Dual 2011 Server with Rails for less than $150!

[@CraftComputing]

A lot of comments suggesting I "replace the old thermal paste". This came to me as a barebones server. The thermal paste is brand new Arctic MX-4. As I said in the video, dual 135W TDP chips are a strong ask of servers like this. I'd recommend sticking to 95-120W chips, or installing this server into an air conditioned rack ;-)

[@CraftComputing]

Also, quick update, the seller is sending a replacement board for the DOA server, no questions asked.

[@ASUSfreak]

But what about the cpu voltages?

[@KiraSlith]

Might be a good idea to make a custom shroud that better directs the airflow across the CPUs, and put the fans on rubber grommets, should help cut the noise.

[@jogginnoggins9918]

Would dual e5-2690v2`s be pushing it? At 130 rated they´re a bit high but they also usually over-estimate the draw for insurance. I´d guess for intermittent processing they would be OK but for 24/7 work they´d be frying in there.

[@jwilliams5857]

Just curious: How do you manage the heat on a hot day if these are in the garage?

[@koryk9354]

This is the kinda shit I love. So hard to find people doing budget server builds. Even if they are the "best", I don't need/want a $5000 home lab. Keep it up man!

[@Mireaze]

It's useful as both a cheap server, and a white noise machine.

[@proNOOBIE_]

And a terrible room heater

[@joelimbergamo639]

@@proNOOBIE_ not that terrible as a heater, you can heat your room at the samw time you compute thaings, and then the heating is free 😅

[@seebaastian]

well, I think it won't qualify as a white noise machine. The spectrum will show plenty peaks instead a flat one. Nevertheless, your comment is funny ;)

[@Insightfill]

Craft ASMR

[@EduardoSantanaSeverino]

Yep by default this server is very noisy... But I was able to mod the top cover to add one 80mm fan as extractor for each processor, that brings down the temperature alone and instead of the default 5 front fans just took out 3 and left 2 there.

[@kendokaaa]

Wow the RTX voice reveal, really impressive

[@ryanebigelow]

Now that’s an incredible tech demo, right up there with the Barnacules Nerdgasm leafblower with RTX on demo

[@Mireaze]

And you don't even need an rtx card for it

[@CraftComputing]

This was done with nVidia Broadcast, which does require the RT cores.

[@xaviert7093]

⁰⁰⁰ )1l

[@pudzianwrc]

@@CraftComputing Tensor cores to be precise ;-)

[@SilentdragonDe]

Me: "So how many servers do you need at home?" Craft Computing: "Yes."

[@7633J]

This is so awesome. I was talking to a customer today and they said wow are you in the data center... yes (actually home)

[@Joel-ew1zm]

Great find. Nothing like snagging a solid server for cheap (or free). Some of my favorite memories from my IT MSP days would be onboarding new clients and taking a tour of their server room and seeing decom'd equipment still in the rack powered off. That would usually be followed by a conversation something along the lines of: us: [Heavy Breathing] "do you... do you uhhh want us to get rid of this old crap for you? No charge" them: "yeah sure whatever i don't care this stuff was here before i started working here" us: "o-ok... we will get a trailer and some guys out here to clean this up for you" [internally rejoicing at the upgrade our lab stacks would receive]

[@Powerman293]

"Of course since it's a Craft Computing video, something had to go wrong" I don't think I've ever seen a server build go perfectly smooth on KZbin so don't feel too bad.

[@ghomerhust]

you know shockingly, my dell poweredge tower loaded up extremely easily, including setting up IDrac. i was really impressed. now i have a 16 thread tower with 72gb ram and two chips, a slew of pcie 4, a pcie 16, onboard quad intel gigabit, and 8 hot swap sas bays. its a beast!

[@KillaBitz]

Jeff turns RTX on because the server is loud as f but then all we get is Jeff shouting for no reason because he can still hear them. I find that funny

[@adamw9764]

Ah I see...so you started a youtube channel just so you could buy stuff and give the boxes to Rambo? IT ALL MAKES SENSE... Loving the videos man, keep it up!

[@DanteJoseCuervo]

Honestly I think a lot of people would just watch videos of Rambo playing in the boxes.

