most server motherboards require it. Make sure you know whether you're motherboard supports fully buffered / registered (FBDIMM) memory or not. Most boards will require one or the other and not allow you to change between them. If you're board does support various types of memory you cannot mix and match different types!

 

 

 

I Want a Manufactured Server

 

In the world of manufactured servers, you have three big players, Dell, HP, and Lenovo (Previously IBM). There are other manufactures, and I will list a few of them, but most of the other manufactures do not have a consistent second hand market.

 

 

 

Dell Servers

 

There are three generations of dell servers that hit a good price to performance ratio. This would be the 9^th generation, 10^th generation, and the 11^th generation PowerEdge servers. Early PowerEdge servers used generic number based model numbers while later generations use the M / R / T prefixed model numbers. The prefixes for these later models usually indicates the following…

 

M = Blade Server

R = Rack Mounted Server

T = Tower Server 

 

NOTE: Dell offers BIOS, driver, and firmware updates free of charge to the general public for all of their servers!

 

NOTE: There are usually multiple revisions of each Dell server. For example the PowerEdge 1950 can be found in either revisions I, II, or III. Later revisions normally support newer processors and more RAM. I am only listing revisions in this list if Dell changed the CPU socket between revisions. It is up to you to research which revision meets your needs!

 

9^th Generation ~ $50 - $250

 

AMD Socket F

 

PowerEdge 2970 - 2U

PowerEdge 6950 - 4U

 

Intel Socket 771 (Best Price / Performance Ratio for This Generation)

 

PowerEdge 1900 - Tower

PowerEdge 1950 - 1U

PowerEdge 1955 - Blade

PowerEdge 2900 - Tower or 5U

PowerEdge 2950 - 2U

 

Intel Socket 775

 

PowerEdge 850 - 1U

PowerEdge 860 - 1U

 

10^th Generation ~ $100 - $500

 

AMD Socket AM2

 

PowerEdge T105 - Tower

 

AMD Socket F

 

PowerEdge T605 - Tower

PowerEdge M605 - Blade

PowerEdge R805 - 2U

PowerEdge M805 - Blade

PowerEdge R905 - 4U

PowerEdge M905 - Blade

 

Intel Socket 604

 

PowerEdge R900 - 4U

 

Intel Socket 771 (Best Price / Performance Ratio for This Generation)

 

PowerEdge T300 - Tower

PowerEdge R300 - 1U

PowerEdge M600 - Blade

 

Intel Socket 775

 

PowerEdge T100 - Tower

PowerEdge R200 - 1U

 

11^th Generation ~ $150 - $750 (Best Price / Performance Ratio)

 

AMD Socket C32

 

PowerEdge R415 - 1U

PowerEdge R515 - 2U

 

AMD Socket G34

 

PowerEdge R715 - 2U

PowerEdge R815 - 2U

 

Intel Socket 1155

 

PowerEdge T110 Rev. II - Tower

PowerEdge R210 Rev. II - 1U

 

Intel Socket 1156

 

PowerEdge T110 Rev. I - Tower

PowerEdge R210 Rev. I - 1U

PowerEdge T310 - Tower

PowerEdge R310 - 1U

 

Intel Socket 1366 (Best Price / Performance Ratio for This Generation)

 

PowerEdge T410 - Tower

PowerEdge R410 - 1U

PowerEdge R510 - 2U

PowerEdge T610 - Tower or 5U

PowerEdge R610 - 1U

PowerEdge M610 - Blade

PowerEdge T710 - Tower or 5U

PowerEdge R710 - 2U

PowerEdge M710 - Blade

PowerEdge C1100 - 1U

PowerEdge C2100 - 2U

PowerEdge C6100 - 2U

 

Intel Socket 1567

 

PowerEdge R810 - 2U

PowerEdge R910 - 4U

PowerEdge M910 - Blade

 

 

 

HP Servers

 

HP servers have a consistent naming convention between all models. Each model will be suffixed by a G followed by a number indicating the generation the server belongs to. The generations that currently hit a good price to performance ration would be the G5, G6, and G7 models. Each model is prefixed by a BL, DL, ML, or SL which usually indicates the following…

 

BL = Blade Server

DL = Standard Rack Mounted Server

ML = Tower Server

SL = Datacenter Grade Rack Mount Server

 

NOTE: HP requires an active warranty or service contract in order to download BIOS, driver, or firmware updates for their servers!

 

NOTE: I am missing information on a lot of these servers, especially on the BL, ML, and SL series. If you see incorrect / missing machines please shoot me a message with the name, socket, and form factor of the missing machine!

