Home Server Hardware Round-Up

Missed all of our other videos about home servers? No worries, this video will give you a nice taste of all the hardware! But uh, maybe go watch the other videos too yeah?
Servers Mentioned!
+ Dell OptiPlex: www.amazon.com/dp/B019HQAL88/?...
+ Intel NUC 9 Pro: www.amazon.com/dp/B086LFB22V/?...
+ Elitemini B550: store.minisforum.com/products...
+ Supermicro Micro-Tower Server: micro.center/a1edc8
+ AsRock DeskMeet B660: www.asrock.com/nettop/Intel/D...
Videos Mentioned:
Servers
+ Intel Xeon Nuc, Now w/PCIe Expansion!: • Intel Xeon Nuc, Now w/...
+ Small and Quiet: Elitemini B550 Review: • Small and Quiet: Elite...
+ Mini Server!!!: • Mini Server!!!
+ #UltimateHomeServer - Thoughts on Diskless Raspberry Pi for Home Technology/IoT: • #UltimateHomeServer - ...
+ Deskmeet B660: More Like Desk Meat! 128gb / 20tb dGPU in a Tiny Package: • Deskmeet B660: More Li...
Alder Lake
+ Intel: Unleash the Aldritch Horror: • Intel: Unleash the Ald...
+ Alder Lake GRUDGE MATCH! i7-12700K vs i9-12900K: • Alder Lake GRUDGE MATC...
+ Alder Lake 12900k and 12600K Launch and Benchmarks!: • Alder Lake 12900k and ...
Watch The Level1Servers Playlist!
+ Level1Servers Playlist: • Vlog: Random thoughts ...
**********************************
Check us out online at the following places:
linktr.ee/level1techs
IMPORTANT Any email lacking “level1techs.com” should be ignored and immediately reported to [e-mail].
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Intro and Outro Music: "Earth Bound" by Slynk
Other Music: "Road Trip" by Slynk

[@Nec89]

Can confirm that having a 42U rack in your home does increase those digits on the electric bill. But that's literally the price to pay for being a data hoarder.

[@idontwantachannelimjustcom7745]

But in winter that rack saves on your heating bill.

[@tobiwonkanogy2975]

@@idontwantachannelimjustcom7745 Water cooled pcs are as efficient as gas or oil boilers which are considered the most efficient heating systems. the main loss is in the transition from line voltage to house voltage and then house voltage to 12v,3.3v and 5v. Agree

[@jlficken]

I have a 25U rack sitting next to my office desk with 2 Supermicro 846 systems and 2 Supermicro 836 systems in it currently. Only 1 of each is running though constantly with the others being for backup and/or tinkering. With the 2 systems and switch running it's using 550W 24/7/365 which is ~$45/mo where I live.

[@magfal]

@@tobiwonkanogy2975 water cooling does not add any efficiency when acting as a heater. Your computer's heating efficiency is equal to that of a resistive space heater. A lot less efficient than a heat pump which every single air conditioner in places that ever need heating should have been capable of working as. Oh and those losses you're talking about are lost as heat.....

[@tobiwonkanogy2975]

@@magfal heat pumps are great for near freezing temps . below -7 its just spinning for the sake of it. electric heaters are 100% efficient provided all of that energy goes to heat . would being able to complete tasks simultaneously as producing usable heat not be above 100% efficiency then? also air will cool off at freezing within one hour ,water will take about 12 hours to cool to that same temperature. So maybe i mean to say btu content is higher with water-cooled systems.

[@questionablecommands9423]

1:08 Home-lab pro tip: 37U racks will roll through most standard doors, making moving a lot easier.

[@MultiKokonutz]

Pci-e bifurcation is a godsend. Suddenly a mini-itx motherboard is more flexible than a full-atx. On a server-type build, I'd much rather have many pci-e at 4x or 8x than a single 16x

[@sidichochase]

agreed. and with pcie 5 bandwidths it becomes even more useful. Here's hoping the W790 chipset arrives soon

[@liamfoneill]

I run my old 6700k machine as a home server and couldn't be happier with it. I found that running all my services as Docker containers vs VMs was much less overhead and the machine is cool, quiet and fairly sippy on the wattage. It's running about 20 different services including Plex without breaking a sweat. I'll upgrade....eventually.

