Source
r/homelab•
Fewleftstanding

Help me decide between two cheap home server options

Solved

Edit: I've decided to buy a bigger/better server such as a R710.

Currently running several VMs on my gaming pc, looking to move those to its own box and add a couple of VMs, including freenas or unraid. I've been watching the prices of Dell T20s / Lenovo TS140 for awhile but never pulled the trigger. Looking to buy something in the next month or so. Will install esxi/proxmox, pfsense/sophos and a few other VM's. Will have a plex install with possibly one transcode at a time.

I'm in Canada. Close to the border so I can drive and pickup something I order from the states. I'd need to fill both of these with more memory, a few drives, and a NIC card for more ports.With that in mind, I found these:

HPE ProLiant ML10 Gen9

  • Processor: Intel i3-6100 Dual-Core 3.7GHz Processor
  • Memory: 4GB DDR4 Memory (ECC)
  • Hard Drive: None
  • OS: None

Price $174US (~217CAD) shipped

Dell Optiplex 9010

  • Processor: Intel Core i5 Quad (i5-3570) 3.40 GHz
  • Memory: 4 GB
  • Hard Drive: 250 GB
  • OS: Win 7 license

Price: 225CAD shipped/taxes in. (30% off coupon)

  • Dell Pros: quad core processor over dual core

  • Dell Cons?: The dell doesn't seem to support ECC memory.

What are your thoughts / recommendations? Should I wait for a better option or bite on one of these?

Posted Oct 4, 2017, 10:44 PM UTC · edited

314
CBRjackR&D•

You probably want something with more cores, especially with pfSense and Plex, you don't want your net to crash every time you transcode something. Also, more RAM, but that's easy to add up after.

3
FewleftstandingOP•

Yeah that makes sense- do you mean I'd want more cores than the 2 that the HP has, so go with the dell? Or go with something else entirely? I was thinking I'd add 16GB of ram to the 4 it comes with. Worst case is that I could continue running plex on my gaming PC (i7-4770k). Honestly I'm not sure if Plex is even transcoding what I watch, I run the plex app straight to my samsung smart tv.

1
FewleftstandingOP•

Thanks for the reply. After more consideration.. I'm going to look at a r710 or dl380.

1
FewleftstandingOP•

Sorry for the terrible formatting.. still trying to figure the best way to format text posts.

1
HappyBearIT•

if youre not too concerned with power consumption you can pick up r610s or r710s via auctions pretty cheap these days on ebay.

i just pick up a 610 with 48gb of ram for $60 and another one 2 minutes later with 24gb and 2x300GB HDDs for another $60. Both are coming from the same reseller so i save on shipping. A 64GB esxi cluster with 16 cores for less than $150 is cheaper than the price of the ram by itself.

1
NeoMatrixJR•

WHERE?!

1
HappyBearIT•

ebay. just filter on auctions only and max price = $70 for r610 or 710 depending on what you want then sort by ending soonest. watch the $40-50 ones until right b4 close then prepare for a quick bidding war in the last 30 sec. my r610 went from 49 to 62 in 30 sec, but thats still better then buying the buy now price.

1
pantuts•

me jelly here... i live in a country where shipping rate is much much higher than the item :(.. how I wish I can get one.

1
FewleftstandingOP•

Thank you- I'll probably go for a 710 or similar!

1
seniortroll•

You will want an Optiplex 9020, not 9010. According to the spec sheets the 9020 can take 32 GB RAM while the 9010 can only take 16 GB IIRC

1
FewleftstandingOP•

Thank you for reading my post! I think I'm going to go the refurb enterprise server route- looking at R710s.. seems like my money goes a lot further

1
Temido2222<3 pfsense| R710|Freenas•

Virtualizing Pfsense? You sure about that?

0
FewleftstandingOP•

Not sure. I may use another firewall such as Sophos. Would you recommend not virtualizing the firewall?

1
Temido2222<3 pfsense| R710|Freenas•

I'd recommend putting the firewall/router on baremetal

1