 

Generation 5 (G5) ~ $50 - $1,000 (DL785 == Expensive)

 

AMD Socket F

 

DL165 - 1U

DL185 - 2U

DL365 - 1U

DL385 - 2U

DL585 - 4U

DL785 - 6U

 

Intel Socket 604

 

DL580 - 4U

 

Intel Socket 771 (Best Price / Performance Ratio for This Generation)

DL160 - 1U

DL180 - 2U

DL360 - 1U

DL380 - 2U

 

Intel Socket 775

 

DL320 - 1U

 

Generation 6 (G6) ~ $100 - $8,000 (DL785 == Expensive)

 

AMD Socket F

 

DL165 - 1U

DL385 - 2U

DL585 - 4U

DL785 - 6U

 

Intel Socket 1156

 

DL120 - 1U

 

Intel Socket 1366 (Best Price / Performance Ratio for This Generation)

 

DL160 - 1U

DL180 - 2U

DL320 - 1U

DL360 - 1U
DL370 - 4U

DL380 - 2U

 

Generation 7 (G7) ~ $150 - $10,000 (DL980 == Expensive) (Best Price / Performance Ratio)

 

AMD Socket G34

 

DL385 - 2U

DL585 - 4U

 

Intel Socket 1155

 

DL120 - 1U

 

Intel Socket 1567

 

DL580 - 4U

DL980 - 6U

 

Intel Socket 1366 (Best Price / Performance Ratio for This Generation)

 

DL360 - 1U

DL380 - 2U

 

 

 

Lenovo (Previously IBM) Servers

 

IBM / Lenovo x86 server model nomenclature is all over the place. Basically you have the PC Server, Netfinity, eSeries xSeries, and System X models. You will most likely looking at the xSeries and System X boxes. But that's just the cream of the crop as you also have the ThinkServer and Lenovo x86 server models to account for.

 

 

NOTE: Lenovo offers BIOS, driver, and firmware updates free of charge to the general public for all of their servers! However, IBM does not offer these updates without a valid warranty or service contract. So if you have an older IBM branded server and need updates that can't be found on the Lenovo website you will need to get a service contract through IBM.

 

NOTE: I am missing information on nearly all of these servers, to the point that I can't really make product recommendations. If you have one of these servers please shoot me a message with the name, socket, and form factor! If you want an IBM / Lenovo server you will probably be safe with anything that has a socket 771 or 1366 motherboard. Keep in mind that this isn't always a guarantee!

 

 

 

Well that's it for now, hopefully that will help most of you out with your decision making.

[derick90]

This. is painful to read in night mode. 

 

**Edit** Much better!

 

Good read lots of info. =] Thanks

[F4S4K4N]

5 minutes ago, derick90 said:

This. is painful to read in night mode. 

Sorry, that should be fixed now.

[79wjd]

@F4S4K4N I feel the need to ask, why are you just recommending ancient CPUs/setups? 

[F4S4K4N]

3 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

@F4S4K4N I feel the need to ask, why are you just recommending ancient CPUs/setups? 

This thread is more or less addressing the people who know little to nothing about servers who either just want to get into them or need one for an entry level task. Pretty much every thread created so far in which the OP is looking for such a machine is constricted by a under $1,000 budget. If you're looking for a NAS that can saturate a 1Gbps network, pretty much anything here would do the trick (providing you can fit enough drives in it). Certainly not the most efficiently, but in this case the goal is budget over efficiency.

 

Every server I've listed should support virtualization, with most of them also supporting DDR3 and 6Gbps SAS / SATA. The next generation of servers (HP G8, Dell 12th generation, etc...) are still quite expensive as most manufactures are still offering extended support for them. For example a well spec'd DL360 G7 costs around $300 whereas a well spec'd DL360 G8 goes for around $1,200. In a small deployment scenario you wouldn't notice enough performance difference between those two machines to justify 4x the cost. 

 

I also theorize that if you're willing to spend $1,000 or more on a server, then you probably also know the workload you intend to put on it and what hardware you'll need to support it.

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, F4S4K4N said:

This thread is more or less addressing the people who know little to nothing about servers who either just want to get into them or need one for an entry level task. Pretty much every thread created so far in which the OP is looking for such a machine is constricted by a under $1,000 budget. If you're looking for a NAS that can saturate a 1Gbps network, pretty much anything here would do the trick (providing you can fit enough drives in it). Certainly not the most efficiently, but in this case the goal is budget over efficiency.

 

Every server I've listed should support virtualization, with most of them also supporting DDR3 and 6Gbps SAS / SATA. The next generation of servers (HP G8, Dell 12th generation, etc...) are still quite expensive as most manufactures are still offering extended support for them. For example a well spec'd DL360 G7 costs around $300 whereas a well spec'd DL360 G8 goes for around $1,200. In a small deployment scenario you wouldn't notice enough performance difference between those two machines to justify 4x the cost. 

