Looking for advice on purchase of a used server for living room placement.

[radioman]

Hello, I am curious if it is possible to get hold of a used server that has minimum 2ghz quad core and 16 GB of RAM. I want to have the possibility to run two Virtual Machines in virtualbox. I'd like to assign half of the  ram to each machine, and 250 GB of drive space to each. The machine must be silent enough for living room placement and low power usage.

Its nice if it accepts after market parts without freaking out.
It will be used mostly for file storage, so don't think it will run with full load.

 

I have 4x 1Tb used SATA disks that I want to use in a raid configuration for file storage.

I also have one 1 TB disk for OS space.

The total number of disks will be 5, but capacity for 6 disks is nice.
I will run ubuntu server edition for a OS.

 

So,what brand and models to look for?

 

My budget is around 400 US$
 

[WereCatf]

I cannot help but wonder, why you are specifically looking for "servers"? I mean, any regular PC can be used as a server, you don't need any special hardware for that. So called "real" servers, ie. generally those that are rack-mounted, are noisy things and replacing the fans will increase the costs and take quite a bit of tussling on your part.

[Fullmental]

If you want quiet operation and aftermarket part compatibility, you don't want actual server hardware, or at least not any enterprise-level stuff.

 

You could look for a used xeon tower,  there should be plenty on ebay with varying configurations and some will have raid controllers too. There will be a lot of different options, but most will be from Dell or hp.

 

You could get by just as easily with a quad core desktop though.

[Enderman]

So you're basically just looking for a quiet $400 computer...?

[radioman]

The most silent rack server I have found is :
HP ProLiant DL380 Generation 8   22 dBA to 28 dBA.
Those numbers are for a "typical confugiration", but I have no idea about how the system will behave loaded with two Virtual machines running Windows 7, doing typical office work like writing documents,browsing the web ect..

[TheGlenlivet]

14 minutes ago, radioman said:

The most silent rack server I have found is :
HP ProLiant DL380 Generation 8   22 dBA to 28 dBA.
Those numbers are for a "typical confugiration", but I have no idea about how the system will behave loaded with two Virtual machines running Windows 7, doing typical office work like writing documents,browsing the web ect..

Don't buy a server.  At least not if you are only going to use the CPU for basic tasks and the system and chassis for storing data on a handful of HDDs.  You could probably buy a near silent system in a discrete tower housing all hardware that lives behind a couch in your living room.  You'd forget it was there with the right fans and settings.

[KrYpToCiD]

A friend wanted the same thing for his flat. it ended up with a e5 2603 in a self-made case that is in the same time a flower pot. It don't look that nice but it is practical  

[jde3]

The hell?

 

"I want a low power quiet rack mounted industrial piece of server hardware for... my living room."

 

Linus Tech Tips never fails to humour..

 

Servers sound like jets and are intended to be used in datacenters. It's the last thing on earth I'd want in my living room.. but suit yourself.

[KrYpToCiD]

11 hours ago, jde3 said:

The hell?

 

"I want a low power quiet rack mounted industrial piece of server hardware for... my living room."

 

Linus Tech Tips never fails to humour..

 

Servers sound like jets and are intended to be used in datacenters. It's the last thing on earth I'd want in my living room.. but suit yourself.

They sound like jets because they use a jet engine section. The fans are actually dual fans that spin CW and CCW, just like the jet engine  Some would think that having a personal jet could be a nice touch tho.....

[M-Wolf]

You shouldn't go for a rack mounted server... It's just loud as hell. Just go for a Tower with Xeon / iX CPU that suits your need. Or if you want the advantage of ECC RAM and Workstation CPU on your server you can go for a ThinkStation for example: 

(https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Lenovo-Thinkstation-S20-Xeon-W3550-3-06GHZ-8GB-250GB-Windows-10-Professional/142894927536?hash=item2145338eb0:g:j~oAAOSw1utaqpNx)

 

Put in another 8 Gigs of Ram (https://www.ebay.ie/itm/8GB-OWC-DDR3-PC3-8500-1066MHz-SDRAM-ECC-Registered-Memory-Module/182977028176?hash=item2a9a47e050:g:TdEAAOSw5dlaPQKk) and you are good to go and even have capabilities for upgrading your RAM up to 32Gigs and your CPU up to a Six Core. If you are in need of more power. You can also easily fit in your 5/6 hard drives.