Server Into Workstation

[JeremyR]

Hello all!

Firstly I thank you for reading up on my topic it means a lot to me and I hope you are having a good day.

The company that I work for was getting rid of old computer parts, and I managed to get my hand on a IBM X3500 M3 server. It's a huge server and  I thought it would of been easy to just load a os in it and use it as that. Was I wrong the bios is a little tricky and I just noticed it takes only SAS drives. is it worth my time to be working on this puppy?

[sazrocks]

Actually looks pretty good. Can you fit a proper GPU in it? In any case you could make an OP Plex server/NAS or even a bunch of things using VMs.

[JeremyR]

21 minutes ago, rrubberr said:

It looks like it's pretty old, but much like my z800's, they are basically just outdated desktop PC's. I don't know what you mean by the BIOS is tricky though. You should be able to load SATA drives, either by enabling it in the bios or moving where the cables from the internal HDD bays connect to the motherboard; there is no Intel chipset that can ONLY do SAS to my knbowledge.

You're right! they're some sata drives that I have failed to see, and me personally I have never worked on a server before so it is pretty confusing for me. 

[JeremyR]

30 minutes ago, sazrocks said:

Actually looks pretty good. Can you fit a proper GPU in it? In any case you could make an OP Plex server/NAS or even a bunch of things using VMs.

I was actually looking to make a plex server out of it, and looks like it can fit a big card in it. There is a lot of space

[sazrocks]

1 hour ago, JeremyR said:

I was actually looking to make a plex server out of it, and looks like it can fit a big card in it. There is a lot of space

If you have the the dual cpu model I would definitely turn it into a hybrid workstation/Plex server/NAS/whatever else you want using VMs. Might want to get a usb card though so you can hot plug USB devices on the workstation VM.