[@chainsaw2010]

Oh boy that M.2 to 2.5G nic is perfect for turning my old Thinclient into a Pfsense router. Thankyou L1Techs

[@BobHannent]

Watch out, you're playing with Realtek drivers if you're not careful, and if you get an Intel 225 you need to make sure you're getting a V3 edition.

[@chainsaw2010]

@@BobHannent Thankyou for the heads up.

[@Duncan_Campbell]

If you spot the right thin client some have pcie 4x slots in them.

[@andycrz3960]

where is the link to it ?

[@sjukfan]

Luckily I have a strict "no rack mounted computers at home" policy, or I'd have a 10 core PowerPC server, and now a 8 core Sparc T4-1 server. It should be easier to put server motherboards in cases with fans that don't sound like a fighter jet.

[@morosis82]

You can, but only the atx style ones. I'd love to have some way to reuse blades without the crazy chassis, often the nodes themselves can be quite cheap and I want a test cluster that won't actually run all the time.

[@Noobish588]

I have to do the same, i started out with a janky little ATX home server which how now evolved into multiple 1U and 2U servers for little reason other than because I can

[@timmy7201]

I build my servers inside of an IKEA kitchen closet., that was a lot cheaper.. Drilled some holes int it for Noctua fans, the rattling of my harddisks make more noise than the fans... It's also very easy to remove a drawer from the closet, whenever maintenance or repairs are needed. My setup has the storage server (6 x 18TB mdadm raid 6) in the bottom drawer, the second drawer is still empty, the third drawer has my vbox Proxmox server, the top drawer is for networking...

[@mytech6779]

You can fix the fan issue by fabricating a duct to a larger fan diameter. Short form funnel shape or remote flex tube. Assuming you don't need to maximize rack density. Could even duct in outside air in the winter or dump hot air outside in the summer depending on actual temperatures involved.

[@MichaelSmith-fg8xh]

There's an IKEA TV unit that is mesh sided and holds 6 ATX sized cases (eg Silverstone HTPC)

[@VRLunatic]

This was like a superior version of QVC for computer hardware nerds. Awesome work as always!

[@BobBobson]

The power savings of Ryzen is fantastic. I upgraded from a T7500 with dual X5687s to a 5600x and it's been incredible. No more max system draw of 500W.

[@morosis82]

It's not just Ryzen. I run an Epyc machine and even with a lot of stuff connected it's just over 100W fairly idle for 32 cores, 256GB 3200, 8 HDD, a video card, 4x nvme SSDs and a couple of SATA SSDs.

[@Timichaud]

Hey! I have a dual X5690 (2x 6c/12t) and I plan to switch it for a 5950X AMD. I run on my dual x5690 proxmox and trueNas and vms and dockers so I worrying about switching from dual xeon to a 5950 amd but I think it will handle nicely and put it in a rack case and put graphic cards for gaming too. What do you think? Because my IBM with dual x5690 cant have gaming GPU x16 slots and its so loud and cost electricity badly

[@morosis82]

@@Timichaud the 5950 will run literal rings around the dual Xeon. The main reason not to go consumer these days is lots of memory, and lots of PCIe. If your needs can be met within what that platform gives you then I'd suggest you don't even need a 5950 to easily exceed the power of dual Nehalem xeons.

[@tw1tch09]

This comment shall serve as the official petition for Wendel to permanently wear a cowboy hat for an indefinite period going forward.

[@linkdude64]

Thanks for being you, Wendell. Everyone really likes you, and you're just great.

[@Chris_miller192]

The AMD 5600G and B550 motherboards will idle at around 15W. The G series processors don’t have the I/O die; it’s a monolithic chip. It runs with a lower power as a result.

[@timli1871]

Can the G series run ecc mode ?

[@Chris_miller192]

@@timli1871 Not the G. The “G pro” can. It’s an OEM product only though, so it’s not really obtainable.