[@CraftComputing]

Definitely an opportunity for a second channel there 😜

[@AIC_onyt]

@@CraftComputing craft computing cat tips :D

[@CraftComputing]

Cat Computing

[@stubert00001]

THE DAY IS FINALLY HERE! esiso must be your biggest fan ...

[@CraftComputing]

They've only sold 150 of those NAS servers since last video 😂

[@BitKing_Ross]

@@CraftComputing wow lol

[@einstienem]

Nope, it is the company I work for.. MANY HP DL360 and 380 servers...All purchased from them..

[@marked23]

I bought one of the Chenbros. Kinda surprised they didn't sell-through faster. But then it makes sense because of the size. If you don't have a rack (I don't), where can you put it? Mine hasn't arrived yet (it's been two weeks), but I'm considering hanging vertically on the wall, using a 4U wall bracket.

[@leknowlton]

@@marked23 There are vertical server mounts that are truly space saving.

[@SkipsTinyBeard]

Dude. The idea of this sever, the beer, and that sweet tech wreath... I love your channel. Thank you for all the great ideas! I made some CPU ornaments years back from some ewaste pc's at work and brought them home (Pentium 4's and D's). Wife only let me use 4 out of the 30ish. I salute you sir.

[@eldaiblol1492]

A quick note: Intel VT-X is the general function for virtualiziation from Intel (Which pretty much every CPU hast). It has nothing to do with passthrough. For passthrough your CPU and Mainboard need to support Intel VT-D. This is less common and usually only found in Xeon and HEDT (and i think some weird i3s....) Cheers!

[@Owenzzz777]

Love the RAM wreath on the wall

[@mattw3406]

Jeff - any plans for an Unraid build? Would love to see one!

[@ve9]

No way I have the same server and could find 0 information on it. Am very glad I found your Chanel

[@hughsparks4572]

8:18 relatable accidental keyframe

[@CraftComputing]

😑

[@scottdecker8612]

What timing - I have 2 of those coming in tomorrow with 2650V2’s. Didn’t realize the board had iSCSI built right in though - that’s awesome, I will put the 2 x 240GB SSD’a I bought to boot them up into the NAS. Thanks for the vids, Jeff - you’re doing great work!

[@jeffherdzina6716]

The warning stickers are for Jason (Byte my bits) benefit. If you have seen his new video about battery replacement...You will understand.

[@SaroG]

Intel VT-x is virtualization extensions, while VT-d is the "PCI-E" passthrough equivalent.

[@CraftComputing]

You'd think after 10 years as a server admin, I'd stop confusing those acronyms every other day.....

[@NdxtremePro]

@@CraftComputing Nope, the confusion is part of the intention in the naming process.

[@BeardedDadMetalworks]

There is an updated bios from supermicro. Could you do a video on updating the Bios Craft?

[@BeardedDadMetalworks]

@@CraftComputing could you do a video on updating the bios? There is an updated bios from supermicro. I have no idea if the updated bios will fix the pci problem. But I hope it does. I have the same server, and want to install a 10g pci card. However with the card in the slot, the server will not even boot up. Card is an HP NC523sfp / QLE3242-HP

[@garygrobard4095]

Jeff. Have you looked to see if Supermicro has a BIOS update that would allow you to do hardware pass-through? Keep it up. Thanks

[@shaunwhiteley3544]

I do enjoy your videos but I wish you would add a watt meter and just mentioned idle and max power draw. Would be appreciated! Cheers

[@alfred4683]

@@isaackvasager9957 or one could just opt lower TDP xeons

[@alfred4683]

@@isaackvasager9957 Should put dual E5-2648Lv2, put in ssd, 128gb ram, and it will happily run a LOT of vm especially in not-so-demanding workload environment. So no, it is not useless. But yes, it does not fit in processing power scenario. We cannot talk about cheap and processing power in the same place, I think.

[@OwsleyLaws71]

“We got an over temp alarm” YAAYYY you are such a nerd! AND I LOVE IT!!!

[@stefannilsson2406]

Thermal compund can dry up after a few years of use, so you could try to remove the heatsinks and check if it is still ok.

