The R210 II is easily one of my favorite 1U little servers still... I have 2 R730XDs, an R720, An R620, a bunch of HPEs, but this little guy does all the DNS, adblocking, network monitoring and all kinds of stuff for years now without breaking a sweat and all that at around 20W idle.... Love this little guy.
When the fans spin fast, I don't think it's a diagnostic. I read a Sun manual that servers do that literally to blow/shake off the dust that might have settled on the fan blades.
The X-series IBM's I play with go into max-RPM either 1) after the cover's been off a bit 2) you pulled a fan. If you pull a fan, they go up, and then you pop one back in, and they start to step down.
I could see using this to run 1-2 VM's for light lifting tasks like an internet gateway/router. Something that runs 24/7 even when you're not labbing VM's. I've got a few of the Dell Rx10 servers and I really like them when compared to their contemporaries from IBM/Lenovo. The biggest one is an R820 with quad octa core xeons and 6x 15k SAS drives. At full tilt it pulls around 600watts at the wall which isn't bad for a 64 thread machine running high speed spinners. I think the thing I like best about it is that it's actually very quiet when doing so. I've already got an R610 so I may not have much use for a R210. But not having much use for something has never stopped me from buying one before. :)
Great primer for me… I just picked one up … I was gonna put pfsense on it for a remote storage location but now I’m thinking ESxi and put pfsense inside that and still have power for a windows vm, and other stuff at the same time. Mine has 2 nic plus 4 nic on the riser.
You could put a 10 GB/s NIC in that expansion slot and connect it to a iSCSI external storage. In the enterprise, you will see a whole stack of these in a rack with nothing but a boot drive and all the VMs are stored on a separate SAN that is connected through the 10gig interface.
Maybe. These things are good when you need a relatively small and low powered machine (especially if you need to fit it in a comms rack or small office) but they aren't really powerful enough to warrant stacking a bunch of them as cluster nodes, as they only have a single E3 Xeon (basically a rebranded i5). In a 1U box, you really want something like a HP DL-360, which gives you a ton of RAM and dual, proper Xeon sockets. iSCSI is a bit of an oddball, as it is too much for most small companies, and not enough for most enterprises, who go with Fibre Channel SANs. Everyone that gets iSCSI either wonders why they bothered, or wishes they bought the FC SAN in the first place. These make great routers or file/print servers though, or you can throw a HBA in it and a couple of big, slow drives and set it up as a backup server, with a FC tape library.
I personally prefer the IBM x3550 m3. I got one for $150 including shipping from ebay equiped with two XEON E5520 (4c/8t 2.27GHz) 24Gb of ECC DDR3, 4 hotswap HDD slots, IMM with VTK installed (wich makes remote presence possible) a CD/DVD drive slot, two hotswap redundent 650w PSUs, an oboard ServeRAID br10i raid controller, two 1Gbe onboard NICs and a normal and small sized x16 PCIe slot. So far, it has worked flawlessly and I will probably buy 2 or three more.
@@henkondemand It is indeed a bit more power hungry, but 5 years later after that comment was posted I can tell you that exact x3550 is still my main server ;) I even upgraded it to two Xeon X5660s for better computer performance.
I started with 2 HP DL360 G7s dual X6550 xeons with 32 GB RAM each. I have both running ESXi from internal SD card. I also started with a Dell PowerConnect 6248P Layer 3 full PoE switch. I have a Pfsense firewall/router running virtually on one of the servers on a VLAN set up on the L3 switch. I have it configured to BlackHole ads and have set up IP Blacklisting with PFBlocker. I have a HP DL120 G6 12x 3.5" SAS/SATA with dual X5650s also coming on Thursday this week. I have a 16 GB RAM kit ready to put in it. I also have 4TB WD Reds to go into it. The DL360 G7s cost £200 each with the processors and RAM +4 2.5" SAS drives included. The DL120 G6 cost 200 including 12 caddies, 8GB RAM and 2 X5650s. The Dell PowerConnect 6248 cost £100. By far the most expensive thing you will come into setting up your own servers is the hard drives, I bought 4x WD Red 4TB drives this month which cost £500 alone. I plan on getting more and filling the 12 bays. I am going to run Xpenology on the DL 120 and run it as a SAN/NAS/iSCSI for my home network and vitual hosts. I have the rails for all of the servers but no rack as of yet. I am running them stacked on some wood atm. NOTE If any of you find a Dell FS12-NV7 going for cheap DO NOT BUY IT. They are custom made for the company that ordered them. There is little to no documentation on them and you will run into issues with the RAID only Perc cards in them. They are also AMD Opteron based with DDR2 RAM. Its worth getting a Dell Rxxx or HP DLxxx with more up to date and documented equipment. Also if you really are going to go for the FS12-NV7 know that the PERC card in it only supports drives 2TB or less, you can flash the BIOS 'apparently' but it's still RAID only which limits the operating system,s you can run on the box. You have been warned!