[@ssu7653]

@@Chris_miller192 just buy a OEM machine as you base...

[@BikingWIthPanda]

i'm off grid on solar and the low-power Celeron J4125 system uses about 3 watts at idle. systems like this are invaluable and I would love more insight from your beautiful mind on the subject.

[@BikingWIthPanda]

currently battling storage power efficiency, having a 4-device (2-hdd, 2-ssd) external storage array that uses 30-40 watts is actually a lot more power than you'd expect. any ideas on having 16tb of mirrored storage without spending that much on power consumption?

[@hamzashaikh9310]

I assume you have a budget. But if you have lots of money check out the recently released asus zenbook laptop having amd 6800u chip running at 15w sustained under load. Ridiculous power efficiency both in idle and in load. Those 6800u based laptops are looking real good as servers due to their power efficiency.

[@hamzashaikh9310]

As for storage power efficiency, i believe sk hynix p41 platinum 2tb ssds are the current most efficient ones. But i prefer teamgroup mp34q 8tb ssd due to its bigger size per ssd.

[@BikingWIthPanda]

@@hamzashaikh9310 it would work best if it has wake-on-lan but i'm currently using a 2500u that runs at less than 20 watts under load too

[@tobiwonkanogy2975]

I'm not sure if I have a thin and light as it was given broken . I believe I use a ryzen 3500u laptop configured to either 10 or 15 watts all in . A low end brand new mini ryzen pc configured to the same tdp would presumably blow the Celeron out of the water.

[@caseyhefner1966]

I have that same model of Supermicro server that I saved from EWaste. 4cores. 16gb ram, 16tb usable storage. 500gb Cache. Been running great for over a year.

[@Prometheus722]

Thanks for the video, Wendell. I built a home server in 2020 with the i3 10100 and it was really surprising how powerful, inexpensive and efficient it ended up being (30-ish watt idle before HDDs). It was also nice during the height of c-word that I could just walk into my local computer shop and grab one off the shelf, while AMD product was borderline non-existent. Its looking like the i3 has been an underappreciated value king for at least the past few generations.

[@Turalyon0001]

I love this video series, that's giving so many ideas ! Thanks Wendell.

[@jacobnoori]

More server content please! Maybe you can advance into homelab level hardware next video?

[@emlyndewar]

I know there are only so many videos you can do rounding-up mini PCs as home servers, but it is great content.

[@bcnom]

Hey Wendell! Have heard about your channel but have really dived into some videos recently as I'm on my homelab journey. Currently repurposing some mini-ITX machines into streaming vgpu machines and this video was a godsend. It makes sense but never guessed there would be M.2 form factor intel chipset NICs. Just picked one up and just want to say appreciate all your videos! :)

[@mauldus]

Perfect timing! Just got my B550. Going to be my htpc/steamos/retro front end for my entertainment center. Playing media from my supermicro fileserver.

[@MRPtech]

I've been running Intel NUC 12th Gen i7 with 64GB Ram + Mirrored Raid. Previously i was using refurbished Office PC which was using 3x more electricity while idle compared to current NUC. I am absolutely happy with my current system.

[@Quarky_]

That clip of Wendell foraging was hilarious :D :D Good job editor :)

[@jacoblee4424]

Replaced my old xeon E3 workstation/server with the minisforum hx90 recently. Got rid of the wifi module on the m.2 a+e jack, and swapped in one of those NIC's. Best i could find was a realtek based one that was 1gbit as it needed to be low profile (think 90deg bend right off the header). It works great as an additional input for ethernet (used as a security onion listening port from my switches span). Power draw is down 40w from the old setup, and the new ryzen 9 w/ 64gb ram has a ton more power. Great video outlining these options!

[@wisemasterbuilder]

Great Video for Our UPCOMING Projects! Thanks Wendell, L1Techs

[@Quettesh]

I'm using unRAID running on Ryzen 5 3600 + B550 MB in second hand Define XL and I'm really happy with it so far. It is mostly for backups and media, so one 2.5Gbps LAN is more than enough.

