Starting a new project server using this:

HP ProLiant DL360 G7 1U 64-bit Server with 2xSix-Core X5650 Xeon 2.66GHz + 32GB RAM + 4x146GB 10K SAS HDD, RAID, NO OS

https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/V2/Getdocument.aspx?docname=c04284501

 

Running a fresh load of Debian64 on the DL360 G7 with a GT-710 video card.

 

So far it's been solid as a rock, Great machine for programming with dual monitors.

 

Have another DL360 G7 for the home server network for under $300 with 12 cores, 32G memory and 4 SAS drives in hardware raid-5. It's mainly a compute (remote jobs) and backup firewall/network gateway.
The old guy under it has been running for 15 years so it's time for a upgrade on that too.

Retirement finally. 32-bit KT3 Ultra-2 AMD Socket A MB with Linux LVM drives for about 1TB of storage.

After the dust-blaster she looks good as new. It's headed to the hardware archive shelf in a shed. All the data has been archived to the new server for that spot in the rack.

New backup/NAS server. 160GB Linux boot drive and raid-1 mirrored WD NAS 8TB drives. Quad-core i5 @ 3.50GHz
https://www.wd.com/products/internal-storage/wd-red.html

SCSI card for future tape or drive access and a KU band receiver card for satellite 'data' capture.

The backup program used is Bacula.
http://www.bacula.org/7.4.x-manuals/en/main/What_is_Bacula.html

Typical network backup speed (incoming data from backup client) across the wire.

New servers back in operation.

 

With the DL360 G7 in place and correctly configured we can PXE boot the DL380 remotely using only the NIC card for local diskless operation. All boot images and files are on remote NFS/TFTP servers with full redundancy, ECC and daily backup schedules to a separate backup system.
Setup:
https://gmelikov.com/2018/02/25/debian-stretch-diskless-pxe-boot/
https://wiki.debian.org/Debootstrap
https://wiki.debian.org/PXEBootInstall

PXE NFS boot of the workstation with no local drive access.

Network, remote disk and process windows on booted system.

MPLABX 5.10 load and run operation via NFS system and data files.

 

With the DL360 G7 in place and correctly configured we can PXE boot the DL380 remotely using only the NIC card for local diskless operation.

So....the 12 cores are very, very quickly waiting for network file system data.

 

So....the 12 cores are very, very quickly waiting for network file system data.

That's only one of its duties. It also handles multimedia compute intensive processes like near realtime commercial detection of HD video streams and/or surveillance HDCAMS as a MPI cluster.
https://www.open-mpi.org/video/general/what-is-[open]-mpi-2up.pdf
http://mpitutorial.com/tutorials/running-an-mpi-cluster-within-a-lan/

One thing I do miss with mplabx vs native netbeans is the netbeans capability to use remote C/C++ Build Hosts for remote development.

https://netbeans.org/kb/docs/cnd/remote-modes.html

It requires a little two-step for the latest versions to install.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1032030/netbeans-does-not-start-on-fresh-ubuntu-18-04-installation

 

The trusty DL380 G5 has been retired to standby duty. Never had even one glitch with the machine but the newer DL360 G7 was so much better as the server I swapped it to the desktop and installed another DL360 G7 dual-backplane 8-drive bay machine as the replacement. Both the G5 and G7 desktops netboot so there are no local drives in the desktop machines. The boot server has two raid-5 logical drives that serve separate Linux environments for the machines over the house Gigabit Ethernet. The server disks are archived to a separate backup server with raid 8TB drives with removable USB drives of offsite storage using Bacula for full and incremental backups.

I've got 4 1GB NIC interfaces in each machine so I'm thinking about bonding them as my switch network has 48Gbps Switching Capacity
https://www.schalley.eu/2016/11/06/linux-bonding-explained/

 

Those are nice machines! Where did you get them!

I used to have DL380s as Oracle RAC servers in a 24x7x365 e-commerce site. We’d pump through about 80K transactions a second. Useful for large events. Data replication was done locally as well as across the country (Boston, MA to San Jose, CA)

 

NSA, you have been an inspiration to me. I will probably get G8 toward the end of the year for a desktop.

 

Those are nice machines! Where did you get them!

I used to have DL380s as Oracle RAC servers in a 24x7x365 e-commerce site. We’d pump through about 80K transactions a second. Useful for large events. Data replication was done locally as well as across the country (Boston, MA to San Jose, CA)

ebay

 

Those are nice machines! Where did you get them!

I used to have DL380s as Oracle RAC servers in a 24x7x365 e-commerce site. We’d pump through about 80K transactions a second. Useful for large events. Data replication was done locally as well as across the country (Boston, MA to San Jose, CA)

I got the original DL360 G7 from here for $99 with free shipping. You will need to spend a bit more for a decent video card and USB sound to make it useful for desktop use. The 1U machines only have space for two PIC-E cards and need an adapter for more than 75W of video card power (the GT-710 don't need a cable, it's for the USB 3.0 adapter).

