Which is your favourite server hardware?

Chievo

Looking for opinions about server hardware. Which is your favourite server hardware ( complete servers) (cost effective). I was thinking about this config and waiting for some opinions.

Ryzen +128 RAM + NVMe

Otus9051

Favourite?
A maxed out Sunfire V120.

webcraft

Is this question about manufacturer brand or used hardwared in the setup?

SharedGrid

@Otus9051 said:
Favourite?
A maxed out Sunfire V120.

Absolute beast.

@Chievo said:
Looking for opinions about server hardware. Which is your favourite server hardware ( complete servers) (cost effective). I was thinking about this config and waiting for some opinions.

Ryzen +128 RAM + NVMe

I'd go that setup with either Ryzen 7900, 7900X or 7950X.

localhost

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_RaQ

My first server...

root

Raspberry Pi

skorous

My two favourites: ALR Revolution 6x6 and Sun3/60. Not worth their electricity today but I loved them both.

imok

I like the HP DL360p. 8 bays for SSDs, E5 v4, DDR4 and it's cheap.

Not comparable to a Ryzen with NVMe but it's something.

Amadex

xeon gold, nvme, ecc ram

DataRecovery

@localhost said:
My first server...

I was also going to post Cobalt RaQ 2

Hard to tell whether it's the favorite, but definitely a very notable one, especially because of the display.

beanman109

I'm a big fan of the SFF / Mini PCs for my homelab.
The Aliexpress mini PCs are wildly performant / efficient for the price if you don't mind the whole Aliexpress post sales experience / warranty

davide

@beanman109 said:
The Aliexpress mini PCs are wildly performant / efficient for the price if you don't mind the whole Aliexpress post sales experience / warranty

Oh yes, I once bough a pair of SSDs off Aliexpress, the package itself had a sticker saying "warranty void if opened". I think they unintentionally used a random batch of adhesive labels unaware of their meaning.

bikegremlin

@Chievo said:
Looking for opinions about server hardware. Which is your favourite server hardware ( complete servers) (cost effective). I was thinking about this config and waiting for some opinions.

Ryzen +128 RAM + NVMe

"I'll just use consumer-grade stuff to build a server."

• The famous last words.

lukast__

Most cost-effective, complete server: ESP8266 ESP-01S, around 1 to 3 EUR. I actually once ran a website on such a server, but it's not really fast with 80 MHz (though IIRC you can overclock it to 160).
Otherwise, some AMD processor with ECC RAM and preferably a server grade mainboard.

Advin

@bikegremlin said:

@Chievo said:
Looking for opinions about server hardware. Which is your favourite server hardware ( complete servers) (cost effective). I was thinking about this config and waiting for some opinions.

Ryzen +128 RAM + NVMe

"I'll just use consumer-grade stuff to build a server."

• The famous last words.

EPYC has also had quite a bit of stability problems in our experience

bikegremlin

@Advin said:

@bikegremlin said:

@Chievo said:
Looking for opinions about server hardware. Which is your favourite server hardware ( complete servers) (cost effective). I was thinking about this config and waiting for some opinions.

Ryzen +128 RAM + NVMe

"I'll just use consumer-grade stuff to build a server."

• The famous last words.

EPYC has also had quite a bit of stability problems in our experience

Yeah - sober drivers get into accidents too.

cybertech

AMD DDR5 ECC

Chievo

@bikegremlin said:

@Advin said:

@bikegremlin said:

@Chievo said:
Looking for opinions about server hardware. Which is your favourite server hardware ( complete servers) (cost effective). I was thinking about this config and waiting for some opinions.

Ryzen +128 RAM + NVMe

"I'll just use consumer-grade stuff to build a server."

• The famous last words.

EPYC has also had quite a bit of stability problems in our experience

Yeah - sober drivers get into accidents too.

Is posible to drive without alcohol? damn every day i learn something new hahaha

linveo

Only have a handful, but these has been solid performers Dell C6400 series nodes. Dell R630 is a nice performer as well.

Wonder_Woman

@beanman109 said:
I'm a big fan of the SFF / Mini PCs for my homelab.
The Aliexpress mini PCs are wildly performant / efficient for the price if you don't mind the whole Aliexpress post sales experience / warranty

Any recommendations?

beanman109

@Wonder_Woman said:

@beanman109 said:
I'm a big fan of the SFF / Mini PCs for my homelab.
The Aliexpress mini PCs are wildly performant / efficient for the price if you don't mind the whole Aliexpress post sales experience / warranty

Any recommendations?