I normally hate Dell, but these little servers have their purpose. I needed something to run VMware right away at a banquet hall. I had a similar version of this Dell server and a small wall mount rack. Works great there.
As others have mentioned the R710 is also good bang for the buck. I picked one up yesterday for $200 shipped on eBay with 48gb of ram and dual E5520's. I do totally agree with get the most ram you can get your hands on with the unit. For what it would cost me to upgrade to 128gb of ram by purchasing the ram a 'la carte I could just buy another R710 that has the added ram. And have spare parts lol. Although it's much easier to find a place to put something the size of the R210 if you don't have a dedicated rack.
I purchased a workstation instead as it can be used as a server as well. It came with dual CPU's and 96 gig of ram. If I go to a server I plan on getting a HP blade system or Dell whichever I can get the best price on. One thing to keep in mind is the power consumption, a blade system can pull 8,000 plus watts and if the server is a 2U with multiple CPU's it can also pull 2,000 plus watts, so the power bill will go up big. Running one like this shouldn't be too bad, but if you start adding servers then the power bill will go up.
I blame you for the jacked up prices of these now :-). Seriously though, great vid have watched this many times in the past year waiting for the price to come back down. Can you do an updated vid on what u view as price to performance (power) and (noise) champ right now?
The only problem I have with the R610 (and the R710 for that matter), is it pulls around 2 times the power (with one processor installed) and you would have to get two processors to even beat the E3-1240v2, not to mention some of the instruction sets (VPN Encryption) that you may lose if you need them for OpenVPN on pfSense (something this box is used for commonly). Those are just my thoughts. I go against the grain and say this is one of the few R#10 series I would want running in my rack 24/7 minus its terrible expandability.
AFK Tech I'll give you that it uses less power! i have an 810 here with dual CPUs. as for the CPU, the 210 which can run the x3430 scores .1 lower than the E5620 that can go in the 610. they are the same line of server. the expandability of the latter ones are excellent in regards to memory, drives, pci expansion, redundant power supplies. i think it is worth mentioning as some users have other needs.
I was deciding between a R210 or R610. Only thing that stopped me from getting a 210 was the Hd space and the power supply. I wanted something that had hot swap in case it was ever needed it. The server may be collocated so I wouldn't be able to access it myself. I'm glad I watched your video though to see how quiet the 210 is as I know 1U is usually quite loud.
Yeah those are features you will only be able to get in the 710 and 610 unfortunately. This will by no means ever be a storage server, but if you only need a couple TBs then this can do the trick nicely. Thanks for the helpful comment and for watching the video!
Just came across your video and channel. You did a great job on the walk through and faq's 👍🏻 I like the idea of R210 size, but was put back when you pointed out SATA 2 for speed. For a NAS build (Windows Storage Spaces or FreeNAS), what are your thoughts? PCI card, eSATA to another 1U drive case? Can you change a SAS to a cheap SATA solution? #subscribed 😉
I too like these boxes, I have one with e3-1245v2, 16GB RAM, LSI 9260i and 6 x 2.5 inch SSD, the thing rocks :) Well, I actually have two replicating each other. Used purely for highly available postgres DB.
Sweet vid. I'm considering one for a photography backup file server/redundant storage solution. Can you tell me with servers that use SAS drives, do they come with adapters to host SATA drives instead? How could you install an SSD (for operating system) and two SATA drives in this server? Thanks again for the great video!
SAS actually has a different connector compared to SATA. But it is reverse compatible so if your server takes SAS, it can take SATA. Not the other way aroundthough.
Hi, cool video ! Can you please do a video like this one with other DELL Rxxx servers ? I'm looking to buy a dell r410 but i cannot find anywhere a good review of the noise it makes. Thanks !
i have 1 of these but first gen it has a 1.86ghz low power xeon turbos to like 3ghz i think with hyper threading i love it lowest power i was able to get was like 30 watts on idle
hey there nice video, some questions: how much did you pay for this server, looking on ebay for 1240 and they are around 400-500 bucks? also which server 1u did you recommend to use pfsense? thank you
I see it's a 250w unit. What is idle and load wattages? I was wondering why u didn't recommend the 710, but yea. it takes alot of research to get the right 710 as well as dedicating that much power usage.
Fa Vang Idle is between 35-45. I don't think the R710 is really that great besides the expandability that it offers if you need it. The amount of power the R710 pulls and the processor not being that powerful on an older chipset spoils it for me. I think we're getting close to the point where I won't recommend anything pre E3/E5 naming conventions, but just my thoughts.
yep, it's a pretty good system not sure why it isn't recommend for people more. I mean it's perfect for starters or people who don't wanna go full server rack/homelab. I mean it's perfect for those whom wanna just dabble in 1 pfsense, plex or file server. Do you know if there's a 2U or 3U version of this?
