I fixed a server, now what to do with it?

[RobertTheSwede]

As title says:
I fixed a HP ML370 G5 server that I got for free when broken.
(Mainly a broken PSU).

It has two quad core CPUs (Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83 GHz, 80 Watts, 1333 FSB), hyperthreaded so a total of 16 threads.

64GB ECC RAM.
See this link for more info on hardware: https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/Getdocument.aspx?docname=c04282493

 

So now what?
If you had this computer, what would you do?

I was thinking to maybe put a matlab compute node on it, as I do sometimes work in matlab for my research at the university.

But I doubt that it will be of any gain since my main computer already has a 3.5GHz hexa core xeon E5.

Note:
I already have a hyper-visor server running for all my VMs (and has power to spare).

I have a freenas running at home with mirrored disks and one similar server at a server hall as an offsite backup.

I also have HP DL360 G5 that has the same story, got it for free broken, fixed it and now I don't know what to do with it... I guess I like fixing broken things.

Any ideas are welcome!

 

/Robert

Edited May 17, 2018 by RobertTheSwede
Added cpu info

[GrockleTD]

tbh i would sell it.

[GrockleTD]

or just use it to run folding programs for  research sake

[AvocadosGuac]

3 minutes ago, Grockle88 said:

or just use it to run folding programs for  research sake

What. Its probably drawing 300 watts at load.

 

A plex server, file backups would be good for it.

 

Running VM's for screwing around with is also cool to do.

 

Edit: I didnt read the entire post LOL.

 

Yeah i'd agree with @Grockle88 here, sell it.

[RobertTheSwede]

3 minutes ago, Grockle88 said:

tbh i would sell it.

Whats a fair price on ebay for this server you'd think?
 

 

3 minutes ago, Grockle88 said:

or just use it to run folding programs for  research sake

The calculations I've done have all been related to space physics, but that era is mostly done now for me.
Are there any program one can give up resources to for research like this?

 

1 minute ago, Jrock said:

What. Its probably drawing 300 watts at load.

 

A plex server, file backups would be good for it.

 

Running VM's for screwing around with is also cool to do.

 

Edit: I didnt read the entire post LOL.

 

Yeah i'd agree with @Grockle88 here, sell it.

Haha yeah Plex is also on my freenas server. But good idea!
What would you say of price?

[AvocadosGuac]

Check out the folding at home tab on the forum, its close to the bottom.

Its 8c/16t? ddr2 or ddr3?

 

I'm not sure about pricing, but search for that model on ebay and check what they've sold for before.

 

You might have better luck on websites like craigslist because you won't have to ship it.

[GrockleTD]

1 hour ago, RobertTheSwede said:

Whats a fair price on ebay for this server you'd think?
 

 

The calculations I've done have all been related to space physics, but that era is mostly done now for me.
Are there any program one can give up resources to for research like this?

 

Haha yeah Plex is also on my freenas server. But good idea!
What would you say of price?

a couple hundred mabes. im not sure on the value but it sounds pretty good. also, search the forum for folding at home.

[Rickie cheong]

Tbh, like the previous person said. If you have no use for it, sell it. 

[Granular]

Break it again and give it for free to someone else to fix.

[Catsrules]

Pricing depends on what else it has and what CPUs it has as well. It has alot of ram so that make it at least useful. You probably could get $200-250. If you have hard drives with it as well that can add more value Maybe 280-300ish. Check ebay and compare prices. If you just want it gone I would undercut most prices you see. 

Don't forget shipping costs, That can be expensive.  

[RobertTheSwede]

2 minutes ago, Catsrules said:

Pricing depends on what else it has and what CPUs it has as well. It has alot of ram so that make it at least useful. You probably could get $200-250. If you have hard drives with it as well that can add more value Maybe 280-300ish. Check ebay and compare prices. If you just want it gone I would undercut most prices you see. 

Don't forget shipping costs, That can be expensive.  

See at that price I doubt it will be cost effective to sell it, as ive spent almost 35 bucks on parts, and I live in the waaaaaay north of sweden. Shipping to pretty much anywhere from here would most likely cost at a super minimum 100 bucks...
But maybe I can find a local buyer

[Erkel]

Given the vintage of it, it is generally considered uneconomical to run these days.  Unless you do not pay for power I would ditch it.  Or maybe keep it in the basement as a heater for winter.

