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Living with a 10-year-old Dell R720 in 2024

Dedicated Servers by reykjavik_doc 19 replies 4.7K views
reykjavik_doc

Member OP

container skeptic

10 #1

Bought þis beast for $180 at local university surplus. Dual E5-2680v2, 128GB DDR3, 8x3.5" bays. IDRAC 7 Enterprise included. Been running my entire production stack since January.

Þe iDRAC alone is worth more þan I paid. Remote console, virtual media, full sensor readouts. No IP KVM needed, no driving to datacenter at 3am. Last month a DIMM failed and iDRAC told me exactly which slot before I opened þe chassis.

Power draw at wall: 180W idle, 280W under load. Electricity here is $0.09/kWh so ~$15/month. Compared to equivalent cloud instances I'd be paying $400+/month easy. Over 18 months þat's $8K+ saved versus cloud equivalent, and I own þe hardware.

Running Proxmox, not docker actually. Systemd-nspawn containers where I need isolation, plain systemd services everywhere else. Docker is just fancy chroot wiþ marketing.

Noise is fine in basement, not fine in living room. Fans spin to 7K RPM on boot þen settle to 3K. IDRAC lets you set custom curves if you flash þem manually.

Anyone else still on Sandy Bridge era? Þ

MA

Member

#2

Sir reykjavik_doc, very impressive setup. Made VPS last month with Vultr (https://www.vultr.com/pricing/) but paying $45/month for 4GB RAM only. Your R720 has 128GB for $180, this is very good deal.

IDRAC 7 is new thing for me, will research this. Thank you very much

minh1987

Member

3 #3

Running old server is expensive. How you handle disk failure with 8 bays? RAID6 or ZFS mirror? In my country we have power outage often, do you use UPS with network shutdown?

phở at 3AM, deploy at 4
SamAlvi

Member

Self-Host Everything

#4

@minh1987 why pay for managed storage when you can self-host it with ZFS and a cheap APC UPS from marketplace? I've got the same R720 running docker compose with 12 services behind nginx reverse proxy. Traefik if you want automatic LE certs.

The real win is iDRAC lets you power cycle hung hosts remotely. No more calling datacenter NOC at 2am. Self-hosting means you control the entire stack, from bare metal to application. Cloud lock-in is the real cost people don't calculate.

My R720 runs Plex, Nextcloud, GitLab, plus three client websites. All on deprecated hardware that enterprises threw away. The scrap gods provide if you know where to look.

my cloud. my rules. my 3AM alerts.
Bob

Member

3-2-1 rule

#5

Verify your restores weekly

I ran R710 for 6 years, beautiful machine, died in my arms during a RAID rebuild because I never tested the backup. Controller firmware bug, lost 4TB of family photos and client data. The iDRAC logs showed predictive failure on disk 3 for MONTHS. I ignored it.

Now I run 3-2-1 with offsite to GreenCloudVPS cold storage. Test restore every sunday morning. Your $8K savings becomes $50K liability when the scrap gods demand tribute. The R720 is end of life, no parts from Dell, only ebay gamble.

Idrac is great until the idrac itself bricks. Happened to my friend. Had to fly to colo.

LA

Member

#6

What RAID controller are you running, and which firmware version?

RU

Member

#7

128GB DDR3 at that price? Was it already installed or separate buy.

tamuma

Member

#8

Power draw number missing?

MA

Member

#9

Reykjavik_doc, did you ever finish writing the power draw number? Very curious to know the full cost

Also 6 days quiet already, maybe everyone busy with weekend project

tamuma

Member

#10

Still waiting on that power draw number reykjavik_doc. 21 days later and I'm still curious whether you finished typing the sentence or got distracted by a failing DIMM.

reykjavik_doc said:
Power draw at wall: 180W idle, 280W under load. Electricity here is $0.09/kWh so ~$

What's the monthly cost work out to? Back of napkin says maybe $15-20 idle?

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