The thing that irks me about these lower end Dells isn't that they're lousy (they're really quite nice) but the fact that I feel like they go for more than they're worth most of the time. I wanted one for pfSense, since they're low power and not full rack depth, but I could buy a DECENT R610 for less than an R210 II costs. It's too bad, since these are pretty nice and you really don't need hot swap capability in a homelab, especially for something like a router.
Agreed, just performance/per watt isn't there for me. I don't like the pre-E3 Xeons for that reason, and thus the R610/R710 etc. If you need those extra features though, the case is there. Thanks for the comment! I agree with you completely.
quick question for those 2 3.5 drives does it come with two sas ports/cables , im new to sas so im not sure if its interchangeable with a sata power and data cable
The 1U case is what about twenty (20) inches deep ? And can you up-grade the CPU to more than 4 cores with HT (Hyper Threading) ? Maybe drop in a couple of 10TB w/Helium HDD... for RAID 1. Any other servers with a shallow case ? Thank you for the video ! tjl
I'm not super familiar with other servers with this shallow of a case, but I'm 99% sure they exist. If you do get this one, be sure to remember the onboard controller only supports 2TB disks so you would need an HBA for anything larger.
Hello, cool video! I want to buy 1 or maybe 2 servers for my home lab to learn vmware and some other stuff. The thing is i need to run around 6-10 VMs on each server. After a lot of documenting i stuck to the idea of dl 380 g7 with 64gb of ram. What is hard to find online is how much noise it makes ? What are your thoughts on this? Should i go for a dl380 g7 ? How loud is it ?
Did you know the dual 2.5" drive sled (and most other case components) from a R220 also fit the R210ii so you can put a couple of SSDs in there without the slim optical adapter that you mention. There's some info on it here: www.dell.com/support/manuals/uk/en/ukdhs1/poweredge-r220/per220ompublication/removing-a-25-inch-hard-drive-from-the-hard-drive-cage?guid=guid-b30ffd35-b6ad-4158-b326-be4c6be05b6e&lang=en-us
My rack case vertical post are just 21" deep so this server will fit in easy ! The other nice servers like the R410, R510 and the R710 are too deep. Saw a very nice four post 18U deep rack on craiglist for $90.00 USD but blinked and lost out... tjl
can you help me pick one out from ebay? i want one for my house IP cameras. Ive been using regular desk tops. They only last a year or so. Will be mostly for the cameas and will have a vmware for misc tasks. Later I will also add another vmware for my home automation data tredning for archiving.
i too recently got a Dell R210 II and im having a problem where there is no IP Address being assigned to it. Im attempting to install Ubuntu Server and it needs an network connection in order to install. Ive tried unplugging and replugging in the ethernet cable, restarting, and it still doesnt work. Do you have any info on how i can fix this?
Yeah, this type of servers called nodes, compute nodes. You mount your central iscsi storage server as the pool for the vmware, kvm or xen hypervisor and you are good to go. This is why you dont have more storage bay.
@Scott Luther I actually have 5 r210ii now. 1 PfSense and an AP mounted centrally in house, 1 Web Server, 1 being used as primary computer for CNC Router, Shapeoko XXL, 1 NAS for CNC Business, 1 Spare. All rack mounted
@Scott Luther Love them because of their size. I don't like the long servers. I have 2 HP's and 1 Dell standard servers I need to get rid of. All have drives and work great, they are just long and a pain. lol. I have a Plex server I built using new case that holds 12 hot swapable drives. running windows 10 and have 6 drives that backup to 6 other drives once a week. 30TB backs up to 30TB. When I need a drive or upgrade to bugger drive I buy 2 at a time to replace smaller drives.
What raid card is embedded on the motherboard? I'm thinking of buying a r210 ii with a h200 card in the PCI e slot but I want to take it out and put in a Ethernet nic like you did.
AFK Tech So could I possibly remove the raid card and connect sata cables to the board and the power supply should already have the power connectors for the drives?
Yeah it should still have the onboard sata ports and you could just use the power connectors that existed for the drives originally hooked to the H200.
I'm not sure if they have anything that will fit or not, but I don't think you'll gain much from changing them. Acoustics are fine at idle and if you put anything slower (quieter) in there I don't think you'll have much airflow at all. You also have to be sure to get something that won't set Dell's fan alarm off.
Wanna upgrade my current server for plex. Right now I have a couple X5570's with 24GB of ram. I am thinking of getting this server just dedicated for plex and then use my other server for VMs for my CSGO servers. Right now I am rocking ESXI and I have 12 Threads dedicated for my plex and the other 4 threads dedicated for 2 CSGO servers. I am starting to really see the limitations of my current server, this looks like a great option! Does anyone have any experience with this server running plex?