[@Aint1S]

Literally on the day I bought some hardware to expand my network, this comes out! This is tempting. Just trying mesh my wireless network and extend it until I settle on the backbone.

[@thestrykernet]

Thanks for covering power consumption as that's one thing I'm really looking for as I consider replacing my SNB based Xeon server box. Quick note: the W680 lists the i5-12500+, and on Ark the i5-12500 and above shows ECC support, but everything below it doesn't.

[@kkrawczyk-xyz]

On Supermicro page there's also info about motherboards with R680 chipset supporting ECC memory for LGA-1700 (e.g. Supermicro MBD-X13SAZ-F). So maybe an alternative to W680.

[@thestrykernet]

That's supposed to be the embedded chipset, and the embedded processors do tend to support ECC across the whole line so it will be interesting to see what pricing ends up looking like.

[@TheRogueBro]

I got an old Dell that I did unspeakable things too that is now my home server. i7-3770s (the "low power" model). Gave it 16gb of RAM (only a dual slot) and then put it in a Silverstone NAS case. It's been running strong like 5 years now. Runs my game servers, VM's for pi-hole, media storage, you name it! It's been the best! Although I would love to upgrade/replace it for more cores, RAM and more HDD space now

[@chromerims]

3:52 -- Yes, dual NICs to ease the glidepath to virtualization. Great video 👍 Kindest regards, friends and neighbours.

[@dev9619]

My PM friend at work sold me a Dell R510 with 96GB RAM and 2 TB for $100. It has helped immensely in learning different IT tools.

[@amessman]

When do we get to see the Wendell HomeLab Tour?

[@zone619]

Running my home server with ECC Ram & raid controller & GPU passthrough on AMD 4750G platform. It's amazing. Way better than those enterprise antiques I've been worked with.

[@pauldevey8628]

Great video. Lots of great ideas to digentst !

[@slim5782]

Power consumption has become a real concern. Always looking to reduce HDD power consumption

[@GreenCinco12Official]

a while ago I bought a relatively cheap Fujitsu Esprimo Q556 with 4 Core/8 Threads and upgraded to 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM. Proxmox Idle (2 Container, 1 VM) at around 14-16W. Small but great start into a homelab that does not need a lot of power (rip energy prices).

[@jjdawg9918]

Thanks Wendell! Just my luck to be down with the covid when this video came out. Just an incredible wealth of information perfect for those of us that don't' want unnecessary space heaters. Lovin the low idle power stuff. What would be really interesting is an on-demand cluster.(i.e. where different nodes "spin-up" as needed via wake-on lan etc) the opposite of HA I suppose. Anyway great stuff!

[@daymianhogue1634]

Thing to note on the Dell optiplexi 8th gen based ones are starting to be found reliably at good prices just snagged a refurbished i7 8700 (6 core 12 thread) one with no ram or storage for $140... but regularly saw 8-16GB ram with 250-500GB ssd ones for $300-400, which is the same price the i5 6400 (4 core 4 thread) with 8GB ram you put I the description is going for.

[@PaulDickson7]

Very interesting video, many thanks

[@lOQl]

I just use a 5 year old HP Elite book mini, it, placed the biggest 2.5 inch HDD i could find in it and for expansion I just use USB HDD. It's a great setup for nextcloud dlna torrents and anything else you need through docker Power consumption is low and they even have reboot features on power out/resume. It makes no noise aside form HDD spinning.

[@ewenchan1239]

I'm currently using the Beelink GTR5 5900HX mini PC and I'm running it for about a week now, and I'm still just checking it for stability. But so far, it's absolutely rock solid/stable. I bought the 64 GB of RAM/1 TB NVMe SSD option and it just humming along, with 10 VMs running concurrently right now and it's sipping power compared to my old Intel Core i7-6700K (which also had 64 GB of RAM as well, running the same 10 VMs). My Intel system (which also had a GeForce GTX Titan) was pulling around 200 W. The Beelink GTR5 5900HX is currently pulling somewhere around maybe like 40-50 W. Yes, the Beelink system probably costs more now than it would cost to build said Intel Core i7-6700K system, but the 5900HX also sports 8 cores/16 threads as well. And if I wanted to, I can set/configure the TDP on the 5900HX and take it back down to the default setting of 35 W, and cut the power consumption by some, and give up a little bit of the performance that comes with the 45 W TDP as well. But at least you can do that. So far, so good. REALLY happy with the system so far. (And the Beelink GTR5 sports DUAL 2.5 GbE NICs as well PLUS WiFi 6E.) So it's a great little system for a homelab. HIGHLY recommend it.

