Should I buy it or not? HP Proliant DL380 G5!

[dipenshah]

Hi All,

In the competition I learnt the importance of knowing a bit of System admin stuff. So I am planning to do a summer course in System admin.

Recently I saw a post on Facebook (college free and for sale group) selling servers for cheap.

I don't have an idea about servers as of now.

I am attaching a pic. I feel it's worth buying keeping in mind that I'm going to learn about servers as well.

Kindly suggest me if it would be a good decision or not.

Thanks,
Dipen

[Reggle]

I have an HP DL360 G5 at home. The 380 is slightly better and I paid it a lot more than that.

Do I recommend it? Yes, but...
- If you intend to run it 24/7, it's a hefty power bill. Its about 200 Watts with 1 physical CPU socket in use + 5-10 Watts per RAM slot in use.
- This is a heavy-duty Xeon chip. It can do a lot and it can do it fast. You'll want to run virtual machines so install KVM, vSphere or Hyper-V.
- You'll want to add RAM if you virtualize. A lot of it. ECC RAM. So expect to spend another 100 USD/EUR for that.

For me it was worth it: I learned vSphere, Linux (Red Hat/CentOS), can run any trial VM, upgraded my home network with anti-malware, adblocking, anti-virus, automated torrents, VPN, ... Learning that on the job would have taken me a lot longer and courses cost a lot more than a year of electricity for the server.

[that1guy15]

I say no.

If you are network focused then you will quickly find you will want to build out virtual routers and such. This will require VMWare or some sort of virtualization. With that said you will want as much memory as possible. Example my home lab server has 64 gig memory and I use most of it.

That server you listed is also going to be super load and as mentioned above very power hungry. My lab server is a Dell T7500 and runs quieter than my laptop next to it. after loading it up I spend about $800 on it but that was 2+ years ago. There are tons of good deals on ebay if you just do a little research.

You will want as much memory as you can afford. Dont have to max it just make sure you can expand it to 64G plus. The T7500 can hold 128G as long as you have dual procs.  Also you want Xeon hex core procs at minimum. Two procs if you can fit it in.

This will be a good sound investment for your studies and growth.

[dipenshah]

Thank you guys for your great inputs


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[wintermute000]

I say no.
1.) Not enough RAM as that1guy says.
2.) G5s are ancient, and unlike G6, the CPU generation cannot handle nested virtualization - so no VIRL, no Openstack, no Unetlab or GNS3 etc. can only run VMs natively.

BUT for 30 bucks, could tide you over until you find a good deal on a G6/G7/G8, then flip it again for same.

I say spend decent coin and get yourself a G8 with 64Gb RAM. The processor should be sandy-bridge era. Should give you enough features to last the next 3-5 years. The G6/G7 era servers (Westmere) like what I or that1guy run are starting to get a bit old IMO, and recently a ton of sandy era servers have come onto the second hand market as they are all entering end of lease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge#Server_platform

[chamjisky]

I m using dell t5500 workstation two xeon l5630 processors. With 48gb ram and two 250 gb harddisks stress testing it's power consumption stays just below 200watts..   Good option.

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[chamjisky]

I had uploaded a video of its power consumption on YouTube on my page

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[dipenshah]

I finally installed VMware vSphere Hypervisor  today!

I am currently planning to install a Windows 2008 server and centOS for learning purpose. I learnt a great deal about the installation and stuff on bare metal (I hope I'm correct with terms). I always thought it was tough. I really found it difficult to grasp the importance of ram back then. But as I installed a virtual machine I realized its importance.

I'm planning to keep on rotating the virtual machines i.e. I will learn about CentOS and Windows 2008 server and then I will try other OS by replacing the installed ones until I get some more ram.

Open to suggestions.

Steps for those who are interested in installing VMware Hyper Visor:

1. Download VMware vSphere hyper visor from VMware website (both client and iso file).
i. Need to register.
ii. 60 days evaluation version [emoji848]
2. Download UNetbootin.
3. Start UNetbootin and choose: Diskimage. ISO. Select the downloaded ESXi ISO. Type: USB Drive. Drive: Select your USB drive. Select OK. (Courtesy: blog.nowherelan.com)
4. Eject pen drive from laptop (where everything is downloaded). Insert in your server box.
5. Start the boot up process using USB.
6. Watch this video:
https://youtu.be/L1U2o0GmUPc
7. Install your desired OS.
8. Enjoy the process [emoji4]