[@CC-vv2ne]

I know that feel, last year bought a used server for 300 euros including shipping to other side of EU HP ProLiant DL360 G7 with Dual X5690 CPU's and 144GB DDR3. tossed out the sas drives and put in used Samsung SSD 840 Pro drivesi had laying around. Best 300 euros i have spent on ebay purchase. hosting mail/web and game servers with VMware ESXi

[@nomansarker5556]

I just realized I'm not subscribed. Fixed it. To be fair, your videos has always showed up on my feed (which is why I thought I was subscribed)

[@mrmotofy]

Power consumption at idle and under indicated load would be a nice addition. A Kill A Watt meter makes easy work of it. Or some of those little smart outlets have energy meter built in. So it gives you power draw at any given time and a remote power off/on if needed.

[@ozbusa]

New video - it's a good day. Then crushed when they don't ship internationally. Any plans on a video with a medley of the tasting reviews? I look forward to the bonus at the end. Always makes me smile watching your expressions after first tasting.

[@beauslim]

VT-x is hardware virtualization support. PCIe passthrough requires *VT-d*. Some hardware that has VT-x is missing VT-d, especially 1st and 2nd gen Core era parts.

[@Ho0d1um]

That Oatmeal Stout has been my beer of choice lately

[@michaelatkisson1425]

So I have a few of these and decided to check out the video because the nice blue color caught my eye. I personally ran everything from 2630L v1 to a 2695v2 and never really had much of an issue with heat on more intensive workloads. That said, my rack is in a basement that gets to about 70f in the summer. I wanted to upgrade to v3/v4 chips so I grabbed a pair of X10DRD boards and it was a near perfect swap. The back IO was a little off going from RJ45 to SFP but still worked fine. Having downsized my setup for efficiency I can say the with the limited capacity of the board, going to the X10 series let me increase the density ALOT. 256GB of ram, e5 2640v3 and a ssd for boot, only idles at 70 watts.

[@majstealth]

regarding that psu - your alternative would be buying any fitting one and using an 300€ molex crimp tool to crimp the connectors yourselve - yes the tool costs money, but having one myself, it just does what it is supposed to do, not like 12€ ones...

[@ianide2480]

You would love the area that I live in. We have a property disposition center that is part of the local university. There they sell off all the old office/lab/computer equipment. 1 or 2 generation old servers, computer and equipment are all there. Pretty darn cheap as well, all in good condition and I've never gotten a bad item. =)

[@MatthewHill]

Put a 10gig or 25gig NIC in that open slot and that thing would make an OK secondary virtualization server connected to a fast NAS. although I would prefer a 2011-3 platform.

[@korishan]

I came across a free Craigslist Special Barracuda Web Filter 310. I've been in the process of setting up pfSense. Having come with 2 Intel Gigabit nics this will work pretty good for replacing my primary router. I had originally planned to configure an old computer (6-core amd FX6100) as a router with 3Com Giganics, the Barracuda will offload the OpenVPN, firewall, and various other basic things. That way I won't have to worry about goofing up the server and shutting everything down. It's been a struggle configuring, mostly due to my lack of knowledge of setting up pfSense, but getting there.

[@gcarvlin]

If you dropped the CPUs to more low power ones and replaced those fans with something like Noctua’s 40mm it might be usable in a home setting. The base kit on eBay would make a pretty decent firewall if you don’t do VMs

[@SamuelJohnsonBungie]

Might try updating the bios to most recent: 3.3 according to super micro. May fix the ability to enable VT-X

[@nickmeyer208]

Yeah I really need to know this before I jump.

[@andrewguarino8415]

surely a few noctua fans and a tweak in supermicro's IPMI can help the fan noise! I just bought one of these to replace one of my servers.

[@mattscheurman1616]

I was thinking about the same thing with the fans. Are the headers on the motherboard 3pin or 4pin? My desk is right next to my server rack, so I don't want to hear loud fans. How did the noctua change out end up for you? Is this thing quiet then?