This server should be more than plenty to run plex, it has great passmark single and overall scores. One thing to think about though, how much storage are you looking to have for plex? The onboard controller only supports up to 2TB drives I believe so if you need more than that you'll need to get an HBA card for the PCIe slot to pass through larger drives.
Yes, 6.5 is the newest version on Dell's Compatability matrix. Might work with newer, but you'll get Dell's blessing with 6.5. I'm running it as well on my R220
you see all those fans below? they are the fans that cool the heatsink that is on top of the CPU, VERY normal in servers and also why you see the plastic covers on top of that to guide the air through the fins
HotSwap? HotSwap requiring you to open server? Do you know what HotSwap means or just are just throwing terms, just because they are fancy and you like to throw them. Bays themselves are never HotSwap as they have no interface, they are just a bit of metal. Hard Disk Drive can be HotSwap (SATA and SAS are HotSwap by standard).
I meant being able to quickly remove it.. so maybe quick release would have been a better way to word it looking back, not literally a hot-swappable interface. And are you sure you know what you're talking about? Hot-swappable requiring you to open a case? Wonder how you remove these from other chassis... www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/19/poweredge-r720/720720xdom-v3/removing-a-cooling-fan?guid=guid-a3edb03a-251c-40e3-b132-79469b446cfb&lang=en-us Maybe you should spend less time putting people down on the internet.
7 years later and this is still the best R210 video there is.
real
Great vide AFK but please, the next time you are going to demo how loud something is, don't add background music. Keep the vids coming.
The R210 II is easily one of my favorite 1U little servers still... I have 2 R730XDs, an R720, An R620, a bunch of HPEs, but this little guy does all the DNS, adblocking, network monitoring and all kinds of stuff for years now without breaking a sweat and all that at around 20W idle.... Love this little guy.
I've got three of these in a vmware cluster and they're an absolute delight. Couldn't recommend a better low end/low power/high value 1u server.
Bingo!
Very informative, this is what I want from a video like this. Thanks for making my view worth while. A well deserved like 👍.
Love your videos. I'm new to networking and servers and all that and I have learned alot from watching these. Thanks!
Thank You! Let me know if there is anything you want to see!
When the fans spin fast, I don't think it's a diagnostic. I read a Sun manual that servers do that literally to blow/shake off the dust that might have settled on the fan blades.
This may very well be true, I thought it was just testing the upper-bounds RPM, but I may be wrong! Thanks for the comment!
Nathan Widmyer I believe it is a bit of both also prob for testing to check for fan fails
Very similar to MSI Video Cards too which do the same in reverse.
The X-series IBM's I play with go into max-RPM either 1) after the cover's been off a bit 2) you pulled a fan. If you pull a fan, they go up, and then you pop one back in, and they start to step down.
I could see using this to run 1-2 VM's for light lifting tasks like an internet gateway/router. Something that runs 24/7 even when you're not labbing VM's. I've got a few of the Dell Rx10 servers and I really like them when compared to their contemporaries from IBM/Lenovo. The biggest one is an R820 with quad octa core xeons and 6x 15k SAS drives. At full tilt it pulls around 600watts at the wall which isn't bad for a 64 thread machine running high speed spinners. I think the thing I like best about it is that it's actually very quiet when doing so. I've already got an R610 so I may not have much use for a R210. But not having much use for something has never stopped me from buying one before. :)
Hey I'm friends with Mike, your content is amazing! I will watch you for quite a while!! Keep it up!! :)
Great primer for me… I just picked one up … I was gonna put pfsense on it for a remote storage location but now I’m thinking ESxi and put pfsense inside that and still have power for a windows vm, and other stuff at the same time. Mine has 2 nic plus 4 nic on the riser.
You could put a 10 GB/s NIC in that expansion slot and connect it to a iSCSI external storage.
In the enterprise, you will see a whole stack of these in a rack with nothing but a boot drive and all the VMs are stored on a separate SAN that is connected through the 10gig interface.
Maybe. These things are good when you need a relatively small and low powered machine (especially if you need to fit it in a comms rack or small office) but they aren't really powerful enough to warrant stacking a bunch of them as cluster nodes, as they only have a single E3 Xeon (basically a rebranded i5). In a 1U box, you really want something like a HP DL-360, which gives you a ton of RAM and dual, proper Xeon sockets. iSCSI is a bit of an oddball, as it is too much for most small companies, and not enough for most enterprises, who go with Fibre Channel SANs. Everyone that gets iSCSI either wonders why they bothered, or wishes they bought the FC SAN in the first place. These make great routers or file/print servers though, or you can throw a HBA in it and a couple of big, slow drives and set it up as a backup server, with a FC tape library.
I personally prefer the IBM x3550 m3. I got one for $150 including shipping from ebay equiped with two XEON E5520 (4c/8t 2.27GHz) 24Gb of ECC DDR3, 4 hotswap HDD slots, IMM with VTK installed (wich makes remote presence possible) a CD/DVD drive slot, two hotswap redundent 650w PSUs, an oboard ServeRAID br10i raid controller, two 1Gbe onboard NICs and a normal and small sized x16 PCIe slot. So far, it has worked flawlessly and I will probably buy 2 or three more.
