5 ms·

I wasn't 16 when I discovered used rack mounted servers, but I was pretty young (21 I think?). I had a miserable job paying near-subsistance wages in 2012 (abo

I wasn't 16 when I discovered used rack mounted servers, but I was pretty young (21 I think?). I had a miserable job paying near-subsistance wages in 2012 (about $30,000/year, no health insurance, Dallas TX). I needed something a bit more powerful than my laptop to do some experiments with video encoding, but I couldn't afford a "fast" computer at the time, at least not fast enough to do what I wanted. It didn't help that I was particularly bad at saving money until I was about 25. On a whim, I went on Craigslist and just looked up different ways of phrasing "fast cheap computer", and eventually stumbled upon "server". Upon doing so, I found that you could buy dated, but still useful rack mounted servers for basically nothing; in my case a seller was selling two rack mounted Dell servers, 16 cores each, 32GB of RAM, for about $250. I was just barely able to swing that, so I drove over, picked it up, and more or less defined the direction of my career for the next twelve years.

justinclift 3y ago
Around the turn of the century I used to specialise in Solaris contracting, so my homelab back then was mostly old Sun Enterprise gear from Ebay. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Enterprise#Entry-level_servers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Enterprise#Entry-level_ser... Used to have an E450 (like the one here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SUN_Ultra_Enterprise_450.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SUN_Ultra_Enterprise_450....), and a bunch of other, smaller stuff (workstations). Also an E220R at some point from rough memory. No idea what happened to all that old stuff. Anyway, it was extremely useful for interview prep (aka brush up on specific skills) prior to meeting potential new clients, and also for doing general dev / packaging stuff on.
bluedino 3y ago
Was there any reason you didn't use two 8-core desktops, for example?
- dannyw 3y ago
  1. Good luck buying 8-core desktops for $125 ea. 2. It's not easy to parallelise video rendering (not just encoding) across two machines.
  - RecycledEle 3y ago
    How about $114 for a workstation? https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=z440+workstation+hp+-barebone+-barebones+-no&_sacat=179&_odkw=z440+workstation+hp+-barebone+-barebones&_osacat=179&_sop=15 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=z440+workstat... (sorry for the long URL, it was necessary) https://www.amazon.com/s?k=z440+hp+workstation&s=price-asc-rank https://www.amazon.com/s?k=z440+hp+workstation&s=price-asc-r...
    - squeaky-clean 3y ago
      Well they did mention this was in 2012
      - RecycledEle 3y ago
        Thank You. I missed that.
- tombert 3y ago
  In that particular time, I couldn't find any kind of computers for cheap that had those parameters. Servers were cheap and easy as long as I wore headphones and was vigilant about turning them off when I wasn't using them.
jstarfish 3y ago
Rack mount servers have hidden costs. Sitting next to what sounds like a swarm of drones for one. Enterprise pricing for replacement parts is the other. (Dells have worked out for me ok, but not without having to replace backplanes and other parts immediately.)
- RecycledEle 3y ago
  Workstations are (to me, magic) computers that use server processors and server RAM in kind of normal PC cases. Check out HP z440 and z840 systems on eBay (fleabay?) and Amazon.
  - organsnyder 3y ago
    All my recent additions to my homelab have been Dell Poweredge SFP systems. Businesses use them for a few years and then upgrading, so they're always available. I do make sure to get ones that have a PCIe slot so I can add a 10gbps card.
    - RecycledEle 3y ago
      > All my recent additions to my homelab have been Dell Poweredge SFP systems. When I read that, I assumed Dell had a line of servers I did not know about. After a few days, I doubt that that is the case. SFP means "Small Form-Factor Pluggable" in my world. It's a connector on a NIC or on a router that lets you pick the physical media you want and then install a SFP adapter. What did you mean to say before spell-check garbled it? Or, am I mistaken?
      - organsnyder 3y ago
        Oh! I meant SFF (small form-factor) desktops (to which I add SFP+ cards—that must have been where my mind was).
- tombert 3y ago
  Counting my blessings, but I never had to replace any parts on them. They used boring SATA drives, which I had a few spares of even at the time. The bigger issues were the noise and the heat and power consumption. Not only did they take upwards of a kilowatt of power each, but being Texas I also had to take into the account the increased cost of air conditioning. I was only bitten by that one month where my power bill was like $150 more than usual, and from that point on I was vigilant about turning the servers off between uses.