[@andrewguarino8415]

@@mattscheurman1616 MUCH more quiet. What a difference! Only thing is, you will need to adjust fan speeds in the IPMI or have some air from a standing fan blowing on or around it since the fans run pretty slow speeds at idle. Even then, the noise is practically non-existent. They only fan not replaced is the power supply fan which upon further investigation, is wired pretty far into the unit. Not going near the death caps lol. That one is decently quiet. The fan connectors are 4-pin.

[@nelizmastr]

I suppose it'd make more sense to go dual 2650v2 on there. Decent clock speeds, easier to manage heat output. In virtualisation, the CPU is rarely the bottleneck. Heck, even the E3 class E2136 in my Dell T140 will do fine, beating the Xeon Silver 4110 in multi core.

[@deadpixel4106]

Thank you for an honest review. The loud fan noise got my attention haha.

[@kevikiru]

Thank you. I was miffed at the lack of measurements last time

[@KokoroKatsura]

quad channel setup is a MUST to have

[@SaintInix]

I used to pick up older HP DL300 models from a local school on eBay. G5-G7, sometimes as little as a couple dollars. Usually with at least most of the parts. Not all would have two CPUs or coolers, some with RAM, some without, always PSUs but never drives. Made some decent cash off them after tinkering and setting them up. I used a few for game servers a while and still made a profit. I still actually have one with a pair of 6c/12t and 32gb of RAM collecting dust.

[@anthonyfrancaviglia1847]

Great channel! I have the same server and I have replaced the fan with 5x Noctua NF-A4x20 PWM (you can control the fan speed - the FLX model doesn't allow you to do so), and it is nearly silent. I need to change the one in the power supply and it is super quiet. Keep up with the excellent job! Ciao!

[@prodeous]

Some cases did have "air guides" to push the air into needed locations. if you need that full spee, maybe a makeshift "air guide" woudl improve temps on that second CPU. Still, that is one nice ifnd. I'm guessing your rack is in a different room, but do you think replacing the fans with Nocuta fans would proivde some benefits? or would that be a dissaster on temps?

[@logan_kes]

I had 3 of these, one of them was as loud as jeff's and i couldn't figure out how to quiet it down, but the other two ran near silent. Each of the servers had a pair of E5 2697 v2 cpu's and 8x16gb ddr3 ecc ram. Maybe its something with the v1 chips. I was also able to get a quadro k2200 passed through in esxi 6.7 u1

[@MMorris75]

What Bios is on the system that allows gpu pass through?

[@armenteasraven]

The RTX voice part, 10/10.

[@ShiggitayMediaProductions]

As overkill as this would be I'm sure this server would make a great firewall/router box ala pfSense/opnSense. I run a QOTOM MiniPC for my OPNsense needs and it works great, but having more power would be nice too. haha. Great video Jeff!

[@CoreyPL]

There is nothing wrong in feeling excited every 4 days.

[@camerontgore]

In 2020 we need little things like that

[@TheNiteNinja19]

I have fun with old server stuff. My actual media server is a dual socket Xeon X5677's with 24gb of RAM. I used to keep it in a 4U chassis, but actually moved it to a Cooler Master HAF lanbox. Since I host things like Minecraft, I need server processors that are fast, and it's still hard to find affordable upgrades beyond what I have at the moment.

[@levelnine123]

you can possibly test the new bios version is BIOS revision: R 3.3 on the supermicro website for the mainboard! pass through maybe for graphics card work

[@CraftComputing]

Definitely plan on giving it a shot.

[@StephenCunningham1]

I bought one of these jet engines a year ago. Only complaint is the sound. It's great for Proxmox and the best price to performance ratio I could find.

[@giovannipena2663]

Great !!! Did you create vms and cts with out any issue ?

[@StephenCunningham1]

@@giovannipena2663 yep, no issues. I'm using 2 500 gb ssds with ZFS for storage and loaded it with 128gb of memory.

[@TrueNAS]

Another great video, Jeff!

[@CraftComputing]

🤜🤛 🍻

[@Arctic_silverstreak]

Finally a good cheap pc and room heather for winter

[@RANDOMNATION907]

The Christmas wreath made of ram sticks is a nice touch.

[@neooen419]

The seller is very easy to work with he does sometimes take a bit for him to get back to you. Have bought 3 storage servers through him.