[@OwlishGeorge]

Personally I went with a SuperMicro EATX (EEATX? whatever their format is) board with a pair of old Xeons, 128gb of ecc and shoved it into a Fractal Design Define 7 XL with a bunch of cheap drives. Works great for just about anything I could want to do and gives me plenty of cores (20c/40t) and memory to work with for virtualization. Best part of it all is that it's dead silent!

[@joshuanine7690]

Definitely working towards a home server and after seeing this I might be able to slightly upgrade my computer to start

[@camjohnson2004]

I used one of those M.2 to 2.5G adapters in my Thread ripper server (Zen+ so i has 3x NVMe slots on board) With you taking about the cable that connects the RJ45 port to the M.2 card not being ideal when it comes to signal integrity i got around that by building my own connector cable using CAT6 Ethernet cable and using punch down IDC connectors (similar to ribbon cable connectors used for series ports) that way the twitted pair remains mostly un-broken. sure its not as good as having it soldered direct the M.2 device but far better than the one they provide

[@DigiDriftZone]

I recently bought a Mac Mini M1 16GB ram for a server for £600 second hand. I run Github Actions on it for continuous integration, it is my media server, it runs my Ansible stuff and it's super quiet and power efficient. It is connected to a small USB hub with 4 x SATA to USB adapters going to 2TB SSDs (8TB total at 500MB/sec on a budget) - all mounted under my standing desk and completely invisible. Something to consider!

[@EmilePolka]

those m.2/mini pcie nic, I usually dont use the breakout board for rj45 and instead repin it using a cat6 cable and directly connect it to a switch/modem/ONT

[@gleep23]

Yeah enterprise gear is great for learning (Eg. Cisco lab), but 4U servers are way to noisy, hot and expensive to run. The Tiny Mini Micro / One Litre PCs are a superb alternative.

[@osrr6422]

I have one of those lil Dell SFFs (with an i3-4130t), makes a GREAT pfsense box.

[@Isaac-X113]

My home network servers are a old dell optiplex and an i5 8600 mobo combo with 32gb of ram bought used for 100 USD. The i5 does so much without any problems 2 MC servers jellyfin and way way more. ~200 watts with stress-ng both together

[@dh66]

Oh yea! Thanks for the heads up on the 5950x sale! I've been patiently waiting for a deep discount on it. Wifey gets my 3700x.... What to do with the 1800x though.. No board for it now!

[@leonf3678]

You can get one of those small aliexpress pcs with 4 2.5gb nics with the N6005 pentium for a small router too, they consume like 15w

[@comfysofa1549]

Ive got an r720 (backup) and an r730 (main machine) just sitting on a shelf....the noise problem is not an issue....if youre brave enough you can pull the stock tumbledryer fans and put in Nocturas - the ceiling rpm of the noctura is 3k - correctly wired in the onboard iDrac sees this correctly....ive left mine on for days/weeks at a time with no heat issues whatsoever and ive not seen the power usage go over 300w (about 150) is the normal load when doing its base plex job - plus you get the idrac control so you can remote power up and down....

[@ThineHolyBacon]

Current homelab is 3x Lenovo Tiny PC's w/ Mellanox Connect X-2's and 1x Mikrotik 10GbE SFP+ switch. About 6L of volume, including power bricks and all at 10Gigabit speeds :D

[@Airbag888]

I recommend you guys Wolfgang channel and especially one of his last videos where he explains how to get your idle consumption to single digits

[@jdogdarkness]

From what I understand the alder lake celerons and such like the 12100 only boost up to 4.1 GHz (allegedly 4.3 according to specs). I personally would want less than 12400 if single core is important for a project.