[NelizMastr]

The E5440 doesn't have Hyperthreading. These are Harpertown Xeons, based on the Penryn architecture (Core 2 stuff). Under a full load you're looking at about 200W excluding the memory modules (which consume up to 7W each, yes FBDIMM is hungry af). Just in terms of efficiency alone, it's not really worth running.

 

That said, my dual xeon 6-core HT DL380 G7 only consumes 100-120W with 8 SAS drives and 80GB of memory under a light workload. Worth looking into picking up one generation newer certainly wouldn't hurt. If you're just playing around for a few hours, though, the G5 will be a decent base for now. Just DON'T run it 24/7  

 

 

[RobertTheSwede]

18 hours ago, Erkel said:

Given the vintage of it, it is generally considered uneconomical to run these days.  Unless you do not pay for power I would ditch it.  Or maybe keep it in the basement as a heater for winter.

 

17 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

The E5440 doesn't have Hyperthreading. These are Harpertown Xeons, based on the Penryn architecture (Core 2 stuff). Under a full load you're looking at about 200W excluding the memory modules (which consume up to 7W each, yes FBDIMM is hungry af). Just in terms of efficiency alone, it's not really worth running.

 

That said, my dual xeon 6-core HT DL380 G7 only consumes 100-120W with 8 SAS drives and 80GB of memory under a light workload. Worth looking into picking up one generation newer certainly wouldn't hurt. If you're just playing around for a few hours, though, the G5 will be a decent base for now. Just DON'T run it 24/7  

 

 

Funny you should mention that, and that I forgot to say: I do have access to a data center/server room, gigabit connection and power for essentially free. (Membership is 15 bucks a year (yeah!) and computer spots in the room are included. Static ip-s as well. Perks of being a student in northern Sweden.

So I was wrong on the hyper-threading, interesting. This leaves me 8 cores. I see that this may not be as a cool computer as I thought
 

[RobertTheSwede]

Given that I have access to practically free power I decided to try to mine riecoin. It seems riecoin is still ok to mine on cpu.
I installed ubuntu 18.04 server on it and connected it to riepool.ovh.

Will let you know how it goes!
It seems I reach a hashrate of around 1500KH/s with 7 threads. (Leaving one core free to do everything else)

It seems the others easily reach tens of thousands KH/s.
Is it expected that my setup is this bad or am I missing something?

[NelizMastr]

On 19-5-2018 at 6:46 PM, RobertTheSwede said:

Is it expected that my setup is this bad or am I missing something?

It's basically 2 core 2 quads in there, albeit at a low clock speed. These Xeons just aren't that powerful.

[mikat]

On 5/19/2018 at 9:37 AM, RobertTheSwede said:

 

Funny you should mention that, and that I forgot to say: I do have access to a data center/server room, gigabit connection and power for essentially free. (Membership is 15 bucks a year (yeah!) and computer spots in the room are included. Static ip-s as well. Perks of being a student in northern Sweden.

So I was wrong on the hyper-threading, interesting. This leaves me 8 cores. I see that this may not be as a cool computer as I thought
 

You get datacenter room for being a student???

 how many U's of rack space can do you get?

[RobertTheSwede]

2 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

It's basically 2 core 2 quads in there, albeit at a low clock speed. These Xeons just aren't that powerful.

Seems fair. I started a newer xeon and a i7 with the same task and they kind of smushed the old servers power, with only 2 or 3 cores dedicated to mining...
 

 

1 hour ago, mikat said:

You get datacenter room for being a student???

 how many U's of rack space can do you get?

Well technically we only have the right to have one server there, I think tops 4-6u or something. But since most people don't bother we can get away with several rack mounted of pretty much any size (reasonable for one student though) and several towers as well.
Getting static ip's, however, is limited. We have one each upon request, and you may get two or three given a good reason, otherwise you're expected to setup your own NAT, etc.
The association that manages the server room, https://www.ludd.ltu.se/w2/index.php/Main_Page, is built by and maintained by students and employees of the university.
They host a variety of project that, if you're in on it, gets different rules. Heck I think they currently have a full openstack setup running just to learn.
Go Luleå Tekniska Universitet! https://www.ltu.se/?l=en

Edited May 21, 2018 by RobertTheSwede
Added school name