[@pcbuildfrance]

I think you misunderstood warning on shroud. It's intended for whole inside of server, not just what's under shroud. At least how I see it.

[@ThePianist4Life]

I would love to have a text label edited in, whenever you mention those long part names like E5 2698. Maybe even for all parts? I tend to pause the video and need to listen twice or listen very carefully the whole time... which i usually dont do. Anyways: love your content. I really enjoy these budget server builds

[@andibiront2316]

VT-x is just hardware assisted virtualization. You should look for VT-d for device passthru.

[@Chrissy4605]

If you need to replace the PSU keep the existing cables so if the new one doesn't have them you do!!

[@UNKA757]

You should look into trying to find a modded or custom bios for that board to see if you can get those features enabled.

[@chrisappellof5682]

Would love a iSCSI tutorial, trying to get that up and running on my server and having nothing but issues

[@carlolalattacosterbosa5821]

on the front is pretty much nothing but a bunch of...."SPEED HOLES"... BRILLIANT!!!!

[@EduardoSantanaSeverino]

Yep by default this server is very noisy... But I was able to mod the top cover to add one 80mm fan as extractor for each processor, that brings down the temperature alone and instead of the default 5 front fans just took out 3 and left 2 there.

[@Sonofzudema]

ahh ya a good ol ninkasi oatis. Huge fan. The vanilla oatis is one of the best stouts IMHO

[@ayoutubechannel6488]

You should try getting the latest BIOS from SuperMicro's website and installing it. Sometimes these rebranded servers have custom BIOSes modded by the resellers even though it looks normal and features can be disabled. I've had a few of these before.

[@UnkyjoesPlayhouse]

should have bought a second hand enterprise level server, Dell R720, IBM X3650M4 etc, $200 full of cpu's and ram, and much quieter :) I think you like buying these problem children :) another great video..

[@kevinbui4059]

Baby blue front bezel?? Who in the world would rock that? Flys away.

[@DeadlyGopher]

I recently found a dell PowerEdge r720 with two E5-2665's and 64Gb of ram for $200 shipped. I think I got a killer deal what do you guys think?

[@CraftComputing]

That's definitely a good deal!

[@chrisbaker8533]

Hp dl380p, e5 2660 v2(10c/20th, 2.2ghz), 64gb 12800r(4x16gb), 2x250gb sas drives. $150 Hp dl385 g8, dual 6328 opterons(they're kinda crap, but useable), 64gb ddr3(8x8, 12800r). $150 Dropped an additional 50 for the secondary risers and cages. 3 risers and 3 cages. Stupidest deal I've ever gotten on servers was a dl360 g6. Dual 5550, 72gb of ram(10600r, 18x4 sticks) $60. I just bought it for the ram.

[@MarcWeavers]

a tour of your servers and their purposes would be a good gap filler video, what do you need them all for? :)

[@Mills_Official]

i just picked up a dual xeon x5675 server with 32gb ram and dual power supplies for £59.99 which is about $79

[@Tommy10606]

What is the plan with the DIY server that you pulled from the rack?

[@CraftComputing]

All of the recent servers are to be able to tinker with. It'll go back in at some point :-)

[@UNKA757]

I thought one of the CPU's heatsinks looks crooked or off a little. I would remove, clean and re-apply paste and heatsinks, just as a general rule. The current paste is probably stock and has been through many temperature changes.

[@CraftComputing]

This was a barebones server. I put on the thermal paste myself.

[@draskuul]

I picked one up just recently, mainly to use as a third system in a Proxmox cluster just to play around with cluster/HA abilities. Two L-series CPUs and 64GB ECC RAM. I 3d printed my own adapters to swap out the fans for Noctuas. If I was really pressing the CPUs then it really wouldn't be enough, but at the minimal use I put on it they work fine. Mine had the drive cage, but had to buy the riser and rails separately. The main nuisance is the outdated IPMI relying on the garbage Java console.

[@MON5TERMATT]

any plans to release the STL's on thingiverse?

