I have no intention of running either of those operating systems.
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Cheapest way to get into servers
- Thread starter travm
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somebrains
[H]ard|Gawd
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I'm lead DevSecOps and SRE for an Amazon Partner. Was a VMware and Xen architect before that. Wrangled bare metal before that.
So I've seen waves come and go, and I'm not jumping in whatever the latest is. There will always be use cases to address appropriately.
Problem is that I've seen too many people get stuck at whatever layer of ideation that tends to be the easiest or most comfortable for them to approach and that's it.
There's also a persistent adoption of a shrink wrapped methodology bc some company does something some way that may clash with the company composition/size/goals. But Netflix or Facebook or some such.
Either way to get back to the OP he doesn't sound like they're clear on what they want so whatever cheapie gear they accumulate vs whatever they decide to learn is fine.
Normally I want someone that can't tell me what they're good at to run the gamut to see what technologies interest or resonate with them most and just fill in the condiment ideas as they progress.
If they're buying that gear out of pocket, I'll point out alternatives to try first, then gear fish from there.
You'll run into the same issue with Ubuntu. 14.04 LTS is the latest supported version on the G6/G7.
https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201403-14898
Obviously you can use workarounds and community drivers for newer versions but good luck.
In that regard I fully understand how that works. Just because Canonical wont provide commercial support, doesn't mean that it wont just work either.
It won't just work and don't you want to be able to use the HPE Management Component Pack? I thought that was the whole point in using enterprise hardware for the learning experience?
https://downloads.linux.hpe.com/SDR/project/mcp/
Nothing about that link is telling me this won't work. Why are you so sure?
The cost of entry for more modern gear is too high. Even the suggestions to just use gaming hardware, considerably more expensive than what I just purchased.
Because I've been using the HPE hardware since it was Compaq. I currently have a DL360e Gen8 that not all of the hardware health sensors work in ESXi 6.5 because HP stopped supporting it ESXi 6.0. You can work around some things but it's a hard stop trying to go up to 6.7 or 7.0.
There's no reason to use gaming hardware unless you have some extra laying around. You can use any off the shelf cpu/mb combo as long as the chipset and cpu are supported by the OS you're planning on using. I have a few NUCs that I use for testing and running things because they're cheap and take up next to no space. But if you want an Enterprise experience, you need to use Enterprise hardware like you're already doing and need to use a supported OS.
Exactly what I'll get. Including the experience of making open source unsupported software work on older server kit. If i have to use EoL ubuntu to make it work for the hypervisor so be it.
That's a nice machine, but I'd say it's too expensive still. I bet you can get this one for just a little more than shipping:
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelabsales/comments/kptwe9/fs_usnj_hp_360_g5/
Actually at that age, it proves their reliability. I don't think the more modern ones will make it that long as you can tell they are 'cheaping out' on them. Kinda like the build quality in Japanese cars of today versus the early 1990s.
And if you're starting out in servers, you won't know what the difference is in esxi 5.5 or even 4.0 as it's all new stuff to begin with. By the time you need to upgrade, better gear is available at your price point. If you keep doing this at some point you do get caught up on the software and then can consider the cost of catching up on hardware, which can be significant.
There's a certain point where an upgrade as absolutely necessary, but it all depends on what you are doing and what the demand is. I'm still using the old Intel ss4200-e nas units as they work fine for what I need them for. But if I needed to saturate gigabit, they won't do the job.
You don't go out and buy snap on tools when you've never changed your own oil. I think the same applies for servers or other high end computing--don't buy what someone else tells you that you need because only you will know what you need. And you will only figure that out in time. Jumping too heavily into servers is like like a crawling baby buying expensive running shoes, lol.
Bummer on those ccc (cheap chinese crap) caddies--people will sell genuine used ones reasonable and usually less.
No need for a cabinet--lackrack Or just get a lack table and put it on the table, lol. I had enough servers to fill 14u before I got 14u--they run fine stacked on the ground.Be sure to look into proxmox as well. That seems to be the 'go to' in a lot of labs. Not the same as the paid stuff, but the concepts are what's important as the software will always change.
MrGuvernment
Fully [H]
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Do not get a 1950 or a 2950, they are all too old and power hungry and very loud, are not supported in modern hypervisors well and performance will be crap to do anything on them.
Xeon X5600 series CPU or higher or Xeon E3 v1 or higher.
Xeon X5600 series CPU or higher or Xeon E3 v1 or higher.
jlbenedict
2[H]4U
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- May 22, 2005
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this is an excellent point... depending on the load/component mixture of your server.. even older G5's or G6's, you would be surprised at what the power usage is..
I previously had 2 DL 380 G6's.. .. nothing too high spec'd... Dual Intel L5640's and each ram slot filled with 4gb sticks for 72gb in each server.. 4 WD 150gb Raptors in each.. and usb stick running ESX 6.0
At idle each one was only 120 watts.. they would only ramp up if some of my VM's were actually doing something.. such as Plex or a SQL server...
(for my electric rates).. That is a little bit over $5 per month, per server.. so approximately $126 yearly in electric, if I guesstimate based on idle power. Going to the next generation of servers like a G7 or G8 is not going to be much different or lower..
It will take multiple years and years and years to get an equal of the ROI and cancelling out the power usage of an older server, if going new.
It doesn't prove their reliability, it just means that HP support has already replaced parts on them before you got your hands on one.