If you're looking for a firewall appliance I'd go with Qotom, they're just OEM branded but the support was really helpful in making sure I got the correct specs as I was really really picky with what NIC's they used.

If you're just looking for a standard Mini PC I'm pretty sure Beelink is somewhat reputable, otherwise just send it with any decent spec you're happy with at a reasonable price after searching Mini PC on Aliexpress - example of one I'm eyeing off as a new docker server: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007068086214.html

host2play

@Wonder_Woman said:

@beanman109 said:
I'm a big fan of the SFF / Mini PCs for my homelab.
The Aliexpress mini PCs are wildly performant / efficient for the price if you don't mind the whole Aliexpress post sales experience / warranty

Any recommendations?

If you don't mind using something used and a few years old you can buy hp prodesk/elitedesk g2/g3 in dm variant or dell optiplex 3050 micro
You can buy them for really cheap and they can handle up to 64gb ram in 2 sodimm slots and 6/7th gen i7 (prodesks and elitedesks in 35w version can only handle the T variant because of 35w TDP), if you find a g4 in good price you can fit 2 nvme drives in those and i think they can even handle i9's because of support for 8/9th gen but im not sure.

For my homelab i use 2 mini pcs: prodesk 600 g3 dm with i5 7500t / 2x16gb 2133mhz /1tb nvme, 512 ssd sata, and optiplex 3050 micro with i7 6700 / 2x16gb 3200mhz /1tb nvm, 512 ssd sata. for both i bought a external gig ethernet adapter so i can play around with LACP, i even virtualize a home router on prodesk, both of them run proxmox Total cost of these two was below 300 dollars in poland, but i bought everything used and built them by myself, so it took a bit of time and effort.

Also both are really easily servicable, i can change ram, sata ssd, fan and clean my prodesk g3 dm and in optiplex without using a screwdriver, which is impressive with this form factor, but this is only g3 and higher or optiplex 3050, g1 for sure was way less easy to work with and it was intel's 4th gen and i think g2 is the same construction but with 6th gen.

Otus9051

@host2play said:

@Wonder_Woman said:

@beanman109 said:
I'm a big fan of the SFF / Mini PCs for my homelab.
The Aliexpress mini PCs are wildly performant / efficient for the price if you don't mind the whole Aliexpress post sales experience / warranty

Any recommendations?

If you don't mind using something used and a few years old you can buy hp prodesk/elitedesk g2/g3 in dm variant or dell optiplex 3050 micro
You can buy them for really cheap and they can handle up to 64gb ram in 2 sodimm slots and 6/7th gen i7 (prodesks and elitedesks in 35w version can only handle the T variant because of 35w TDP), if you find a g4 in good price you can fit 2 nvme drives in those and i think they can even handle i9's because of support for 8/9th gen but im not sure.

For my homelab i use 2 mini pcs: prodesk 600 g3 dm with i5 7500t / 2x16gb 2133mhz /1tb nvme, 512 ssd sata, and optiplex 3050 micro with i7 6700 / 2x16gb 3200mhz /1tb nvm, 512 ssd sata. for both i bought a external gig ethernet adapter so i can play around with LACP, i even virtualize a home router on prodesk, both of them run proxmox Total cost of these two was below 300 dollars in poland, but i bought everything used and built them by myself, so it took a bit of time and effort.

Also both are really easily servicable, i can change ram, sata ssd, fan and clean my prodesk g3 dm and in optiplex without using a screwdriver, which is impressive with this form factor, but this is only g3 and higher or optiplex 3050, g1 for sure was way less easy to work with and it was intel's 4th gen and i think g2 is the same construction but with 6th gen.

On another note, I was thinking of buying a Pro/EliteDesk (or maybe a ThinkCentre) for an office setup. Do you think they're good at that? I know they are fine with proxmox boxes, but its gonna run Windows and I have honestly never used one.

beanman109

@Otus9051 said: Do you think they're good at that? I know they are fine with proxmox boxes, but its gonna run Windows and I have honestly never used one.

Literally what they're designed for, I use SFF PC's for all the admin staff workstations at work and I still have some of them running 5 year old PC's without issue.

host2play

@Otus9051 said:

@host2play said:

@Wonder_Woman said:

@beanman109 said:
I'm a big fan of the SFF / Mini PCs for my homelab.
The Aliexpress mini PCs are wildly performant / efficient for the price if you don't mind the whole Aliexpress post sales experience / warranty

Any recommendations?