What's the geek how noisy they it is ?
I think the power consumption of the IBM is a bit higher but in return it's a more complete package.
@@henkondemand It is indeed a bit more power hungry, but 5 years later after that comment was posted I can tell you that exact x3550 is still my main server ;)
I even upgraded it to two Xeon X5660s for better computer performance.
The inside layout hasn't really changed that much for at least 10 years, first power edge servers I bought were 1425's.
I started with 2 HP DL360 G7s dual X6550 xeons with 32 GB RAM each. I have both running ESXi from internal SD card. I also started with a Dell PowerConnect 6248P Layer 3 full PoE switch. I have a Pfsense firewall/router running virtually on one of the servers on a VLAN set up on the L3 switch. I have it configured to BlackHole ads and have set up IP Blacklisting with PFBlocker. I have a HP DL120 G6 12x 3.5" SAS/SATA with dual X5650s also coming on Thursday this week. I have a 16 GB RAM kit ready to put in it. I also have 4TB WD Reds to go into it. The DL360 G7s cost £200 each with the processors and RAM +4 2.5" SAS drives included. The DL120 G6 cost 200 including 12 caddies, 8GB RAM and 2 X5650s. The Dell PowerConnect 6248 cost £100. By far the most expensive thing you will come into setting up your own servers is the hard drives, I bought 4x WD Red 4TB drives this month which cost £500 alone. I plan on getting more and filling the 12 bays. I am going to run Xpenology on the DL 120 and run it as a SAN/NAS/iSCSI for my home network and vitual hosts. I have the rails for all of the servers but no rack as of yet. I am running them stacked on some wood atm. NOTE If any of you find a Dell FS12-NV7 going for cheap DO NOT BUY IT. They are custom made for the company that ordered them. There is little to no documentation on them and you will run into issues with the RAID only Perc cards in them. They are also AMD Opteron based with DDR2 RAM. Its worth getting a Dell Rxxx or HP DLxxx with more up to date and documented equipment. Also if you really are going to go for the FS12-NV7 know that the PERC card in it only supports drives 2TB or less, you can flash the BIOS 'apparently' but it's still RAID only which limits the operating system,s you can run on the box. You have been warned!
I normally hate Dell, but these little servers have their purpose. I needed something to run VMware right away at a banquet hall. I had a similar version of this Dell server and a small wall mount rack. Works great there.
As others have mentioned the R710 is also good bang for the buck. I picked one up yesterday for $200 shipped on eBay with 48gb of ram and dual E5520's. I do totally agree with get the most ram you can get your hands on with the unit. For what it would cost me to upgrade to 128gb of ram by purchasing the ram a 'la carte I could just buy another R710 that has the added ram. And have spare parts lol. Although it's much easier to find a place to put something the size of the R210 if you don't have a dedicated rack.
I purchased a workstation instead as it can be used as a server as well. It came with dual CPU's and 96 gig of ram. If I go to a server I plan on getting a HP blade system or Dell whichever I can get the best price on. One thing to keep in mind is the power consumption, a blade system can pull 8,000 plus watts and if the server is a 2U with multiple CPU's it can also pull 2,000 plus watts, so the power bill will go up big. Running one like this shouldn't be too bad, but if you start adding servers then the power bill will go up.
Fantastic video. Very informative. You help me make up my mind.
I blame you for the jacked up prices of these now :-). Seriously though, great vid have watched this many times in the past year waiting for the price to come back down.
Can you do an updated vid on what u view as price to performance (power) and (noise) champ right now?
You should remove the music it is unnecessary, utterly distracting and covers the noise test.
Yes, indeed!
This is a list of silent servers:
www.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/b16hhm/a_list_of_noise_figures_for_common_servers_and/?
the r610 is available for around the same price, and it is dual processor capable
The only problem I have with the R610 (and the R710 for that matter), is
it pulls around 2 times the power (with one processor installed) and
you would have to get two processors to even beat the E3-1240v2, not to
mention some of the instruction sets (VPN Encryption) that you may lose
if you need them for OpenVPN on pfSense (something this box is used for
commonly).
Those are just my thoughts. I go against the grain and say this is one of the few R#10 series I would want running in my rack 24/7 minus its terrible expandability.
AFK Tech I'll give you that it uses less power! i have an 810 here with dual CPUs. as for the CPU, the 210 which can run the x3430 scores .1 lower than the E5620 that can go in the 610. they are the same line of server. the expandability of the latter ones are excellent in regards to memory, drives, pci expansion, redundant power supplies. i think it is worth mentioning as some users have other needs.
Totally agree! Thanks for the comment and the sub. I'll make a post on my website this week going through some of the used gear out there.
