Colocating a 12-year-old rack server in the UK — am I mad?

So I finally did something stupid. Found a Dell PowerEdge R710 in a barn sale back in 2009 prices basically. 2U, dual Xeon X5650, 72GB DDR3. Cost me more in diesel to fetch it than the box itself.

Now I'm eyeing colo in the UK because my flat sounds like a jet engine and the missus is done with it. Back in 2009 this was a beast. They don't make them like that anymore, proper metal, no creaky plastic shrouds.

Anyone actually done this? Colo quotes I'm getting are making my eyes water. Tell me I'm not the only romantic fool left.

72GB DDR3 is decent but those X5650s are 95W TDP each. At full tilt you're looking at 250-300W for the box, maybe 350W with drives spinning. UK power is what, 35-45p per kWh now? Call it 300W * 24 * 30 = 216 kWh monthly. That's £75-95 just in power before they mark it up.

Most UK colo starts at £60-80/U for a quarter rack minimum contract. So £120-160 for 2U space plus power. Realistic budget: £200-250/month all-in for that R710.

For that money you get a Ryzen 5 dedicated from OVHcloud or Contabo with DDR4, NVMe, modern IPMI, included power. The R710 draws more than a whole modern 1U with a 5600X.

Shipping pallet will run you £80-120 unless you drive it yourself. Rails are another headache if you don't have the Dell ones.

Twenty years in this business teaches you that sentimentality is a luxury the wallet cannot afford.

The R710 is a fine machine. Was a fine machine. Now it is a space heater with Ethernet ports. Kids these days think old iron has character. It does not. It has failing capacitors, proprietary firmware you cannot patch, and iDRAC 6 that modern browsers refuse to speak to.

Mark my words: you will spend three weekends troubleshooting a memory channel error, then discover the PERC battery has swollen and taken out the RAID key. The colo will charge you hands-on fees at £150 per hour because you cannot remote anything.

You are not mad. You are merely paying tuition in the school of hard knocks. The graduation rate is poor.

Much more storage flexibility now though. That R710 has 6x 3.5" bays, maybe 8 if you found the rare config. Backplane is SAS 6Gbps, PERC H700 or H200 if you're lucky.

Specs if you're committed:

• 6x 4TB SAS nearline = 24TB raw
• H700 with 512MB cache, BBU probably dead
• ZFS mirror pairs if you're sensible, RAIDz2 if you're brave
• 72GB RAM enough for L2ARC but those DIMMs are power hungry

I bought an R720xd off auction last year for £90. Better bet. 12x 3.5", DDR3 still cheap, E5-2670 v2s run cooler. For that money you get a platform that doesn't feel like self-harm.

But honestly? £200/month colo budget = 8 years of a GreenCloudVPS storage VPS with backups included. Just saying. https://greencloudvps.com

IMO there's a middle path here. YMMV of course, take it with a grain of salt.

Have you looked at hobbyist colo? Some UK DCs do community rack shares for £40-60/U with limited power, no SLA. Not on the big provider lists, more word of mouth. You'd be capped at 1-2A @ 240V which... might actually suit an idle R710 if you pull CPUs down, disable half the RAM, run slow drives.

Or keep it at home, move it to a closet with a vent hose, undervolt. I did this with an R410, wife acceptance factor improved dramatically.

The emotional value is real. Just don't pretend it's rational. Both choices are valid.