[@ghmichel72]

Great information ✊🏾 I'm new to home lab setups. What's the practical use scenario for a serve like this? Can it be used as a Plex server? Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@Sbellins1109]

couple of days ago i've gought a DellR620 with dual E5-2620, 16GB of ram and Dual 750W PSU. All for 130€ shipped

[@marloumadrio8305]

Hi, I just ordered this a few hours ago after watching this video. The 1U server and the rails However, not sure if the seller will include the riser card I plan to use 2 x E5-2650L V2 cpus which would plenty for my use case I'm trying to buy the RAMs too From your video you've mentioned DDR 3 Registered Any further info about the RAMs I'd appreciate much. I'm from Singapore I've ordered this through my friend in SFO and he'll ship it to me in SG Sadly the seller does not ship to SG I plan to install the latest Ubuntu and use it as a sandbox Thanks

[@carrickroydon]

Just checked the Supermicro site, looks like a updated bios, not certain it would "fix" the missing support or not...

[@brettbonotto5840]

Double checked my BIOS update and i did find a VT-d option. Under the Northbridge settings

[@drcyb3r]

I just built myself a 2011-3 server. Two Xeon E5-2670 v3 and 16GB of DDR4. Total cost was not even 300€.

[@stevenvenham4716]

I got 4 of these, and had a hell of a problem with them, some doa, some crashing randomly. Figured out eventually that they say they support higher speed memory, but it seems like the chipset does not. put the lower speed ram in it and they work just fine. ANd it was not the memmory as any unity i put it into has a problem, unless you put it into a difrent motherboard, then it works fine and passes memtest. Symptoms: Booting from USB causes Kernal Panic.

[@beezerh91]

Nice to see a fellow Oregonian who is also a PC nerd :)

[@alemaodownhill]

I really like your videos man! You show the low budget side of things. Thanks to you I’ve build a pretty dialed truenas machine. I was just wondering if you checked the thermal compound on those CPUs. Given the temperature delta between the 2 I would just double check for peace of mind.

[@nicholasmistry4954]

Any chance that supermicro offers a bios that enables VT-X, etc.?

[@Flight522]

i think it is in the bios. According to the manual it is in the North Bridge Setting. Enabled or Disabled.

[@n8slackerman]

Hey Jeff! @craftcomputing Love the videos but I have a question. I thought you could only run windows server on dual cpu systems?

[@pupslace]

Windows 10 Pro supports dual socket motherboards. Home is single socket only.

[@nelizmastr]

Windows 10 Pro will work with 2 CPUs. If you go beyond 2, you need Windows Server.

[@NdxtremePro]

@@nelizmastr Doesn't Windows Pro for Workgroups also work with more More CPUs?

[@osrr6422]

Gets to play in the boxes. Do you blame him though?

[@BrooksyTech]

2011 v2 are fun but I dumped my dual supermicro motherboard /w 2011 2650 v2's for a single 3700x and x570 motherboard. Do miss the ipmi and second nic but add on cards solve that problem. Running proxmox and my 12 disk zfs array without a hitch.

[@smitgeee]

This is going to fit great in my skb case

[@ghomerhust]

the RTX on is a nice touch with the noise suppression on

[@cinnion]

What model rack are you using, and where did you get it? It looks particularly nice, and I am looking to replace my old 42U rack which has threaded screw holes for one which uses rack nuts to fit my Dell server rails, which I may also go for something a little shorter.

[@dawn1berlitz]

i think the 5U server im working with currently(Dell Poweredge t320) costed me around 200 i think total so far as i started with no drives or caddies which i think i spent 80-85 on 4 caddies which 2 was populated with 2 2tb Seagate Constellation ES (i cant remember if its es 1 or 2) with another being populated with a 250gb Crucial mx500 SSD (this holds win server 2019 standard) the seagate drives are used and the win server license i purchased on ebay while the base server itself costed me nothing except carrying it on my bike on a slow 1 hour walk home as i needed to rest at times its not spetacular like this with a newer xeon and it being dual cpu but hey it was free just had to supply drives, caddies and the OS

[@chillerprofi]

Please keep in mind that a modern low end Destop system will peform better in any task you can throw at it at significatly higher power efficiency. Old DDR3 Servers are a fun hobby project not a wise investment. Especially if you run it at home 24 and are paying consumer electricity prices. I know that because I own one.

