[ale] Looking for 2 solutions. ???

[DJ-Pfulio]

On 10/13/21 12:22 PM, Robert Harris via Ale wrote:
> 
> I'm looking to replace some machines that are way past their prime.
> Just moved and got a 15U, 32" deep rack to house them.  So I'm
> looking for 2 solutions.
> 
> 1) A standalone baremetal box to run linux.  Only real qualification
> is it has to take a full-sized video card.  Ideally a 1 or 2U rack
> mount.
> 
> 2) I currently have an old 4 node C100 Dell system. a)  It's running
> my media solution ( Plex and some additional dockerized tools),
> letsencrypt, and some other house-hold systems for the family. b)
> Using unsupported CPUs I can get to esxi 6.7 at the best. c) I would
> like to get this on modern CPUs and RAM and if possible stay with a 4
> node system but if not, I can go with some 1U or 2U solutions for my
> vsphere cluster. d)  So I want something I can keep in my HA cluster
> but it's not super performance. e)  And very importantly, it's going
> in the rack in the guest bedroom, I'll be venting the top vents out
> the window but noise and heat are pretty important.
> 
> Looking for any suggestions including where to get it, model, etc.

For a home setup, avoid "server" stuff.  It just isn't needed anymore.
If you aren't tied to VMware ESXi, there are plenty of better options (for certain values of "better").
If you are stuck with ESXi, then you'll want to check out the "white box" lists.  I gotta say, dumping ESXi in 2011 was the best decision I've make regarding hypervisor choice. It is nice to have excellent, free, backup tools too. Perhaps that has changed, but in 2011, the only real backup tools cost $1000 for VMware.

A typical desktop CPU today can provide 22K passmarks of CPU power and 64G-128G of RAM, if you need to run bloated RAM processes like Windows.  For containers with a few VMs (not all things run in containers), 16G of RAM should meet most home needs easily.  Setup 2 systems with nearly identical CPUs+RAM and you can have automatic failover with block-level replication.

With a little care, you can stick with 6-core, 65W CPUs easily - last week I picked up a 6-core Ryzen-G + MB for just under $350.  It is only 20K passmarks - there is a price to avoid having to buy a GPU (which was my goal).

Racks might look cool, but they are loud, power-sucking, with expensive parts that just aren't needed in a home environment.

IHMO.