[@gempio2634]

I recommend doing some tests on Rocket lake CPUs. Ive managed to put together a homelab for about $400 but its i7 and 32 gig of ram. Add a small SSD and an efficient psu and its idling at 16-17W off the wall. I get that its more expensive than the optiplex but considering the lower power draw you will get your money back in a year.

[@davisito9341]

thank you level 1

[@tohur]

Just built me a cheap pfsense router with a quad 2.5 gigabit card found on newegg.. thing is a beast even it being built on intel fourth gen (old Living room PC). found a HP PC I got for free that was in a super small case that fitted micro ATX and was perfect to build a router in

[@randaldavis8976]

I have a rack & some HP 9000 (d350/712) unix gear, getting a bit old now, but "retro". My current desktop will become my home server unless I go for a cheaper upgrade.

[@Whitect4v]

I got a Lenovo thinkcentre p330 SFf with Intel 9700 8 core for $300 on eBay. Very clean. higher core count Lenovo/Dell systems are priced really well right now.

[@middle_pickup]

I would like to see idle power benchmarks for alder lake vs old xeons. Maybe x79 or x99 platform systems. Those Chinese boards for those old platforms have become popular home NAS plex servers. I'd also like to see x265 benchmarks on those. My server is either transcoding a bluray rip in handbrake, streaming my plex library or sitting idle. I'm simple, but I do want to know what the power savings are actually like.

[@NamesGolden]

I'm hoping more homelabbers start building small off-grid solar power systems as a UPS for their lab. might cost a bit more than a plain UPS, but so does the rest of our crap. victron is the what most homelabbers should check out, but there are many all in one units like the mpp 1012 that will do the job for small labs and keep a fridge/sump pump going during long term outages. in most places you can get two used ~250w panels for well under $200. its a shame that grid-tie isn't very possible at a small scale in the US

[@DrewryPope]

pls i cant handle all this CONTENT

[@DrewryPope]

follow-up on xcp-ng/xostor with more details on networking/failover, wendell's intro to kubernetes clusters using talos (fancy kubernetes OS that has NO ssh capability, only API), maybe wendell's intro to openstack using kubernetes (openstack-helm pls). i feel the api driven infrastructure as code world is only just beginning.

[@wertacus]

What perfect timing! I just picked up a nice 12u network rack and I'm working on starting my journey down that route. Something I've had a hard time finding is a cheap poe switch for some cameras and a wifi AP. I've got some of those mini pcs lying around that I'd like to make into a pihole type device for adblocking and to just generally learn what I can about networking so ill be following this series closely. Thanks!

[@tinem67]

You can make your own poe injector. It's near impossible to poe over wifi, but the used poe injectors are pretty cheap as well.

[@spiralout112]

If all you need is gigabit there's an insane number of POE switches going for dirt cheap on ebay that likely have identical features to new hardware. Switches are one of those things that I will likely be buying used for the rest of my life.

[@wertacus]

@@tinem67 make my own? That sounds like fun. I'm gonna have to look into that

[@ps2-one]

Take a look at the Mikrotik switches, affordable and powerful.

[@mytech6779]

My old synology NAS (single drive, 1G ether, Linux so more than just NAS) idles under 10w and peaks at 20-25w, the 1G ether is more than enough to saturate the WD-red spinning disk.

[@joshua7551]

Wendel: "Cast off enterprise hardware" Me: So, like the 3 T420s that I got from work? Wendel: "Heres an Optiplex 3040 SFF" Me: 🙃

[@spectacularglasses4418]

I picked up a Dell Poweredge r720xd. I went way over board to be honest 😅. I do love the box tho does more than i'll ever need.

[@mocfunkyy]

In using an old PowerEdge R210 II as my router with a quad 2.5G nic. 1 2.5g goes to modem and the other 3 go to my switch. Yeah it's older and less efficient hardware but it was super cheap up front

[@matthewdinslage7179]

at 16:33, If that is an Intel X550-T2 then it should do 2.5GbE and 5Gbe. the older X540 NIC's only do 1Gbe and 10Gbe. Excellent Video BTW.

