So many servers for $20

Y

YamahaAlex37

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 23, 2005
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So a local online auction has about 8 servers going for $20, and if they don't go up in price much I'm wondering if this is a good buy? They are all in great condition. I believe they are all IBM eServer™ xSeries, Here is an example of one:

IBM Server 8676-71X
Type: x335
Serial number: 78CT613
processors: 2X2.6GHZ
Includes 1GB Ram, 2x36GB disks, Servraid 4L scsi card.

I've never played with servers before :confused: but im sure i could learn, and find a use for such as hosting a game server, or I do game development so i might need it in the future learning networking. Worst case I could probably make a profit on ebay right? If anyone else is interested in some, let me know.
 
You could make a decent little cluster out of those. If you bought a bit more RAM and some bigger HD's, they could be quite useful. I'd go for it, especially for that price.
 
Not worth it. Slow as hell, probably rather loud, and quite power hungry. There is a reason they're so cheap. Don't waste your money. If you want a toy to play with, get an Atom system.
 
Well i have a few more days to see if price goes up. I am interested in this atom server what should i search for? Since i have this laying around, would a P4 2.4ghz with 2gb ram and a radeon 9600xt be a sufficient server for say, playing hl2 co op for example.

*edit - i guess this answered my question: http://www.crn.com/reviews/channel-...;jsessionid=cdXrPlx0Nmisk6J6Y05skQ**.ecappj01

he used a 2.4 p4 with 768mb ram. Would a 5400 rpm hard drive be a problem?

Also, would my 5mbps limit me say i wanted my friend in another location to join?
 
Those Xeon processors are essentially the same as your Pentium 4. The SCSI drives are also going to be slow as hell. Your current system should be enough for a doing that. A 5400rpm drive won't really be a limiting factor. Since you didn't specify whether or not the 5mbit is for your downstream or upstream connection, I presume it is downstream. Upstream is what matters, but you really don't need much for just a couple people. As for the Atom system, that's a processor. You can find it in many motherboards. They're inexpensive and are a better alternative to the IBM system if you just want a toy to play with.
 
Buy and resell IMO
Otherwise I can sell ya some 146gb/72gb scsi disks :D
 
Darakian said:
$20. You should be able to get that much for the ram alone.
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ECC DDR1 is not in high demand. Especially when it is slow (presumably PC2100) and consists of either 512mb sticks or 256mb sticks. It's really worthless. You also have to take shipping into account (probably around $50), which makes it even less worthwhile.
 
For $20 with no shipping fee. It could serve useful purposes for gateways(mail/web/routing/misc) for small company setting with standard rack setup. For $20, you can even use it as emergency spare as well. 2x36GB SCSI in Linux RAID-1 is sufficient for small-size deployment without any problem.

below opinion is for home use scenario :

Though I agree for home use it could be an issue because 1-U box normally quite noisy. I am not familiar with that model so it is just a guess. Usually those are only useful if you belong to the IT professional group with desire using cheap server for home testing purpose and perhaps emergency work deployment. (corporate rack setup)

You cannot add GPU. You can use them for storage but high capacity SCSI drives are expensive and people have moved on to SAS 10K/15K and SSD so your reasonable option is add-on card with eSATA connection to external eSATA enclosure.

I did read on one of the threads in [H] forum where someone build a rack full of such servers for complex services and network studies plus testing. It could be useful here if you have similar needs as sometimes full-scale complex networking cannot be fully and easily simulated in a virtualization environment
 
I still wouldn't buy any personally. You won't want to use it in your home due to noise (ever heard a dual socket 1U system?) and power usage (Atom system for example may be more expensive up front, but will pay for itself over time due to that fact alone and it isn't proprietary, ancient, and noisy). They really aren't going to fetch much for resale either.
 
My opinion is that you should buy one at $20 just to satisfy your curiosity. Worst scenario is that you're out $20.
 
450 said:
My opinion is that you should buy one at $20 just to satisfy your curiosity. Worst scenario is that you're out $20.
Click to expand...

Ya Id probably go with this. If you want something to play with and dont really care where it comes from as long as its cheap then just pick one up.

If you want something that is solid that you can play with, isnt power hungry, and can be used for a lot for projects, get the Atom.

I picked up a couple systems similar to these in the past. They were dual opteron blade servers. Cost about $35 each after shipping. one is doing a great job being a test bed for random things, the others im not yet using. And I had to upgrade the RAM in one anyways.

IMO if its only $20 you could resell the drives and RAM and make some money but dont expect to make a fortune. I think I was paying ~$17 for a 1 gig of EEC registered DDR1 and drives for $10each. Up to you but also keep in mind the servers take up a good bit of space and will take a noticable bite out of your electric bill. my IBM Netvista costs almost as much a month as my I7 920, SLI gaming rig lol...
 
The sad part about those is the fact that the newer Atom 330's and D510's outclass those Xeon's in synthetic benchmarks. Which is actually not far off from real world performance either. But once you factor the power difference vs. the Atoms, those old Xeons are garbage.
 
Ya they really arent. But if you are purely looking for a system to play around with the $20 really cant be beat. If you are looking for something to play around with that will eventually be used for something then its no contest, get an Atom.
 
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