AFK Tech awesome, keep up the great work.
Can you please confirm how much power is your R210 consuming? I have a Dell R710 which averages about 100W. Just trying to compare the two. Thanks.
I was deciding between a R210 or R610. Only thing that stopped me from getting a 210 was the Hd space and the power supply. I wanted something that had hot swap in case it was ever needed it. The server may be collocated so I wouldn't be able to access it myself. I'm glad I watched your video though to see how quiet the 210 is as I know 1U is usually quite loud.
Yeah those are features you will only be able to get in the 710 and 610 unfortunately. This will by no means ever be a storage server, but if you only need a couple TBs then this can do the trick nicely. Thanks for the helpful comment and for watching the video!
I was doing some research and found that the 410 could also be configured with redundant power supplies.
Awesome video. Thanks
I need that for pfsense
Just came across your video and channel. You did a great job on the walk through and faq's 👍🏻
I like the idea of R210 size, but was put back when you pointed out SATA 2 for speed.
For a NAS build (Windows Storage Spaces or FreeNAS), what are your thoughts?
PCI card, eSATA to another 1U drive case? Can you change a SAS to a cheap SATA solution?
#subscribed 😉
I too like these boxes, I have one with e3-1245v2, 16GB RAM, LSI 9260i and 6 x 2.5 inch SSD, the thing rocks :) Well, I actually have two replicating each other. Used purely for highly available postgres DB.
Darren Williams the power supply only has 3 power connectors, how did you use 6 drives?
@@sufyspeed I would guess that he used some splitters, or the disks are in an external shelf.
Congrats you just got a new subscriber! lol Great video!!
Awesome! Thanks for the comment and the sub!
It all depends how good of a deal you get. Just bought an R420 for 140-ish (after deducting the value of the rails and drives it came with).
How about an update? It's 20 months later and I now see 12 core machines on eBay in the $200 range.
I was given one of these last December but after getting an R620 and T410, it's hardly turned on anymore.
Sweet vid. I'm considering one for a photography backup file server/redundant storage solution. Can you tell me with servers that use SAS drives, do they come with adapters to host SATA drives instead? How could you install an SSD (for operating system) and two SATA drives in this server? Thanks again for the great video!
schultzphotographic SATA and SAS use the same connector. all modern servers (around 2008 and newer) support both
SAS actually has a different connector compared to SATA. But it is reverse compatible so if your server takes SAS, it can take SATA. Not the other way aroundthough.
Cubed Cubing I forgot that bit😂
It's fine! I get SCSi and IDE connectors mixed up all the time.
This looks like a great pfSense box and cashing server.
8:00 SATA 2 interface is measured in gigabits not bytes ^^ so around 1/8th of 3Gb = 375 megabytes per second transfer ;)
Yeah haha, this^ I always trip the two up because I'm always reversing them. Thanks for the comment!
I got a dell r410 with dual E5620's, a 160gb HDD, and 16gb of ECC ram for $100
Great info! Thanks👌🏾
Hi, cool video !
Can you please do a video like this one with other DELL Rxxx servers ?
I'm looking to buy a dell r410 but i cannot find anywhere a good review of the noise it makes.
Thanks !
i have 1 of these but first gen it has a 1.86ghz low power xeon turbos to like 3ghz i think with hyper threading i love it lowest power i was able to get was like 30 watts on idle
Yeah that's one of the big points, it's power consumption is just sipping at idle.
1) can you mirror the usb to the 2nd for redundancy in case the hypervisor files get corrupted? it happend to me before
hey there nice video, some questions: how much did you pay for this server, looking on ebay for 1240 and they are around 400-500 bucks? also which server 1u did you recommend to use pfsense? thank you
We're did u learn all this stuff it's really interesting n would love to have the knowledge you do
I see it's a 250w unit. What is idle and load wattages? I was wondering why u didn't recommend the 710, but yea. it takes alot of research to get the right 710 as well as dedicating that much power usage.
Fa Vang Idle is between 35-45. I don't think the R710 is really that great besides the expandability that it offers if you need it. The amount of power the R710 pulls and the processor not being that powerful on an older chipset spoils it for me. I think we're getting close to the point where I won't recommend anything pre E3/E5 naming conventions, but just my thoughts.
yep, it's a pretty good system not sure why it isn't recommend for people more. I mean it's perfect for starters or people who don't wanna go full server rack/homelab. I mean it's perfect for those whom wanna just dabble in 1 pfsense, plex or file server. Do you know if there's a 2U or 3U version of this?
Did you know zhat there is a Remote Access Console (iDRAC)? The RJ-45 Port with the service Symbol?
The thing that irks me about these lower end Dells isn't that they're lousy (they're really quite nice) but the fact that I feel like they go for more than they're worth most of the time. I wanted one for pfSense, since they're low power and not full rack depth, but I could buy a DECENT R610 for less than an R210 II costs.