justinclift 3y ago

Around the turn of the century I used to specialise in Solaris contracting, so my homelab back then was mostly old Sun Enterprise gear from Ebay. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Enterprise#Entry-level_servers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Enterprise#Entry-level_ser... Used to have an E450 (like the one here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SUN_Ultra_Enterprise_450.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SUN_Ultra_Enterprise_450....), and a bunch of other, smaller stuff (workstations). Also an E220R at some point from rough memory. No idea what happened to all that old stuff. Anyway, it was extremely useful for interview prep (aka brush up on specific skills) prior to meeting potential new clients, and also for doing general dev / packaging stuff on.

bluedino 3y ago

Was there any reason you didn't use two 8-core desktops, for example?

dannyw 3y ago
1. Good luck buying 8-core desktops for $125 ea. 2. It's not easy to parallelise video rendering (not just encoding) across two machines.
- RecycledEle 3y ago
  How about $114 for a workstation? https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=z440+workstation+hp+-barebone+-barebones+-no&_sacat=179&_odkw=z440+workstation+hp+-barebone+-barebones&_osacat=179&_sop=15 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=z440+workstat... (sorry for the long URL, it was necessary) https://www.amazon.com/s?k=z440+hp+workstation&s=price-asc-rank https://www.amazon.com/s?k=z440+hp+workstation&s=price-asc-r...
  - squeaky-clean 3y ago
    Well they did mention this was in 2012
    - RecycledEle 3y ago
      Thank You. I missed that.
tombert 3y ago
In that particular time, I couldn't find any kind of computers for cheap that had those parameters. Servers were cheap and easy as long as I wore headphones and was vigilant about turning them off when I wasn't using them.

jstarfish 3y ago

Rack mount servers have hidden costs. Sitting next to what sounds like a swarm of drones for one. Enterprise pricing for replacement parts is the other. (Dells have worked out for me ok, but not without having to replace backplanes and other parts immediately.)

RecycledEle 3y ago
Workstations are (to me, magic) computers that use server processors and server RAM in kind of normal PC cases. Check out HP z440 and z840 systems on eBay (fleabay?) and Amazon.
- organsnyder 3y ago
  All my recent additions to my homelab have been Dell Poweredge SFP systems. Businesses use them for a few years and then upgrading, so they're always available. I do make sure to get ones that have a PCIe slot so I can add a 10gbps card.
  - RecycledEle 3y ago
    > All my recent additions to my homelab have been Dell Poweredge SFP systems. When I read that, I assumed Dell had a line of servers I did not know about. After a few days, I doubt that that is the case. SFP means "Small Form-Factor Pluggable" in my world. It's a connector on a NIC or on a router that lets you pick the physical media you want and then install a SFP adapter. What did you mean to say before spell-check garbled it? Or, am I mistaken?
    - organsnyder 3y ago
      Oh! I meant SFF (small form-factor) desktops (to which I add SFP+ cards—that must have been where my mind was).
tombert 3y ago
Counting my blessings, but I never had to replace any parts on them. They used boring SATA drives, which I had a few spares of even at the time. The bigger issues were the noise and the heat and power consumption. Not only did they take upwards of a kilowatt of power each, but being Texas I also had to take into the account the increased cost of air conditioning. I was only bitten by that one month where my power bill was like $150 more than usual, and from that point on I was vigilant about turning the servers off between uses.