[@eDoc2020]

Power efficiency, generally yes newer desktops will be better. But for performance, this is hands-down better! Jeff's setup here has sixteen cores. Considering the improved performance per thread of newer CPUs you'd probably need a modern 12-core CPU to compete. What modern low-end desktop has a 12-core CPU and 64-128 gigabytes of RAM? Please tell me, I'd like to buy one. When I looked a month ago the best value I could find I was a 6 core CPU with 8GB of RAM at a similar price point.

[@linrobert8208]

You can modifiy the bios file to show the VT-X config menu, if there was a menu for it and it may be hidden.

[@CraftComputing]

Yep, I've modified AMI based systems before. That was my next step.

[@decimat777]

Doesn’t have quad channel memory... looks at my servers each running dual, triple, quad, and eight (4x2) channel using literally all the same dimms which are not indicative of what “channel” it may or may not be marketed for. I think you should look into how memory channels work. You can buy two dual channel kits or even triple channel kits (if you feel like having some spares) and they will run in quad channel (or any channel in terms of dim count) as long as they are all the same speed, timing and rank.

[@JustSomeGuy009]

not bad, but over 4 years ago I purchased Intel 2U barebone servers for E5-2600v1/v2 for $300. Intel R2224GZ4GC4 24 2.5" hot swap. I bought 3 of them, and in each put 128GB, 12GB/S LSI HBAs, 2 x E5-2670, bunch of Enterprise Intel and samsung SSD's and dirty cheap 10k SAS disk (hitachi I believe, Netapp repurposed). Best money I ever spent. Found the deals through ServeTheHome forums. The seller has a massive number of Intel gear. It's all new in box stuff too. The stuff I got had never even been opened. He's still selling tons of stuff on Ebay today. He takes MUCH lower offers then what he puts on the ads. I think I got mine for half the listed price.

[@AlexPrivett]

Would be cool to use this as a pfSense machine. Also it would be cool if we could see some content on blade servers. I have always wanted to play with them and see how they work.

[@CraftComputing]

I am always on the lookout for affordable blade systems...thus why you haven't seen them on the channel yet 😉

[@AlexPrivett]

@@CraftComputing yeah, they can be hard to find. I recently bought a dell r720xd and a whole bunch of drives for it. Installed Truenas on it from your video. I also just ordered 4 SSDs, 2 nvme, 2 sata, and a sata controller and 2 nvme, and sata m.2 adapters. Planning on using the sata drives as mirrored boot images, and the nvme as cache drives. I'll keep you updated on if I get it working or not.

[@f1ggyc]

Perhaps you can enable VTx through IPMI?

[@brettbonotto5840]

I tried on my server (same shown in the video) and I did not see a way to do it through IPMI.

[@mynameiszoro]

Question, I have bought a server rack that is identical to the one that you had before your current one, and I need to mount 3x 4U servers on it, but they didn't come with a rail and I am unsure how to buy one that fits them. Nice video mate!

[@SophiaAtkinson]

I bought one of these, it is a great server and my first server.

[@the7dan7dan]

Hey CC , I have seen that 2650 v2s are around 45 AUD shipped from AliExpress. Is that the best value 2011 cpu for a range of tasks in your opinion? Would like to see an updated opinion on 2011 options in 2021.

[@CraftComputing]

It's definitely a great chip for the price. It's actually what I linked in the video description as a recommendation for this server.

[@scottdecker8612]

Yes - 2650V2 is best bang for the buck assuming you’re building a virtualization box.

[@johnmroz315]

Thanks for this. I was oh so close to ordering one of these servers. My rack is next to my desk in my home office. I cannot imagine competing with those fans on conference calls. I will continue to look for other budget rack alternatives. I have a small (depth) rack so I need short servers. Might just have to build my own with new desktop gear. I wanted a 2 cpu build so bad. Thanks!

[@johnmroz315]

Do you think replacing the fans with noctua fans would help the sound issue?

[@ROTC589441]

@Craft Computing, Do you think the server could become more "home friendly" by replacing the factory fans with Noctua NF-A4x20 fans or would they be inadequate for cooling purposes?

[@mattscheurman1616]

I am wondering this same thing myself.