Looking for some advice on my first "serious" home server
I'm looking for some help and advice moving forward with regards to my home server setup. I currently have an old repurposed desktop running an E6600 with 3GB of RAM and a ~160GB HDD (I'm not even sure if the mobo has SATA connectors). That machine is pretty dated by now, so I'm looking into getting another server to replace it. I'm quite familiar with regular desktop PC builds, but this seems like a good reason/opportunity to get more into the server hardware side of things. However, the different form-factors of server hardware and such is a bit intimidating, it's definitely a lot more complicated than "throw an ATX mobo in a standard case with standard hardware and turn it on".
My current server is mostly running some light webserver and git stuff, nothing complicated. My plan for the new machine is to continue along those same lines, but with additional room to learn and do more with the hardware. I'm not really worried about running it as a NAS, since I already have a Synology DS218 that is working fine for my needs, though I may put a small share on there just to experiment with doing so.
Here are some of the things I'd like to have in a new server. None of them is a deal-breaker in and of itself, just some preferences
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Have enough power to do a little bit of virtualization (probably just running a couple VMs, I'd imagine). That's something that interests me to some degree and seems like a useful skill to learn in the long-term.
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Be reasonably quiet. I'm in an apartment, so quiet would be nice.
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Be reasonably compact. Again, I'm in an apartment. I have a bookshelf with 11" cube cubbies that would work well to put the server in or on top of if it fit, but that's not the only spot I have either.
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Be reasonably cheap. I expect I'll need to spend a couple hundred on something decent, but I'd rather not break the bank.
Again, none of those alone is a strict requirement, but it should give you an idea of what I'm looking for.
I was initially thinking I might want some form of small tower to minimize the size and noise. However, I was looking around online some and I'm seeing some stuff like Dell R320 servers that look like they might be in line with my performance needs while being <$300 after buying some new drives off Amazon and mounting hardware to flesh it out. I'm not sure if that is the best option for me, but it does appear to be an option.
So, does anyone have any suggestions for what I should be looking for and where I should be looking for it?
Also, from the research I've done over the last couple days, it sounds like I might want to run proxmox for the hypervisor and ZFS as the filesystem. Are there any good guides to getting started with those (or recommendations for something else)?
Posted Dec 30, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC
It doesn't need to be. In fact, with 'quiet' and 'small' at the top of your list, I think you should be looking more at repurposed PC gear than #real-server-stuff. "real" servers are big, loud, and intended to be run in a closed room.
Personally, I think you should check around ebay for used enterprise PCs. Something like a small form factor dell/hp/lenovo with a solid processor. Most enterprise IT shops ditch hardware as soon as the warranty is expired, which means you can get killer deals on good desktop PCs that have been lightly used in an office environment. Upgrading ram, storage, and fans should all be standard parts.
Another thing to consider is retired laptops as servers. Trade out the power and flexible upgrades of a tower formtactor. Instead you get a built-in screen and battery backup.
Part of my problem is that I'm really not completely sure what to look for. There are so many myriad options out there for various desktop machines that the list gets overwhelming, especially compared to what I've seen for server hardware.
It's hard to know what's so insanely outdated that it's a waste of time and what's a good deal between all the vaguely similarly named desktops.
That's a fair point. You'll probably need to look up each cpu on passmark to compare. I would limit down to enterprise refurbished, from established eBay shops, from the big 3 enterprise oems (dell, hp, and lenovo)
As long as you don't need a bunch of space for drive bays, there should be a lot of options out there.
Edit: also, for server stuff, thread count is usually more important than speed. Get as many cores as you can.