[@mrfilipelaureanoaguiar]

I guess xeons will come soon. I need to host my own webpage so it will take everything a server can offer in security and ECC. Looking at those AMD , Pro series are interresting, would be great a ryzen pro as router fully encrypted ...Interresting videos 👍

[@twistidclowns]

Ive done then same thing but I broke out the dremal and soldering iron, allowing my thin client to look stock from all but one side.

[@Nightykk]

Sitting on an A300 with a 2200G, sipping about 14-16W, with a couple of VMs and several dockers.. More than plenty for what I do. Sadly the NAS next to it sucks about 35W doing nothing. That's my next goal to bring down. Did experiment a bit with using my old PC hardware as a server, managed to get a C6H mobo with a 1800X running at ~35W idle, with a slight undervolt/clock (3.6GHz boost).. It might still one day take over for my server/NAS... Still quite a bit more electricity sucking than the 2200G though, even if it has 4-6 times the power of that 2200G.

[@cromefire_]

With energy prices old hardware isn't that great, but higher end market new hardware is also expensive pretty fast... It's really hard to choose. Might be getting an E5-2683 V3, but with those prices a 5950X might almost make sense...

[@h2oaddict28]

From lots personal experience, old hardware is usually a waste of time and money. Especially if you need a bit of ram...

[@cromefire_]

@@h2oaddict28 Well that processor would take DDR4, so RAM prices are the same it'd only be power and price probably

[@Phil-D83]

From early 2019, U Using a 3200g on a b450 matx with dual gigabit nic. Works like a champ for gigabit cable with opnsense

[@DiyintheGhetto]

Please do the wiki video. The other ones out there I see most are using the pi or some other small sbc system but not a full server.

[@s1mph0ny]

I'm going to counter-signal you on running ECC for non-xeon processors on older intel generations. Definitely doesn't work for HP's "off-enterprise" workstation boards in the Haswell generation, and I've used a xeon on the same board so know there's nothing wrong with the setup otherwise. Makes for an unfortunate limitation because hardly any of the Xeons include an IGP, which means you need to give up at least a lane of PCIe for graphics. This is all being limited based on a configuration bit, the hardware is of course the same. Intel didn't make a completely separate run of xeons with 72bit memory controllers while leaving the normal boards behind, but it seems they've been manipulating board vendors into disabling the full function if the "wrong" cpu is installed.

[@mikescott4008]

Interested in the NUC to replace a Poweredge r220 for a hypervisor. My truenas runs on a t340 poweredge. Looking at replacing red WD drives with SSD for lower power.

[@Phil-D83]

Using a cheap 3200g build from 2019 for my pfsense (now opnsense). Love it

[@Sunlight91]

30W idle power for a Dell Optiplex??? I run an HP ProDesk 600 with an i5 9500 to host my websites. It uses just 7W in idle thanks to a platinum efficiency power supply and 12V motherboard. I guess the 8GB 2666 DDR4 is quite efficient as well as is the nvme SSD. It did cost just £150 on eBay.

[@andre-le-bone-aparte]

@17:49 - This is what we all are thinking... buying older Xeon retired workstations converted to homelabs or using custom Alder Lake builds.

[@exeptMusic]

I would do this, but im paying out of my ass for electricity right now. It is not an option to run old Xeon platforms

[@vulcan4d]

Still rocking my low power Xeon Haswell. Don't see a need for more in a home lab and now stupid low cost.

[@nioxic77]

I use an older intel i5 6600 (non K) for my server.. it's doing ok and since i dont use it at night, i have it auto shut down at night and auto turn on in the morning. saving some money.

[@dgo4490]

What a coincidence, just did a small server build with a 5750g pro yesterday.

[@crimsionCoder42]

I have a Nuc 9 pro and love it. Would you say that the NUC 9 Pro is still relevant for a home lab? They're dropping in price and I was thinking of going HA in proxmox with 3 of these. However, Lenovo came out with the Thinkstation p360 Ultra and you can get a similar size unit with a 12900 or 13900 with 128 gb ram. Should I wait till the price drops on the ultras or go with NUC?

