Gimmie a clue.. should I buy I server?

So I've been looking on auction sites.. (you know the one) and I keep coming back to the idea of buying a server.. (I don't know why but may I like the idea of this?)

O.K. so if I do decide to buy a server.. what the fook am I going to do with it? (What can I do with it?)

Obviously there's webhosting, proxies and so fourth.. but what else?!

Apologies Mods if I posted this in the wrong place..

To be honest, if you are asking these questions, the answer to your first question is no.

Come up with a plan, then work out what you need, not the other way around...

You missed the most important piece of the puzzle. Network.

A server without high speed internet connectivity is like buying a Ferrari and wondering how to drive it without fuel.

You can buy it for learning purpose if you want to learn about server administration and stuffs.

fasttrak said:

To be honest, if you are asking these questions, the answer to your first question is no.

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Took the words right out of my mouth.

@SpongeR0b, buying a server could be a great investment!
@SpongeR0b, buying a server could be a poor expense!

It's up to you to find reasons to buy such a thing. Spend some time searching for why one may wish to buy a server, and then go from there.

I have a full size 42U rack in my home

Right now we live in incredible times. You can buy hardware that was $10,000 for a few hundred dollars. Only thing is that these machines draw a lot of power, noise and heat.

For hosting site, it is not practical. For hosting a VMs it is a dream. Having your own powerhouse server at your disposable, I can tell you it works wonders in the world of IM.

I am a big IBM/Lenovo guy so my rack is mainly filled up with Model 3 and Model 4 2U IBM servers, and I have some Cisco UCS servers as well that I got for dirt cheap!!!

What is your budget? I can certainly give you some good recommendations!

Thanks @UnderAchevied for a normal response, I understand what the others (before you) have said, I read similar threads myself so I know where they're coming from in that respect.

I've been watching a S6 HP, it sold for around £25 + £15/£20 postage so literally it was dirt cheap.. the seller must have a few of these and relisted another one.. I was thinking for that kinda money it'll be a shame not to have one myself for my own projects.

Internet speed is fine here.. 1GB download 100MB Upload or there abouts..

I've made many websites myself so literally I'd have the option to also host these as well, plus I could allow proxy access to close friends who wouldn't take the Michael.

The reason I was asking is obviously there must be many more possibilities and I'm always open to suggestions and knowledge.. Thanks everyone

Must be fairly old / low powered for that price but hey, why not buy and give it a go - as long as you’re not investing loads, it’s a great way to learn.

just make sure it’s got all the components installed, you’ve got caddy’s, drives etc.

Also, assuming it’s a rack server, consider the space you’ll need for it.

SpongeR0b said:

Thanks @UnderAchevied for a normal response, I understand what the others (before you) have said, I read similar threads myself so I know where they're coming from in that respect.

I've been watching a S6 HP, it sold for around £25 + £15/£20 postage so literally it was dirt cheap.. the seller must have a few of these and relisted another one.. I was thinking for that kinda money it'll be a shame not to have one myself for my own projects.

Internet speed is fine here.. 1GB download 100MB Upload or there abouts..

I've made many websites myself so literally I'd have the option to also host these as well, plus I could allow proxy access to close friends who wouldn't take the Michael.

The reason I was asking is obviously there must be many more possibilities and I'm always open to suggestions and knowledge.. Thanks everyone

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S6 HP? Can not familiar with that model, are you referring to G6?.

And if you are looking at tower servers, they are great for the form factor. But if you want the biggest value for your money and are okay with them consuming a little power, look into decommissioned rack servers. More than often this equipment is coming off lease, or being decommissioned. Leaving them almost worthless to a company due to them being replaced/outdated.

With that being said there are some incredible deals that can be found online if you know what you are looking at.

The other thing that you want to be familair with when using these servers is a hypervisor
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/v...sing-vmware-esxi-6-5-newbie-friendly.1176601/

This will allow you to take full advantage of the server. Giving you the ability to create VM's and storage arrays at your disposable.
.
Whether it be
- VMware (ESXi) My recommended hypervisor.
- Hyper-V (Microsoft Server)
- Proxmox (Open source)
- Citrix

All of these are available in a free version.


As for a budget, I would start with something around $130 and look at the following models/brands.
What you want to look for is servers circa 2010-2013, this a sweet spot for tech IMO. Yes some are 10 years old, but still capable compared to things 10 years beyond that.

IBM/Lenovo
- X3650 (M3,M4) 2U Version
- X3550 (M3,M4) 1U Version

DELL
- R520
- C1100
- R620

HP
- DL160 G5 or higher
- DL 360



Those are just some off the top of my head.
Look for good deals as you would be surprised if you just keep looking around, a lot of these come loaded with hardware ready to use. All you need is sas drives, and HDD caddies as they almost never come with them.

Edit: My main setup, (still not finished) I have smaller rack for 2 servers in another house
https://ibb.co/wCqr0SL

Buy a server, it will be a great learning experience!

A lot of times when you buy hardware for these amounts it'll be just garbage which is laying around in people's garage and they want to get anything for it... And it'll lay around in your garage aswell... I literally have 5 laptops with 256 512 mb of ram and I don't even want to touch them lol... Probably Raspberry PI would be more efficient and powerful than a server for $25.. And keep in mind older the tech more you pay for electricity which servers need a lot of!

SpongeR0b said:

Thanks @UnderAchevied for a normal response, I understand what the others (before you) have said, I read similar threads myself so I know where they're coming from in that respect.

I've been watching a S6 HP, it sold for around £25 + £15/£20 postage so literally it was dirt cheap.. the seller must have a few of these and relisted another one.. I was thinking for that kinda money it'll be a shame not to have one myself for my own projects.

Internet speed is fine here.. 1GB download 100MB Upload or there abouts..

I've made many websites myself so literally I'd have the option to also host these as well, plus I could allow proxy access to close friends who wouldn't take the Michael.

The reason I was asking is obviously there must be many more possibilities and I'm always open to suggestions and knowledge.. Thanks everyone

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Important thing is power and connectivity. The power cost for running old CPU will be much more as compared to latest L series server.
Then connectivity and support. If you are starting just get an entry level Virtual machine and play with it.

Just start with cloud and later move to server.

Thanks for your replies everybody, I'm still on the look out for a server as I think it'll be a great way to learn.

I especially liked the look of your server build @underachieved, looks class

fasttrak said:

To be honest, if you are asking these questions, the answer to your first question is no.

Come up with a plan, then work out what you need, not the other way around...

Click to expand...

This is true.. BUT..
If he has some money to spare, he could still buy some low config vps server and play around with it. Costs less than a cup of coffee. Who knows what he will come up with? Practice always helps.

Thanks @Gogol, yes I like to keep my hand in (with technology). I setup a private VPN server in a different country whilst visiting it over Christmas, although it's not great it's perfectly acceptable for my own usage and I like the idea of maybe setting something up with a bit more power. I've often experienced that you need to do something yourself first, iron out all of the problems so you know exactly what your doing when you need to do it for real. Equally having additional hardware it can always be put to uses. I've an old RPi acting as a upload/download server both at my home location and at my work location, I'd rather leave a RPi on than my whole computer, in terms of electricity usage. Information is great but you need to make a practical use for it as well.