Need recommandations for a home server

Hey, I'm always searching a home server (already post here https://lemmy.ml/post/15083947), I was thinking about a Lenovo P500, but maybe the PSU is a bit too special...
My budget around $140, will buy used parts and one of the most important thing is the power efficiency (don't care about the peak wattage but want to stay around 50W idle and settling at about 70W when doing some work). Preferably I wouldn't like to buy mini PCs. 😃 Thx!

anon2963 ,

Search eBay for used gaming laptops. Comes with a built in UPS.

AtariDump ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f2e8c43d-f7d0-4b5f-93ac-2a3e09735444.png

bbuez ,

I got a 1U 32GB and a 4 core Xeon for 20$, you just have to make at least 3 more posts

h3ndrik , (edited )

Most mainboards in full-sized PCs aren't optimized for power efficiency. But there are some (few) efficient mainboards and PSUs available.

The german c't magazine publishes guides to build efficient home-servers or workstations every other year. But that's well above your budget: https://www.heise.de/ratgeber/Bauvorschlag-fuer-einen-sparsamen-Heimserver-aus-c-t-3-2024-9587594.html
(400€ new, 17W idle)

The Lenovo seems to draw around 45 Watts on idle. You could go well below 20 Watts if you wanted.

I'd say for most power efficiency along an extremely low budget, you want an old laptop as a home server, or a mini pc like an Intel NUC. But you might want to refine your requirements... What do you need that thing for? How many SATA-Ports etc do you need? Are you more willing to compromise on price or power efficiency?

foremanguy92_ OP ,

I'm going to check the German article but maybe that's a bit above my budget.

How do you think that I could reach 20W with the P500?

I have a very low budget but you know, I don't want to get that kind of laptop or mini pc (due to their lack of upgradability), I don't necessarily want 10W power draw only want to not idle at more than 70...

I want to have at least 6 SATA ports (could upgrade it with a pcie card later) and some pcies ports. In fact if the machine is around $150 but has terrible power efficiency I wouldn't choose this thing. So I want to both 😅 but if a machine would be great and has lower specs that I was expected I would take it anyways.

h3ndrik , (edited )

Hmmh, No I don't think you can make the idle power consumption go down. Sure, you got to set the right options in the BIOS and Linux. But there is a baseline and that's with which chipset the mainboard was designed and what kind of components they chose.

And there's the efficiency of the power supply. Usually they're built to have a certain degree of efficiency (>80% or >90%) but that's measured at a certain percentage of the maximum power draw. They're not at all that efficient at 40W draw. You'd need an expensive PSU not to lose additional efficiency at low power. And generally they don't come with a standard PC.

So you'd probably end up replacing half of the components of a standard PC while making it more power efficient. And I don't think that'll be cheap. You better find something that's already designed to factor that in. Sadly it's not what they print on every PC. You have to look for that info and sometimes it's buried in some PC magazine forum or on Reddit. Sometimes they have additional tricks to squeeze out a tiny bit more, but you better be fine with that number.

I think mostly it's about the mainboard. Most of the time there are some chipsets that are known to be more power efficient than others. But I'm not up to date anymore and can't give any good recommendations.

If you want it cheap and most power efficient, generally the advise is to use an old laptop. They're made to idle at like 10-15W. But you won't get any SATA ports that way. You'd need external HDDs and connecting them via USB isn't really super reliable. It's frowned upon to use a setup like that for RAID or advanced things... But it's how I started back in the day.

With the upgradability it's always the question. That's an additional requirement that makes it more difficult. If it's an old machine you could end up needing to replace most of it anyways, since you need a new mainboard for a new CPU and along with that the next generation of RAM and then you've replaced most of your computer anyways. I'd say there is a limited window of opportunity when upgrading makes sense. But if you're buying an old machine it may not always be a good idea to make it a requirement.

h3ndrik ,

To follow that up: 45W isn't that bad. Depending on where you live, I'd say it's worth it if you get something out of it. (Be able to fit the HDDs, upgradability, ...)

Ultimately you'd need to do the maths. Check what it costs to afford an additional 20W of power in a year and whether you should spend that money on better hardware. If my maths is right, 20W for a year at a high price of 30ct/kWh is about $52. So there isn't that much to be gained. And your electricity might be considerably cheaper anyways.

vizzi ,

sounds like you need to get a mini PC.

foremanguy92_ OP ,

I would prefer to not because a mini PC is not good for upgrade, has no space, not so fast and it's not so low priced

vizzi ,

well I don't see your use case anywhere to really speak to the "not so fast" but I've been running around 20 containers on an old refurbished Optiplex 7040, with 0 issues and a ton of headroom, for like $100.

and sure, "upgrading" is not existent, but I've thought of it this way: it's to learn on, and that itself is great for upgrading later, as I'll have a better idea of what I want and how to do it when I do get the big beefy server.

foremanguy92_ OP ,

Humm ok, maybe trying to find a sff PC (don't want a mini PC)

Gimpydude ,

Try getting a used server. You can find one on labgopher. For the budget you have, don't expect something great but it'll be a start.

UndulyUnruly ,
@UndulyUnruly@lemmy.world avatar

You got your answers before, you just don’t want to accept them. The relationship between budget and performance expectation still borders delusion.

To quote u/Peachman who hit the nail on the head:

Looking for recommendations for a racecar, at least 800 horsepower. Needs to hit 60 mph in under 4 seconds. My budget is $2000. Please give recommendations. LOL

Fork out more money or lower your expectation.

Lifebandit666 ,

Hahaha it's that guy again. I want an Amazon server for a fiver please!

foremanguy92_ OP ,

Yeah it's me again because I wanna to make sure that I will buy the right thing for my homelab journey (don't wanna spend money uselessly)

foremanguy92_ OP ,

In fact I've found pretty nice deal with 128gb and 24vcores at $160, the only downside is that it's a proliant dl380 g8 m, so it's going to be noisy and power hungry

eleitl ,

Factor in power bills and heat and noise into your calculations.

foremanguy92_ OP ,

That's exactly why I didn't buy it, and I don't need so much specs, just something more power efficient with lower specs, so if you have some recommandations...

eleitl ,

I would look into thin clients and Lenovo etc. tiny PC for office on eBay. I run old low power low noise rackmount Supermicros which are nice but hard to find at low prices.

mp3 ,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

I don't think there's anything on the market that checks all the boxes for a $140 budget.

foremanguy92_ OP ,

The Lenovo P500 has 64gb RAM, 12 vcores for as low as $135, and it seems a bit power efficient
The onlydownside is that the PSU is a bit strange (hard to find)

mp3 ,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

Not sure where you're shopping, but I can't find it below $200 for 16GB of RAM.

foremanguy92_ OP ,

Searching on my "national used marketplace", but do you have some recommandations? I don't care about the specs mostly the power draw..

mp3 ,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

At that price point not really, and there is definitely going to be some tradeoffs required between power vs consumption vs price.

borari ,
@borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It sounds like you already know what you want to buy, just fucking buy it. Why are you fishing for other people’s approval on what you spend your own money on?

foremanguy92_ OP ,

I don't want the people approval, just I want to know if some others alternatives exists to make sure that I start my homelab with a good setup

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • selfhosted@lemmy.world
  • All magazines
    •