Should I Get This Server Hardware

[Boomwebsearch]

I was looking on the internet and found that I could buy a used HP Proliant server (with 6 drives) for 10 dollars and a VXA tape backup rack mountable unit for 10 dollars also. The servers are loaded with some drives which the seller does not know how large they are although I am planning to replace then if I was to get the machine. I will include a picture of the systems within this post. Would these machines be worth purchasing and would I be okay with running them not or a server rack and on a table, also any suggestions on how to run the drives in the system? I currently run a Buffalo LinkStation 220 which is 2TB in RAID 1 so I am not sure about this machine. Also the server does not come with an OS, please give me some recommendations on what OS I should use. 

 

Thank you in advance, @Boomwebsearch

[PineyCreek]

...rape backup?  Maybe edit your post.

 

Without exact model and generation information, it's kind of hard to give you advice since we can't lookup backplane information, etc.  I can't tell model and generation from the potato quality picture. 

[PineyCreek]

Going to guess somewhere around G3, maybe DL380. If that's the case, you're looking at the max storage right there, 6x300GB Ultra320 SCSI drives.  Don't bother unless you want a smll project server with now niche replacement parts.

 

Edit: Might be G4.  Still Ultra320 SCSI.

[beersykins]

Those will suck more power than they're worth.

[Boomwebsearch]

10 hours ago, PineyCreek said:

...rape backup?  Maybe edit your post.

 

Without exact model and generation information, it's kind of hard to give you advice since we can't lookup backplane information, etc.  I can't tell model and generation from the potato quality picture. 

I am really sorry for the error in my original post which has been corrected now. All that I know is that the server unit is running some type of a Zeon CPU and has 6 hard drives. I know that the 1U unit (the tape backup machine) is working although I do not have much specific information except that as the picture and the description from the seller is all that I have as information towards the machines. I am not sure on how I would be able to use the tape backup system, please let me know how I would be able to use it and if it needs an OS the same of the other machine which it is acting as a copy of.

Thanks for your reply, @Boomwebsearch

[NelizMastr]

You can't put any other drives in there than U320 SCSI, so no SATA or IDE or whatever you might be planning on. Just grab a Core 2 Duo rig off the curb and put some drives in that.

[Razor Blade]

If there is one piece of advise I can give it is old enterprise hardware can be tricky, picky, and finicky. 

 

Tricky in that when you pick them up, they aren't likely to be used in the same scenario for which they were built. Hardware and software may have limitations you won't know about unless you can find someone who already knows the answer.

For example, you won't be able to just pop any old hard drive in that machine and have it work. You will need to know what type of drive it is. It may be an old SCSI backplane which you won't be able to use SATA drives on. This leads to the next "icky"

 

They can be picky when it comes to hardware. There is generally better luck when picking hardware of the same era and keeping firmware revisions around the same time period. Even then there could be dedicated ports sealed off to anything that isn't what the manufacturer intended. An example I can think of is Dell's internal storage PCIe port where you can only put a Dell raid card in or it won't boot.

 

Last is finicky. Remember that old servers are old. Connections, switches, components, drives, power supplies all age. Spare parts are proprietary the majority of the time with HP and Dell (not sure about other brands) finding spare parts is sometimes really easy and sometimes very difficult...and/or expensive.

 

Honestly the price is probably that way for a reason. The server is likely so old it isnt worth it.

[Boomwebsearch]

10 hours ago, PineyCreek said:

Don't bother unless you want a smll project server with now niche replacement parts.

 

26 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

If there is one piece of advise I can give it is old enterprise hardware can be tricky, picky, and finicky. 

 

Tricky in that when you pick them up, they aren't likely to be used in the same scenario for which they were built. Hardware and software may have limitations you won't know about unless you can find someone who already knows the answer.

For example, you won't be able to just pop any old hard drive in that machine and have it work. You will need to know what type of drive it is. It may be an old SCSI backplane which you won't be able to use SATA drives on. This leads to the next "icky"

 

They can be picky when it comes to hardware. There is generally better luck when picking hardware of the same era and keeping firmware revisions around the same time period. Even then there could be dedicated ports sealed off to anything that isn't what the manufacturer intended. An example I can think of is Dell's internal storage PCIe port where you can only put a Dell raid card in or it won't boot.

 

Last is finicky. Remember that old servers are old. Connections, switches, components, drives, power supplies all age. Spare parts are proprietary the majority of the time with HP and Dell (not sure about other brands) finding spare parts is sometimes really easy and sometimes very difficult...and/or expensive.

 

Honestly the price is probably that way for a reason. The server is likely so old it isnt worth it.

Okay, thank you to everyone who contributed to this post, I have decided to not get the server hardware because I do not want something that is not going to be compatible with other software and hardware. 

[Salacious B Crum]

Just get yourself a used prebuilt stuff it with the number of drives/TB's that you need and have at it I built mine from an HP Envy and the OS is unRAID I have since improved upon it over time but it was perfect for my use case at the time of build

[Boomwebsearch]

31 minutes ago, mrbilky said:

Just get yourself a used prebuilt stuff it with the number of drives/TB's that you need and have at it I built mine from an HP Envy and the OS is unRAID I have since improved upon it over time but it was perfect for my use case at the time of build

Wouldn't using a prebuilt machine take more power in general than a system designed to be run 24/7 (a server)? And would the tape backup machine be worth getting or is it still going to be an issue when it comes to compatibility? I am looking for another server to basically be an achieve of my current NAS (the Buffalo LinkStation 220).