It's too bad, since these are pretty nice and you really don't need hot swap capability in a homelab, especially for something like a router.
Agreed, just performance/per watt isn't there for me. I don't like the pre-E3 Xeons for that reason, and thus the R610/R710 etc. If you need those extra features though, the case is there.
Thanks for the comment! I agree with you completely.
quick question for those 2 3.5 drives does it come with two sas ports/cables , im new to sas so im not sure if its interchangeable with a sata power and data cable
Love the video and channel content. Would you be willing to do without the background music? Regardless - great stuff!
The 1U case is what about twenty (20) inches deep ? And can you up-grade the CPU to more than 4 cores with HT (Hyper Threading) ? Maybe drop in a couple of 10TB w/Helium HDD... for RAID 1. Any other servers with a shallow case ? Thank you for the video ! tjl
I'm not super familiar with other servers with this shallow of a case, but I'm 99% sure they exist. If you do get this one, be sure to remember the onboard controller only supports 2TB disks so you would need an HBA for anything larger.
The R210 is 15.5 inches deep. Very small.
Hello, cool video! I want to buy 1 or maybe 2 servers for my home lab to learn vmware and some other stuff. The thing is i need to run around 6-10 VMs on each server. After a lot of documenting i stuck to the idea of dl 380 g7 with 64gb of ram. What is hard to find online is how much noise it makes ? What are your thoughts on this? Should i go for a dl380 g7 ? How loud is it ?
Raptor I recently bought an r710 they are quiet aswell and may be cheaper than a dl380 g7 depending on where u live
can you have 32 or 64 gb ram on it ?
Raptor the r710 takes up to 288gb of ram
But on this model, what's the maximum ram you can have ?
Raptor the r210 ii takes up to 32gb ram
Did you know the dual 2.5" drive sled (and most other case components) from a R220 also fit the R210ii so you can put a couple of SSDs in there without the slim optical adapter that you mention. There's some info on it here: www.dell.com/support/manuals/uk/en/ukdhs1/poweredge-r220/per220ompublication/removing-a-25-inch-hard-drive-from-the-hard-drive-cage?guid=guid-b30ffd35-b6ad-4158-b326-be4c6be05b6e&lang=en-us
Looks good!, can you run the latest ESXI on this (6.5)?
Just had a look, guessing you're running 5.5?
My rack case vertical post are just 21" deep so this server will fit in easy ! The other nice servers like the R410, R510 and the R710 are too deep. Saw a very nice four post 18U deep rack on craiglist for $90.00 USD but blinked and lost out... tjl
can you help me pick one out from ebay? i want one for my house IP cameras. Ive been using regular desk tops. They only last a year or so. Will be mostly for the cameas and will have a vmware for misc tasks. Later I will also add another vmware for my home automation data tredning for archiving.
i too recently got a Dell R210 II and im having a problem where there is no IP Address being assigned to it. Im attempting to install Ubuntu Server and it needs an network connection in order to install. Ive tried unplugging and replugging in the ethernet cable, restarting, and it still doesnt work. Do you have any info on how i can fix this?
Looks like the worlds best pfsense box
Is this quiet enough to put in a living room for media server? it would be in a non-enclosed cubby behind the tv?
Yep they're quiet in the 2nd generation
Essential info: How much does it cost? Where to buy and processor specs up front.
What would be the noise comparison of r210 ii vs other Rx10 ? Is this the quietest ?
What are the two black pieces (looks like small boards) beside the PCIe board?
This is a super new comment, but can we install Linux CentOS7.6 ( full or minimum) on this?
You can install either.
How much RAM capacity you have installed in every slot?
Yeah, this type of servers called nodes, compute nodes. You mount your central iscsi storage server as the pool for the vmware, kvm or xen hypervisor and you are good to go. This is why you dont have more storage bay.
I am wanting to use one of these to make a pfsense router. Is there a way to install a wireless card to this router?
It has a single PCIE x16 slot, so you could put one in there, but I prefer a quad nic and an external AP.
@Scott Luther I actually have 5 r210ii now. 1 PfSense and an AP mounted centrally in house, 1 Web Server, 1 being used as primary computer for CNC Router, Shapeoko XXL, 1 NAS for CNC Business, 1 Spare. All rack mounted
@Scott Luther Love them because of their size. I don't like the long servers. I have 2 HP's and 1 Dell standard servers I need to get rid of. All have drives and work great, they are just long and a pain. lol. I have a Plex server I built using new case that holds 12 hot swapable drives. running windows 10 and have 6 drives that backup to 6 other drives once a week. 30TB backs up to 30TB. When I need a drive or upgrade to bugger drive I buy 2 at a time to replace smaller drives.
Ive got an enclosed desk rack at work and would like to switch to a pfSense router. Would buying one of these work well for that? or is that overkill?
