Got me some servers

[Zymith]

Hello, 

recently my friend asked me if i would like to buy his servers and i said why not. Ill be short and simple with this so, What should i do with them? heres what the specs and stuff are: 

Server Number 1:
Dell PowerEdge 2950
(6) 300GB 15K SAS Drives
(2) Intel Xeon CPU 5160 @ 3.0GHz Dual Core
Bus Speed 1333MHz
12 GB Memory
Dual Power Supplies
(2) GB Nics
VMware ESXi 5.1.0
Multiple VM's on it

Server Number 2:
Dell PowerEdge 2950
(6) 146GB 15K SAS Drives
(2) Intel Xeon CPU 5160 @ 3.0GHz Dual Core
Bus Speed 1333MHz
10 GB Memory
Dual Power Supplies
(2) GB Nics
VMware ESXi 5.1.0
Multiple VM's on it

[Lurick]

You become familiar with the sound of a jet engine Those puppies are LOUD.

 

You can do a lot with them, if you have a favorite game you can host servers for that on them. If you need a storage server you can do that if you load them up with some bigger drives. Since they already have ESXi on them you could spin up a bunch of different things depending on what you want or think you might like to tinker with.

[Atmos]

you could use those as home media servers, voip, or even slightly less demanding game servers. 

 

You could even fold on them, though, their not that powerful, it however, is still something you could do. 

 

For around 100$-150$ ea that'd be a decently fair price for what youre getting. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id personally trash them. They pull way to much power to be usefull. It will cost your over 50 a month to run them and they will also be very loud.

 

Id get a low power server, like a r210 ii.

[Atmos]

11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id personally trash them. They pull way to much power to be usefull. It will cost your over 50 a month to run them and they will also be very loud.

 

Id get a low power server, like a r210 ii.

cost to run entirely depends on where tje person lives. Hell, even my 8350 and 280x with 8 mech drives running as a server doesnt add 50$/mo to my bill, and i live in one of the most expensive districts for w/hr in america. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, Atmos said:

cost to run entirely depends on where tje person lives. Hell, even my 8350 and 280x with 8 mech drives running as a server doesnt add 50$/mo to my bill, and i live in one of the most expensive districts for w/hr in america. 

These servers will pull about 300w each ro 600w total. WIth a normal power cost 12c/kwh that would cost 51 dollars a month or 622 dollars a year. It would be cheaper to buy a newer lowerend server, than to run this one. Also that power doesn't include extra air con costs.

[Atmos]

21 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

These servers will pull about 300w each ro 600w total. WIth a normal power cost 12c/kwh that would cost 51 dollars a month or 622 dollars a year. It would be cheaper to buy a newer lowerend server, than to run this one. Also that power doesn't include extra air con costs.

that's assuming they're being run at maximum load, 24/7 man....

Even a game server isn't run at max load 24/7.

 

Also, given the sas drives, the motherboard, and nics, these are barely going to be pulling more than 200W.

Those 5160's are only 80w chips.

[Electronics Wizardy]

20 minutes ago, Atmos said:

that's assuming they're being run at maximum load, 24/7 man....

Even a game server isn't run at max load 24/7.

 

Also, given the sas drives, the motherboard, and nics, these are barely going to be pulling more than 200W.

Those 5160's are only 80w chips.

I have one. It idles at 250 with out any drives, and about 300w with a moderate load and drives.

 

These also use fbddr2, which use about 8 watts per stick aswell.

[Zymith]

1 hour ago, Lurick said:

You become familiar with the sound of a jet engine Those puppies are LOUD.

 

You can do a lot with them, if you have a favorite game you can host servers for that on them. If you need a storage server you can do that if you load them up with some bigger drives. Since they already have ESXi on them you could spin up a bunch of different things depending on what you want or think you might like to tinker with.

 

1 hour ago, Atmos said:

you could use those as home media servers, voip, or even slightly less demanding game servers. 

 

You could even fold on them, though, their not that powerful, it however, is still something you could do. 

 

For around 100$-150$ ea that'd be a decently fair price for what youre getting. 

 

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id personally trash them. They pull way to much power to be usefull. It will cost your over 50 a month to run them and they will also be very loud.

 

Id get a low power server, like a r210 ii.

So what do you think i should personally do with them, maybe sell them or do something useful? I wouldnt really care about how much they draw, power wise because thats my parents problem and they wouldnt really care. Also i wouldnt run them 24/7. So final verdict?

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, Zymith said:

 

 

So what do you think i should personally do with them, maybe sell them or do something useful? I wouldnt really care about how much they draw, power wise because thats my parents problem and they wouldnt really care. Also i wouldnt run them 24/7. So final verdict?

If you don't care about power, fire them up, mess around with stuff. If you get bored, sell them.

[tt2468]

2 hours ago, Zymith said:

 

 

So what do you think i should personally do with them, maybe sell them or do something useful? I wouldnt really care about how much they draw, power wise because thats my parents problem and they wouldnt really care. Also i wouldnt run them 24/7. So final verdict?

Your parents will care when they see the power pill spike +$50 a month. Just running one of those servers for a few hours will use a TON of energy.

[Jarsky]

11 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id personally trash them. They pull way to much power to be usefull. It will cost your over 50 a month to run them and they will also be very loud.

 

Id get a low power server, like a r210 ii.

This.

I really wouldnt run E51XX's anymore - theyre extremely uneconomical, not only from a cost standpoint, but from a green/eco standpoint.

Theyre missing many features of modern CPU's like C6 & C7 that allow them to drop to a minimal voltage and power draw while idle or low load.

They might be OK for doing test builds if you're looking to do learning, but you shouldn't be running old servers with unknown discs for anything that is important.

 

[spellmanuk]

scrap them for parts and build or buy a new one if you really want one 

[Mikensan]

If you need heaters that don't draw 1kw and create some ambient noise, you got yourself a deal!

 

Honestly you're better off using your personal computer and vbox / vmware player. Even a decent i3 is going to walk all over those 2950s. The cost in electricity you could just throw more ram at your PC for the VMs.

 

If the NICs aren't integrated, pull those out. My old 2950 had a 4 port gigabit intel NIC - gold in my book.