My university had excedent servers after cloud migration and were going to throw them out. Any tips for sourcing drives and ram?
This image shows an open HP ProLiant server situated on a wooden desk, revealing its internal components. Here’s a detailed analysis:
Server Model: The monitor in the background displays “HP ProLiant,” which is the model of the server. This line of servers is commonly used in business environments for various applications due to their reliability and scalability.
Internal Components:
Processor and Heatsink: In the center, there’s a large, metal heatsink which is part of the server’s cooling system. It’s mounted on the motherboard to dissipate heat from the processor underneath.
Memory Slots: To the left of the heatsink, there are several DIMM slots for memory. Some slots are filled with RAM modules (which appear to have white locking clips), while others are empty, indicating that the server is not at its full memory capacity.
Drive Bays: At the front, there are several hard drive bays with hot-swap capability, allowing drives to be replaced without powering down the server. Some bays are occupied by drives with red handles.
Expansion Slots: To the right, you can see several PCIe expansion slots, which can be used for additional hardware such as network cards or storage controllers.
Power Supply Unit (PSU): Partially visible at the back, the PSU provides power to the server. Its placement indicates a redundant design, common in servers for reliability.
Peripheral Devices:
Keyboard: In the foreground, there is an HP keyboard, suggesting that someone is interacting with the server directly rather than remotely.
Monitor: The monitor is showing a text-based interface, likely the BIOS, a hardware configuration menu, or an early-stage system boot process.
Maintenance Activity:
CPU Memory Board Carriers: In the foreground, leaning against the desk, there appear to be two CPU memory board carriers. These are typically used to hold additional processors and RAM for server upgrades.
USB Cable: On the front of the server, there is a USB cable plugged in, which could be connected to storage media or another peripheral device necessary for the maintenance or upgrade process.
Environment:
The server is situated in an office setting, indicated by the cubicle partitions and office chairs in the background.
This setup suggests that the server is undergoing maintenance, upgrade, or repair. The open chassis and visible internal components indicate that work is being done on the hardware, which may include installing additional memory, processors, or configuring the system for deployment. The presence of the keyboard and the displayed information on the monitor also suggests active interaction with the server’s configuration settings.RAM can be bougt used on ebay. I recommend buying SATA drives instead of SAS drives if the system supports them. They are a lot cheaper.
I have loads of 8GB modules from DL380 machines if you are UK based?
cloudninjas.com has pretty decent deals on ram/ misc specifically for servers and will tell you if it fits yours or not. I got refurbed hdd’s on Amazon because I’m cheap, but at least they’re enterprise level.
From this angle, that looks like a DL380 G5. It’s not worth buying parts for. But if you must … EBAY, of course.
Is it worth the electricity costs?
I would recommend eBay. It’s how I got parts for my free PowerEdge 1950 and a few old ass laptops.
eBay for RAM, should be pretty cheap for used stuff. Also, drive caddies eBay or Amazon, there are companies that make clones that work just as well as the originals. HP wants you to buy their drives, which were really just rebadged drives at 5-6 times the price. I’m assuming this is a SAS machine, if you want new drives you can use SATA drives in a SAS controller (can’t go the other way) and it will work just fine for a home server. If you are fine with used, SAS drives are on eBay for pretty cheap.
I’ve got a bunch of ddr3 8gb server ram and some drives for that model if you’re interested
I have had few rack server RAM sticks around for so long (something like few GBs). If you let me know the exact model I will gift them to you (if the model matches). I’m based in Italy.
Proliant dl380e g8. Based in Spain. Requires ddr3
If you’re in Canada, look for ANK servers, on Ebay. Easy to deal with, and lots of parts for this sort of server.
I would look for things on ebay. Google the model and find the type of RAM it needs. Same with disks. Disk drives are pretty universal, as long as you have the trays needed for that server. You either need 2.5 or 3.5 inch SAS drives. I can’t tell from the photo. If you don’t have the drive trays, make sure you get trays for your drives from ebay too. SATA drives will also work, but you’ll have better luck with SAS drives since they’re enterprise spec and tend to be more reliable and last longer. With RAM, the only thing that’s really different from desktop RAM is that you want to make sure you get ECC(error checking) for a server.
Do it eBay my friend.
I may have some. I’d have to check.