If you don't mind using something used and a few years old you can buy hp prodesk/elitedesk g2/g3 in dm variant or dell optiplex 3050 micro
You can buy them for really cheap and they can handle up to 64gb ram in 2 sodimm slots and 6/7th gen i7 (prodesks and elitedesks in 35w version can only handle the T variant because of 35w TDP), if you find a g4 in good price you can fit 2 nvme drives in those and i think they can even handle i9's because of support for 8/9th gen but im not sure.

For my homelab i use 2 mini pcs: prodesk 600 g3 dm with i5 7500t / 2x16gb 2133mhz /1tb nvme, 512 ssd sata, and optiplex 3050 micro with i7 6700 / 2x16gb 3200mhz /1tb nvm, 512 ssd sata. for both i bought a external gig ethernet adapter so i can play around with LACP, i even virtualize a home router on prodesk, both of them run proxmox Total cost of these two was below 300 dollars in poland, but i bought everything used and built them by myself, so it took a bit of time and effort.

Also both are really easily servicable, i can change ram, sata ssd, fan and clean my prodesk g3 dm and in optiplex without using a screwdriver, which is impressive with this form factor, but this is only g3 and higher or optiplex 3050, g1 for sure was way less easy to work with and it was intel's 4th gen and i think g2 is the same construction but with 6th gen.

On another note, I was thinking of buying a Pro/EliteDesk (or maybe a ThinkCentre) for an office setup. Do you think they're good at that? I know they are fine with proxmox boxes, but its gonna run Windows and I have honestly never used one.

Yeah, for office work they should be more than plenty, the ones with 6th gen i5 or better can even handle a little gaming like roblox or minecraft with the integrated graphics

rcy026

@Otus9051 said:
On another note, I was thinking of buying a Pro/EliteDesk (or maybe a ThinkCentre) for an office setup. Do you think they're good at that? I know they are fine with proxmox boxes, but its gonna run Windows and I have honestly never used one.

I use an EliteDesk 800 G6 at my homeoffice, had it for 3 or 4 years I think and never had any problems. Fast, quiet, just works all the time.
It's running Windows 10 and it's on 24/7, never had to reboot unless installing updates.

Wonder_Woman

@host2play said:

@Wonder_Woman said:

Any recommendations?

If you don't mind using something used and a few years old you can buy hp prodesk/elitedesk g2/g3 in dm variant or dell optiplex 3050 micro
You can buy them for really cheap and they can handle up to 64gb ram in 2 sodimm slots and 6/7th gen i7 (prodesks and elitedesks in 35w version can only handle the T variant because of 35w TDP), if you find a g4 in good price you can fit 2 nvme drives in those and i think they can even handle i9's because of support for 8/9th gen but im not sure.

For my homelab i use 2 mini pcs: prodesk 600 g3 dm with i5 7500t / 2x16gb 2133mhz /1tb nvme, 512 ssd sata, and optiplex 3050 micro with i7 6700 / 2x16gb 3200mhz /1tb nvm, 512 ssd sata. for both i bought a external gig ethernet adapter so i can play around with LACP, i even virtualize a home router on prodesk, both of them run proxmox Total cost of these two was below 300 dollars in poland, but i bought everything used and built them by myself, so it took a bit of time and effort.

Also both are really easily servicable, i can change ram, sata ssd, fan and clean my prodesk g3 dm and in optiplex without using a screwdriver, which is impressive with this form factor, but this is only g3 and higher or optiplex 3050, g1 for sure was way less easy to work with and it was intel's 4th gen and i think g2 is the same construction but with 6th gen.

Thank you, I appreciate the write up

davide

The past 10 years I've only used Supermicros due to their absolute reliability that I noticed in comparison to the Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc, that I used previously. The Taiwan capacitors plague from the early 2000's is an especially bad memory in regards to motherboards reliability. Pressing the reset button every now and then was part of the routine, I thought that was normal. But as I switched to Supermicro it came out as a surprise, to me at least, that computers could remain on 24/7 without ever crashing, always available, remotely reachable, at all times. I didn't have a single crash in over 10 years with Supermicro.

Problem is, this kind of hardware is a lot more expensive than Ryzens or i9's at similar performance, so I'm considering trying a cheaper configuration. Dunno what to expect thought. Would a Ryzen on a Gigabyte or Asus motherboard stay on 24/7 for, say, 200 days without a crash?