PCI-E card backplane.

http://instock901.com/hp-proliant-dl360-g7-1u-server-2xsix-core-xeon-28ghz-32gb-ram-8x300gb-raid
A very nice machines here but prices are increasing as stock diminishes.

 

NSA, you have been an inspiration to me. I will probably get G8 toward the end of the year for a desktop.

The G8 is nice but out of my cheapskate price range for a big upgrade from the G7s I installed.

 

I got the original DL360 G7 from here for $99 with free shipping. You will need to spend a bit more for a decent video card and USB sound to make it useful for desktop use. The 1U machines only have space for two PIC-E cards and need an adapter for more than 75W of video card power (the GT-710 don't need a cable, it's for the USB 3.0 adapter).

PCI-E card backplane.

http://instock901.com/hp-proliant-dl360-g7-1u-server-2xsix-core-xeon-28ghz-32gb-ram-8x300gb-raid
A very nice machines here but prices are increasing as stock diminishes.

When you started this thread, I looked into getting G6 like you did, then looked at G7, the thing that stopped me was the video card limits, G7 has PCI-e x16 slot, but it only has 8 physical lanes (x8). At the time I had dual GTX 750 so each card was using 8 lanes so I did not see the point of going from 8 lanes to 8 lanes.

And yes, I remember you say originally that your were trying to keep costs under 100 USD.

I recently got GTX 1060 so I want full x16 slot that runs 16 lanes. G8 has it. Was looking at the prices the other day, start at about 200 USD, most likely end up at 250 USD. On the other hand, the prices should be coming down since G8 is out of production now.

Regarding video cards. I think I mentioned earlier in the thread. EVGA runs a special every Wednesday on "refurbished" products, lot of 710, 720, 730 and even 740 cards, full hight and half hight, dual slot and single slot. You can even get 1030 cards: https://www.evga.com/Products/produ...mily=GeForce+10+Series+Family&chipset=GT+1030 The amazing thing, to me, is that they have 8400 cards, I just can not figure out where they are getting them since it has been 8xxx then 9xxx, then 2xx, did we skip 3xx generation?, 4xx, 5xx, 6xx, 7xx, skipped 8xx generation, 9xx, 10xx and now we are in the 20xx generation.

 

When you started this thread, I looked into getting G6 like you did, then looked at G7, the thing that stopped me was the video card limits, G7 has PCI-e x16 slot, but it only has 8 physical lanes (x8). At the time I had dual GTX 750 so each card was using 8 lanes so I did not see the point of going from 8 lanes to 8 lanes.

And yes, I remember you say originally that your were trying to keep costs under 100 USD.

I recently got GTX 1060 so I want full x16 slot that runs 16 lanes. G8 has it. Was looking at the prices the other day, start at about 200 USD, most likely end up at 250 USD. On the other hand, the prices should be coming down since G8 is out of production now.

Regarding video cards. I think I mentioned earlier in the thread. EVGA runs a special every Wednesday on "refurbished" products, lot of 710, 720, 730 and even 740 cards, full hight and half hight, dual slot and single slot. You can even get 1030 cards: https://www.evga.com/Products/produ...mily=GeForce+10+Series+Family&chipset=GT+1030 The amazing thing, to me, is that they have 8400 cards, I just can not figure out where they are getting them since it has been 8xxx then 9xxx, then 2xx, did we skip 3xx generation?, 4xx, 5xx, 6xx, 7xx, skipped 8xx generation, 9xx, 10xx and now we are in the 20xx generation.

Just make sure there is room for the card with a 1U DL360 vs the 2U DL380. The 1U DL360 PCI-E frame has pretty narrow physical size constraints.

 

Just make sure there is room for the card with a 1U DL360 vs the 2U DL380. The 1U DL360 PCI-E frame has pretty narrow physical size constraints.

Yeah, I noticed short while ago that you are talking about 360 and I am talking about 380p.

 

Yeah, I noticed short while ago that you are talking about 360 and I am talking about 380p.

Also make sure you get the right DL380 power adapter cable for PCI cards. It seem that almost every rev has a different MB pinout for riser card power.
https://www.amazon.com/COMeap-Motherboard-Adapter-Compatible-Server/dp/B07JKFMJJP

 

Some DL360 G7 power usage info from the server out-of-band management system ILO3.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Integrated_Lights-Out

Sever with redundant power supplies in 'Balanced Performance' mode.

Sever with redundant power supplies in 'OS Control' mode.

Desktop power in 'High Performance' mode with one power supply.

You can change the setting using ILO3.

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c00300430

Most of the surplus servers have really old firmware versions when received but in the case of some vendors there are plenty of updates on their support web for newer machines.
https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/home/result?qt=

 

The old DL380 is now in the backup server/work shed enjoying semi-retirement with the old
Soviet Mosin-Nagant 1944 carbine.

 

The old DL380 is now in the backup server/work shed enjoying semi-retirement with the old
Soviet Mosin-Nagant 1944 carbine.

Nice! Have you considered upgrading from M44 to SKS-45?

(I will not even mention SVT-40).