 

I also theorize that if you're willing to spend $1,000 or more on a server, then you probably also know the workload you intend to put on it and what hardware you'll need to support it.

But why are you only considering LGA775/LGA1336? There are plenty of good LGA1155/LGA1150/1151 solutions. Not everyone needs something more than a Pentium, and for 99% of NAS builders a Xeon E3 1231v3 would be MORE than enough. 

[F4S4K4N]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

But why are you only considering LGA775/LGA1336? There are plenty of good LGA1155/LGA1150/1151 solutions. Not everyone needs something more than a Pentium, and for 99% of NAS builders a Xeon E3 1231v3 would be MORE than enough. 

When you're looking at gear in this price range there's little to no cost difference between a LGA1366 and the less powerful same generation sockets.

 

For example here are some average rates for same generation boxes that have very similar specs.

 

Dell R410  ~ $220 LGA1366

Dell R310 ~ $200 LGA1156

Dell R210 ~ $180 LGA1155

 

So you're getting a large performance increase for very little added cost. You also have to consider the sourcing of used parts in which top tier LGA1156 Xeons cost almost exactly the same as top tier LGA1366 Xeons (plus or minus a few oddball chips). You simply get more for you're money with the higher end sockets in this case.

 

The only thing i could think of is the added average power consumption of LGA1366 chips, but since they should all support demand based frequency scaling it may not really be a big issue. Now in the case of something like LGA1156 vs LGA771, there are many cases where LGA1156 would make more sense. In situation where someone may have exactly $220 to spend, maybe a lesser option would make more sense. It would be difficult to make a list that appeals to all of those situations. This is just more or less a general starting point of what you should be looking at when you need a budget server.

 

If you consider the use case of not needing more than a Pentium, i suppose you would need to make the decision of spending a hair bit more to get something that will provide a huge performance increase, or if you want the cheapest solution for your immediate needs. Any machine on this list is capable of performing modern tasks for any small deployment, but the large increase in headroom over the lesser machines at very little cost makes the more powerful sockets a no brainier.

 

That's not to say you should listen to my recommendation if you don't need the power, as any machine on this list should be capable of doing an entry level modern task.

 

Maybe changing (Recommended) to (Best Price / Performance Ratio for This Generation) would clarify what i mean?

[79wjd]

27 minutes ago, F4S4K4N said:

When you're looking at gear in this price range there's little to no cost difference between a LGA1366 and the less powerful same generation sockets.

 

For example here are some average rates for same generation boxes that have very similar specs.

 

Dell R410  ~ $220 LGA1366

Dell R310 ~ $200 LGA1156

Dell R210 ~ $180 LGA1155

 

So you're getting a large performance increase for very little added cost. You also have to consider the sourcing of used parts in which top tier LGA1156 Xeons cost almost exactly the same as top tier LGA1366 Xeons (plus or minus a few oddball chips). You simply get more for you're money with the higher end sockets in this case.

 

The only thing i could think of is the added average power consumption of LGA1366 chips, but since they should all support demand based frequency scaling it may not really be a big issue. Now in the case of something like LGA1156 vs LGA771, there are many cases where LGA1156 would make more sense. In situation where someone may have exactly $220 to spend, maybe a lesser option would make more sense. It would be difficult to make a list that appeals to all of those situations. This is just more or less a general starting point of what you should be looking at when you need a budget server.

 

If you consider the use case of not needing more than a Pentium, i suppose you would need to make the decision of spending a hair bit more to get something that will provide a huge performance increase, or if you want the cheapest solution for your immediate needs. Any machine on this list is capable of performing modern tasks for any small deployment, but the large increase in headroom over the lesser machines at very little cost makes the more powerful sockets a no brainier.

 

That's not to say you should listen to my recommendation if you don't need the power, as any machine on this list should be capable of doing an entry level modern task.

 

Maybe changing (Recommended) to (Best Price / Performance Ratio for This Generation) would clarify what i mean?

I'd take a Xeon E3 1230v1/v2/v3/v5 over an LGA1366 based system anyday. 

[F4S4K4N]

7 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

I'd take a Xeon E3 1230v1/v2/v3/v5 over an LGA1366 based system anyday. 

I'm sure a lot people would if it met their needs. But when your looking at a Dell R210 with a Single E3 1230 costing around $300 and a Dell R410 with dual E5640's also costing $300 the price / performance ratio doesn't add up.

 

That being said, if a single E3 1230 meets you're needs it will use less power and produce less heat than dual E5640's.