Building a server. Use an old pc or buy a new server?

Mantad,

If power consumption is the primary consideration, probably the 150W rating of the HP ProLiant MicroServer is impossible to improve upon. If a server were a kitten it would be that HP too. My concern is whether the processing and I/O performance would by adequate "to host some websites, a mail server and a few databases 24/7". And if there is more than one workstation node accessing the databases for even small datasets, there will trouble as all the various load datastreams will run out of bandwidth and be parsed into the threads in fragments and with a lot of disk swapping. I'm thinking of Matlab, Mathematica, Arc/Gis, financial analysis, simulation applications- that kind of thing.

I'd suggest a mid-aged cougar instead of the kitten: upgrade an obsolete workstation that can provide the performance, precision, and have good potential for expansion. Candidates for this might be: Dell Precision T5500, T7500, T7600, and HP z600, z800, Z620. These are more or less Dell and HP equivalent LGA1366 and LGA2011 systems with dual CPU potential.

The idea would be to buy a lower specification example an upgrade it. A few months I bought:

Purchased for $190 (£130) including shipping:

Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Original): Xeon E5620 quad core @ 2.4 / 2.6 GHz > 6GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1333 > Quadro FX 580 (512MB) > Dell PERC 6/i SAS /SATA controller > Seagate Cheetah 15K 146GB > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
[ Passmark system rating = 1479 / CPU = 4067 / 2D= 520 / 3D= 311 / Mem= 1473 / Disk= 1208]

I purchased:

2X Xeon X5680: $230, $170
48GB DDR3-1333 ECC registered RAM: $120
PERC H310 6GB/s RAID controller: $60
Quadro 4000, SSD, HD : left over from upgrading HP z420- and I lated changed the Quadro 4000 to a Quadro K2200

In all the total expenditure of about $1,000 (£690)- that includes the value used of the GPU resulted in:

Dell Precision T5500 (2011)(Revised) > 2X Xeon X5680 (6 -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz), 48GB DDR3 1333 ECC Reg. > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > PERC H310 / Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (27", 1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3844 / CPU = 15047 / 2D= 662 / 3D= 3500 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)

Notice the CPU score in the revised version which is the second highest of the 268 Precision T5500's tested on Passmark. As this system is for visualisation and rendering, the processor speeds and GPU are surplus to your needs, but the key is that I could have used that system as is within a couple of hours of opening the box and improved it as I found good bargains on the parts. Also, you don't have to research, order, and assemble from a bin of parts. Plus, the components are server-grade- meant to run at full bore all the time, and LGA1366 has some great processors for not much money. The X5680's are 6-core @ 3.33 /3.6GHz- modern speeds and together cost $400, whereas new that bill should have been $3,320. For you use you could have a couple of Xeon X5650 6-core @ 2.66 / 3.06GHz and those in the US cost about $80-90 now (2.16) I can't think of a better cost / time / reliability / performance solution for a workstation or server.The bad news is that the power supply is 875W, but at idle of course, the draw is not so extreme.

With the rigth configuration this would not be a bad approach to use for the Matlab, Mathematica, Arc/Gis, financial analysis, or simulation uses either.

What programmes are you using,how large are the datasets, and what is your budget?

Cheers,

BambiBoom

HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) > 32GB DDR3 1866 ECC RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)>
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15

Mantad,

The SUPERMICRO MBD-A1SRi-2758F-O Mini ITX Server Motherboard DDR3 1600/1333 motherboard CPU combination has some good possibilities, although the Intel Atom is non-hyperthreading at 2.4GHz, it supports 64GB and the ethernet connections appear to quite good.

There are four systems on Passmark using that combination. The top scores in each parameter for that system:

Rating: 1518
CPU: 3719
2D: 200 (MS Basic Display adapter)
3D: 30.5
Mem: 1009 (16GB)
Disk: 3817 (Intel 520 120GB)

Now compare that performance to a system I bought and upgraded in December 2015:

Purchased for $53 + $24 shipping 12.12.15:

Precision T3500 (2011) (Original) Xeon W3530 4-core @ 2.8 /3.06GHz > 4GB (2X 2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC > GeForce 9800 GT (1GB)> WD Black 500GB
[[Passmark system rating = 1963, CPU = 4482 / 2D= 609 / 3D=805 / Mem= 1409 / Disk=1048]

This system was nearly good enough to use for the backup system as received. However, to give it 3D modeling and some rendering speed, I purchased:

CPU: $60
RAM: $43

This used the Quadro and RPERC 6/i RAID controller and drives that had arrived in the $171 Precision T5500 with the results of my $185 (£128) system being:

Precision T3500 (2011) (Rev 2) Xeon X5677 4-core @ 3.47 / 3.73GHz > 12GB (6X 2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC > Quadro 4000 (2GB) > PERC 6/i +Seagate 300GB 15K SAS ST3300657SS + WD Black 500GB > 525W PSU> Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > 2X Dell 19" LCD
[Passmark system rating = 2751, CPU = 7236 / 2D= 658 / 3D=2020 / Mem= 1875 / Disk=1221]

The T3500 can use up to a W3690 6-core @ 3.47 /3.73GHz. the highest score in each parameter for a T3500 with a W3690:

Rating: 4143
CPU: 9821
2D:706 (Quadro K600)
3D: 8462 (GTX 970)
Mem: 1954 (24GB)
Disk: 6455 (ROG RAIDR Express PCIe SSD) (2nd is 4244 from a Samsung 850 PRO 256GB)

1. The thought is to start out with a depreciated system that can be developed into anything.

2. Upgrading an existing system, means that you can buy a system that is actually usual with almost no modification within a few hours after unpacking. - The system includes Windows- $140- and there's no assembly and wiring of a lot of parts

There are infinite possible combinations and my view is based on the idea that without specific priorities, uses, and budget and performance expectation, the best course is to have a system that can economically adapt itself in any direction and capacity in the way dual Xeon workstation can. If you buy a used Dell Precision T5500 it can run a single 4-core 2.4GHz CPU 8GB of RAM to a 500GB hard drive and two weeks later have two 3.7GHZ 6- cores, 192GB of RAM, a 1.2TB PCIe NVMe SSD and 32TB of storage in RAID 5 running 6 VM's, 5 websites, and generating Arc/Gis demographic analysis maps.

Set a use, and performance and expansion expectation and relate it to a firm budget. However, I would not make power consumption the primary priority as buying an system for £150 instead of £400 allows £150 for upgrades and £100 for electricity.

Cheers,

BambiBoom