[Razor Blade]

17 minutes ago, Boomwebsearch said:

Wouldn't using a prebuilt machine take more power in general than a system designed to be run 24/7 (a server)? And would the tape backup machine be worth getting or is it still going to be an issue when it comes to compatibility? I am looking for another server to basically be an achieve of my current NAS (the Buffalo LinkStation 220).

Not necessarily... Generally enterprise hardware has up-time in mind where power efficiency is a more of a selling point. IMO a server for the home user has more to do with the software it runs than the hardware it has. Sure having a 6 bay hot swap backplane rack mount beast with dual xeon CPUs, redundant power supplies, IPMI remote management, tool-less everything, and lots of blinky lights is cool...but will a good quality NAS unit store data just as well while using about 10% of the power? Pretty much.

 

It really depends on what you're ultimately wanting to do with it. Are you wanting to just backup files and make a media library using something like Plex? A NAS box would work just fine. Are you wanting to run VMs? Are you wanting to run a server OS to provide services you can't get with a consumer router? Are you looking to offload encoding or compiling tasks? An actual computer would be a better choice as a storage NAS box won't do any of that.

[Salacious B Crum]

You can look into xeon processors if power is an issue, I mean if you even consider server grade hardware then power savings won't be part of your vocabulary in general plus they are loud as shit at lease most that are in the used market but my unRAID server spins down all drives based on my settings not sure but I would think other OS's probably have something similar

 

and by all means if those cheap servers have drives then grab then as if they are sas drives they may be 10000 rpm units or better

[Boomwebsearch]

45 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

It really depends on what you're ultimately wanting to do with it.

I would like to be able to host a VM from the solution which I go with although in the end the most important thing which I need would be having the data be copied over to the other server solution as a backup. I would want the other machine to take a daily backup of the data on my Buffalo LS200 and then maybe I am considering tape storage as the cost per data needed to store is good and it has good longevity. Would like to have another VM for tasks which would take some time like rendering video projects in Windows Movie Maker and not have it take utilization of my PC allowing me to have more computational power on my PC to do other tasks. I do not mind about the encoding time much although, should the Xeon CPU be able to handle it or would adding a GPU be good to have? If I buy this HP server, I am concerned that a GPU will have some compatibility issues.

[Razor Blade]

After doing a bit of digging... I would highly advise against purchasing that server for any reason other than a learning experience. It appears to be an HP DL380 G3 which is a very...very...very old server. If the sources I found are correct it would use socket 604 PGA Xeons which is probably late 90's - early 2000's tech. which means it may not even run modern operating systems at all...also the chances are it will have SCSI drives and not the newer SAS or SATA interface.

[Boomwebsearch]

1 hour ago, Razor Blade said:

I would highly advise against purchasing that server for any reason other than a learning experience.

If I was to buy it for a learning experience, what OS would I able to run on it. I am thinking Windows Server 2008 R2 although I am not really sure what and what not is going to be compatible with this system. What is going to be the limit of power which this server with its default PSU would have to spare for additional PCI express cards? Maybe I will end up getting it as just a server to experiment with although since it is so old I am not going to be using it for actual tasks such as a backup because if a drive failed then I would have trouble finding a replacement.The seller stated that the tape backup solution would be able to work with the server although I am not so sure on how that would work, never actually had experience with a tape drive for data storage or the reader for it. The capacity for the price and the longevity make tape a good idea although it is limited with speed. Would the device automatically be able to backup the entire server onto a tape drive like once a week or month?

[Razor Blade]

4 minutes ago, Boomwebsearch said:

If I was to buy it for a learning experience, what OS would I able to run on it. I am thinking Windows Server 2008 R2 although I am not really sure what and what not is going to be compatible with this system. What is going to be the limit of power which this server with its default PSU would have to spare for additional PCI express cards? Maybe I will end up getting it as just a server to experiment with although since it is so old I am not going to be using it for actual tasks such as a backup because if a drive failed then I would have trouble finding a replacement.The seller stated that the tape backup solution would be able to work with the server although I am not so sure on how that would work, never actually had experience with a tape drive for data storage or the reader for it. The capacity for the price and the longevity make tape a good idea although it is limited with speed. Would the device automatically be able to backup the entire server onto a tape drive like once a week or month?

That server doesn't have PCIe.

 

According to this source:

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c00459641

 

supported operating systems are

• Microsoft Windows NT Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000
• Novell NetWare
• Caldera OpenUNIX 8
• LINUX (Red Hat, SuSE)

Server 2008 R2 may not even install, let alone run.

 

As for the tape backup, I have no experience with those. Likely the speed isn't going to be very suitable for backing up a lot of data quickly. Then there is the issue of finding the tapes. If your drive breaks you will have to find another in order to access your data.

[motonack]

That's probably an HP DL380 Gen 4. They don't even have pci or pci-e slots. Where I work we mostly use HP gear and we have a ton of legacy systems that have simply never been disposed of. My rule of thumb is that anything older than Gen 5 is useless. Gen 5 and newer is totally usable in terms of performance and equivalency with current tech (connectors, etc) although anything older than Gen 7 is going to be a space heater and I only keep them for testing.