It's a little overkill, but I got a R210
ii for $40. Just seen a R220 for $50 but 7+ hrs from me and no shipping
You can put a USB wifi and bluetooth use adapter in it
We recently had a power outage and now the hardware gives a "No bootfile received" error. Do you maybe know how can I fix this?
What raid card is embedded on the motherboard? I'm thinking of buying a r210 ii with a h200 card in the PCI e slot but I want to take it out and put in a Ethernet nic like you did.
It's not the best. I believe it handles RAID 0,1 but nothing else
AFK Tech So could I possibly remove the raid card and connect sata cables to the board and the power supply should already have the power connectors for the drives?
Yeah it should still have the onboard sata ports and you could just use the power connectors that existed for the drives originally hooked to the H200.
AFK Tech That's great to hear. Last question could I use the onboard raid controller without the raid because I know ZFS does not like raid cards.
Omg I’m praying that it supports 12tb hdd. Any idea?
can you swap the fans for something better, like noctua?
I'm not sure if they have anything that will fit or not, but I don't think you'll gain much from changing them. Acoustics are fine at idle and if you put anything slower (quieter) in there I don't think you'll have much airflow at all. You also have to be sure to get something that won't set Dell's fan alarm off.
so not a file server, more of a VM machine?
What server rack do you have this mounted to?
Managed to steal a good deal for £90 (uk).... Was 120, I asked for 100 offer and at checkout... Added a promotion code for 10% off
Can you tell me the dimensions of the case?
oh! and what if I can get an R710 for 100$ more, which would be best to get then
100% get the R710 over this I have one running 128GB Ram > 2x x5690 cpu's + 16TB storage and it's cheap as heck to run electric wise
So it doesn’t have hot pluggable HDD bays?
No, you need the R410 for that, but This is the lowest depth Dell server in the price point. the R410 is much deeper because of the backplane.
Wanna upgrade my current server for plex. Right now I have a couple X5570's with 24GB of ram. I am thinking of getting this server just dedicated for plex and then use my other server for VMs for my CSGO servers. Right now I am rocking ESXI and I have 12 Threads dedicated for my plex and the other 4 threads dedicated for 2 CSGO servers. I am starting to really see the limitations of my current server, this looks like a great option! Does anyone have any experience with this server running plex?
This server should be more than plenty to run plex, it has great
passmark single and overall scores. One thing to think about though, how
much storage are you looking to have for plex? The onboard controller
only supports up to 2TB drives I believe so if you need more than that
you'll need to get an HBA card for the PCIe slot to pass through larger
drives.
I think I may have misspoken. I believe it supports up to 3TB drives, not just 2TB.
I would be using a nas for my storage, The server its self will only have a 64gb SSD for booting. So I wouldnt have to worry about that :)
Fun fact: it 50$ now good for testing and messing with
Is it possible to run esxi 6.5.x ?
What is that I am new to networking btw
Yes, 6.5 is the newest version on Dell's Compatability matrix. Might work with newer, but you'll get Dell's blessing with 6.5. I'm running it as well on my R220
why don't you put the hardware in a computer case, than instead of leave it in the server case
no computer case supports dells server mother board
I got a IBM X3550 M2 for $60
is sriov possible?
Power consumption?
Around 43 watts idle.
With 2 ssd only 30watt idle
4:40 No cooler on top of the CPU .... is this common?
you see all those fans below? they are the fans that cool the heatsink that is on top of the CPU, VERY normal in servers and also why you see the plastic covers on top of that to guide the air through the fins
How about power consumption? Low, Medium, High? Don't wanna pay for another air-conditioner unit at home.
Dell: it’s a server 🤨 me: no it’s a gtx 1050 gaming machine
HotSwap?
HotSwap requiring you to open server?
Do you know what HotSwap means or just are just throwing terms, just because they are fancy and you like to throw them.
Bays themselves are never HotSwap as they have no interface, they are just a bit of metal.
Hard Disk Drive can be HotSwap (SATA and SAS are HotSwap by standard).
I meant being able to quickly remove it.. so maybe quick release would have been a better way to word it looking back, not literally a hot-swappable interface. And are you sure you know what you're talking about? Hot-swappable requiring you to open a case? Wonder how you remove these from other chassis... www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/19/poweredge-r720/720720xdom-v3/removing-a-cooling-fan?guid=guid-a3edb03a-251c-40e3-b132-79469b446cfb&lang=en-us Maybe you should spend less time putting people down on the internet.
Here is a fancy term. "Dick head". As in, why is there a dick head in every crowd? Ignore him. Great video.
anyone want one? I have 20 more for sale
Still have some?
@@mrmotofy yes actually
Please do not talk from generation 10 server its 11 not 10.
R = Rack
2 = Serverclass performance
1 = Generation 11
0 = Intel System
wow i got 2 untested servers which are more powerful for a lower price