After a couple of weeks you'll be good with the hardware and have absolutely nothing to run on it because no modern software runs on the ancient supported OS's you have to use. But if that's what you want to focus on, more power to you.
No one is saying buy top of the line new servers, but unless you absolutely have to have sever hardware to play with, a NUC or any other modern mb/cpu combo is a better choice. If you are going to purchase server hardware, spend of few more bucks and get something like a Gen9 which is still supported by HP with the current OS releases.
A few more bucks in this case is 200% more.
The G6 I bought was $125, no drives.
Can't wait to see who's argument rings true on this.
So basically in two years you can spend another $125 on a G7 and then in two more you can spend another $125 on a Gen8 or you could just spend that now and use a Gen9 the entire time. Or sell the Gen9 in two years for a little less and upgrade to a Gen10. Your upgrade prices remain the same the entire time if you're selling the old stuff anyway. It's just with the G6, it'll be worthless and you'll just have to scrap it instead of being able to sell it.
Or I could keep the G6....
I have no intention of reselling any of this gear, it's not worth my time. Even if I could resell this shit at what I paid for it, I'm an engineer FFS, not a sales guy. Time spent troubleshooting hardware and software has value. Time spent trying to sell obsolete servers has no value.
I understand what you're saying, but we aren't in the same book on this.
And this is exactly the point that most people miss on these great entry level servers. Sure, you can't run the latest and greatest, but running a gen or two behind is still better than nothing and it's the concepts that are important. It's why college books that are even 50 years old are still good--it's the concepts that are important. Hell, I learned my digital logic kmaps from a 1953 textbook since my professor was regularly being called for consultation by Boeing--for him a kmap was like breathing, and for the rest of us in the class it might as well have been chinese mixed with hieroglyphics.
Nope, each of my servers came straight from the guys who got them for free from datacenters and had new ones to play with. They were definitely all original as the controller batteries needed to be replaced.It doesn't prove their reliability, it just means that HP support has already replaced parts on them before you got your hands on one.
After a couple of weeks you'll be good with the hardware and have absolutely nothing to run on it because no modern software runs on the ancient supported OS's you have to use. But if that's what you want to focus on, more power to you.
No one is saying buy top of the line new servers, but unless you absolutely have to have sever hardware to play with, a NUC or any other modern mb/cpu combo is a better choice. If you are going to purchase server hardware, spend of few more bucks and get something like a Gen9 which is still supported by HP with the current OS releases.
Depends on what you are running. Afaik, there's a lot of stuff still running on proxmox and even bare metal on these boxes.
So don't buy a top of the line server, but buy something that is still expensive so you can have support that you're not going to pay for? Enterprise support isn't typically free, so that's just another added expense.
There's two ways to get cut--the bleeding edge or the cutoff edge. On the bleeding edge it's your wallet, on the cutoff edge it's just functionality (which a newbie doesn't miss).
Why does one have to upgrade? Just to run current software? Okay, then it's a must and the older one can be sold for nearly the same price it was bought for. Plus, you're not wasting money on specs you don't know you'll be using--by the time you need another server, you know exactly what you need to get.
You don't buy a Ferrari and then learn how to drive--that's a really good way to blow a lot of money. Same with servers. Baby steps work out best--especially when a lot of people figure out that a full blown server isn't what they need, or that they've gone as far as they want and are done.
And then learn about clustering.
That's what I plan to do with my 2x 2950, 2x dl380 g5, 2x dl360 g5, z420, z600, cs24-sc, r410, r710 and anything else that will cluster up. I'll see how many vms I can run and fail over and learn about how the network plays a part in all that as well as all the concepts.Just because the controller battery was bad doesn't mean that other parts weren't replaced. I had to replace half of my Gen8s motherboards because of the ILO/SD card issue.
OK, but proxmox can run on anything with an x86 cpu with VT/AMD-V, we're not talking about a high bar here.
No one is saying purchase additional support through somewhere like Park Place for out of warranty HP hardware, it's being able to run a current OS because the manufacturer still supports that out of the box with bios updates, drivers and management packs.
Your cutoff edge of 10+ year old hardware is much different than most peoples cutoff edge of recently out of warranty hardware. Gen9s are now being replaced en masse and are the sweet spot for out of warranty cheap HP gear.
Suggesting hardware that is only 2 generations behind instead of ones that are 5 generations behind have nothing to do with a Ferrari. But sure, keep telling yourself that spending money on hardware that the people who sold it to you got it for free because they are basically worthless at this point is the way to go. If you can get it free, that's a different story.
jlbenedict
2[H]4U
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- May 22, 2005
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Just because it isn't supported, doesn't mean it will not run. I personally ran Windows Server 2019 (+Hyper-V role) on two DL380 G6's (all drivers installed as well.. nothing missing). You can run greater than ESXi 5.5 on these also; I ran 6.0 U3 on them previously and direct from HPE/Vmware are the Pre-Gen 9 images of 6.5 U3
Yeah, you can always go down the rabbit hole hacking things up to "work". But the preGen9 6.5 image only works out of the box with Gen8s, been there, tried that with G7s. You can get around it by editing the image and adding the older HPE 6.0 bundle. To get the QLogic 10GbE drivers working on the G6s with later versions of Windows, I had to install Server 2016, use the 2012 R2 drivers and then upgrade it to Server 2019. Starting with 2019 did not work. The HP Smart Storage Assistant doesn't install correctly on the G6s with Server 2019 either.