[@Meister_Knobi]

I have bought an Dell Optiplex 3060 with i5 8500, 8gb mem and m2 250gb and a fresh proxmox Install ist idleing at around 10-12W

[@Linkedblade]

Ive been reading that if you update the X550-T2 via windows, it does support 2.5 gbaset and 5gbaset

[@derekp6636]

been trimming the home lab down to all NUCs to save power and heat at the moment. the old t5500 was fun but the 11th gen cpu runs circles around it

[@JohnSmith-yz7uh]

I just got 3 NUCs with i3 7100U in it Installed proxmox on them and created a cluster

[@davidgermain]

what about the laptop mainboard? pull the wifi modules out of them and put in the nic module... low power 5 in on the case. yeah the power supply will be tricky but probably no worse than some of the other options

[@benjamintrathen6119]

Nice topic

[@rasmusjonsson1348]

Hello! Is there a NIC that can run a subsystem (like a linux install) so that it's possible to boot a machine from a network storage (like NAS) and if so even control the computer by accessing the display output and emulate USB input (mouse and keyboard)? I might head over to the Level1 forum and check there.

[@benjamintrathen6119]

There is a mainstream H670 itx board from asrock with dual nic, unfortunately the nic's arent the latest.

[@alt5494]

It would be interesting if raptor lake had a 32 E-core CPU with no P-cores.

[@jasonoutman420]

That's what I want too, would consider a 16C variant also

[@entvex]

please more!

[@CustardCream515]

This is the first video I'm looking at for server stuff, but I'm playing with the idea of moving a minecraft realm world to a personal server and also using that machine to store backups of about 1tb of data with room for expansion. What sort of system listed here should I be looking at for that? I understand with all things you get what you pay for, just don't want to invest in a full rack if I know I won't be needing it, just as I don't wanna cheap out and screw myself over later on

[@pieterrossouw8596]

Fractal Node 804 is a great cheap homelab case

[@Levent_Ergun]

I love AM4 platform so much. I upgrade the CPU in my AM4 PC, then my AM4 home server gets an hand-me-down CPU upgrade. I upgrade the motherboard, server gets an upgrade.

[@spiralout112]

Alder lake with the w680 might actually be a great idea. Ive got a pair of R320's and a R720 that hasn't been turned on in months. Actually just run one 320 usually, and yeah idle power consumption is the name of the game and about the only consideration when it comes to upgrading. Also it's comical how quickly after getting a small rack I started thinking about a SFF setup. Either way if it could idle at 20-30w that would be sweet, performance isn't really a big deal but high clock speed would be nice. Just wish virtualization didn't love lots of cores so much.

[@IK4MS]

Yeah now all we need are W680 boards...

[@Sunlight91]

I run an HP ProDesk 600 SFF with an i5 9500 to host my websites. It uses just 7W in idle thanks to a platinum PSU.

[@spiralout112]

@@Sunlight91 Yeah that's the dream right there, lack of PCIE expandability is the only hang up I have with most SFF stuff. Probably move to something like that dell in the video with a pair of half height slots one day.

[@benjamintrathen6119]

UPDATE: ECC support for W680 chipset: Only on the i5 12500 and upwards in the product stack, same with 13th gen.

[@benjamintrathen6119]

Hi Wendell, I have an i9 Z390-itx system with 960 pro 512gb C drive, would you consider a 660p 2TB paired with a 118gb 800p optane a decent upgrade for me? or would you just keep the 960 pro and add the 2tb 660p as a secondary drive, I only have 2 m.2 slots. The system also has a 1tb 850 pro and a 6tb barracuda pro.

[@marcounchained]

my trusty dell t320 has been nothing but great to me.

[@R055LE.1]

Not just the electricity concerns anymore, the old enterprise equipment is just that.. old. I've run into situations where even though I had all the cores in the world a 4790k smokes them in actual performance. I run actual enterprise testing and apps at home and I got to a point where my Dell 610's are off completely, it just wasn't worth fighting them anymore.