This encourages me to buy a node for my homelab but holy shit the prices now are very skyrocketed. Even I kinda struggle to find a new node for my homelab because most of the mini PCs or refurbished such as Optiplex and ThinkCentre are going expensive too and most of it are out of stock.
Who's your internet provider? I'm about to launch my product and am seriously considering deploying it in a home lab, but I'm feeling on the fence about Google Fiber 1G out of a residential neighborhood in Austin.
Isnt plex transcoding something that is better handled by a separate device, its a very specific capability which normally nothing else across containers needs
I've started running out of RAM. I guess things tend to use more and more RAM over time. So I've started getting rid of services I don't use much. I have 6 hard disks all at the 6 year mark and a couple showing worrying SMART readings. It was fun but now with hardware prices it starts to feel like a bit of a liability. AI has drained most of the fun out of computing for me.
I enjoyed your post but you went a bit overkill IMO (don't get me wrong: I know it's part of the fun).
> A Xeon E3-1226 v3 with 4 cores, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of storage.
> First it was Plex transcoding. Two people streaming at once and the quad-core Xeon started choking. Then I saw Frigate - real-time AI object detection on security camera feeds. On CPU, Frigate’s detector alone ate about 120% CPU, more than one of my four cores.
> The R730 I landed on has dual Xeon E5-2698 v4 processors. 20 cores each, so 40 cores and 80 threads in one box. That turned out to be far more CPU than I need
> I bought mine from Server Design Lab fully configured for about $1,850 each. Still a fraction of the $15,000+ sticker price new, but not the “$300 eBay special” you see in Reddit posts.
You kinda went ballistic: paying two times $1850 for used servers... You say it yourself: you now have more CPU than you need.
I simply upgraded my server's old Xeon to a Xeon with many cores: something like a Xeon E5-2683 v4 is 16 cores / 32 threads and they're basically free. And they consume less energy under load than your E5-2698 v4 (a E5-2698 v4 20 cores is a good choice too and they go for, what, $40? Less cores than that and those Xeons are basically given away now).
I literally have the "reddit special" $300 server: an HP Z440 workstation with 96 GB of ECC RAM in which I replaced the Xeon with a v4 with many cores and I paid not even $300 for the entire thing.
16 cores compared to 4 cores goes a long way.
It's always nice to read about other setups but I'd say there's a middle ground between "Xeon with only 4 cores" and 2x dual-Xeon 20 cores each for 80 cores / 160 threads total: instead of buying two $1850 servers you could have removed that old 4-cores Xeon and stuck a 14/16/18 or 20 cores Xeon in its place.
These 10 years old+ Xeons are really serious workhorses.
This encourages me to buy a node for my homelab but holy shit the prices now are very skyrocketed. Even I kinda struggle to find a new node for my homelab because most of the mini PCs or refurbished such as Optiplex and ThinkCentre are going expensive too and most of it are out of stock.
Who's your internet provider? I'm about to launch my product and am seriously considering deploying it in a home lab, but I'm feeling on the fence about Google Fiber 1G out of a residential neighborhood in Austin.
Isnt plex transcoding something that is better handled by a separate device, its a very specific capability which normally nothing else across containers needs
That's cool, personally I would have just gotten a similarly priced mac mini or studio
I got one of those too
I've started running out of RAM. I guess things tend to use more and more RAM over time. So I've started getting rid of services I don't use much. I have 6 hard disks all at the 6 year mark and a couple showing worrying SMART readings. It was fun but now with hardware prices it starts to feel like a bit of a liability. AI has drained most of the fun out of computing for me.
I enjoyed your post but you went a bit overkill IMO (don't get me wrong: I know it's part of the fun).
> A Xeon E3-1226 v3 with 4 cores, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of storage.
> First it was Plex transcoding. Two people streaming at once and the quad-core Xeon started choking. Then I saw Frigate - real-time AI object detection on security camera feeds. On CPU, Frigate’s detector alone ate about 120% CPU, more than one of my four cores.
> The R730 I landed on has dual Xeon E5-2698 v4 processors. 20 cores each, so 40 cores and 80 threads in one box. That turned out to be far more CPU than I need
> I bought mine from Server Design Lab fully configured for about $1,850 each. Still a fraction of the $15,000+ sticker price new, but not the “$300 eBay special” you see in Reddit posts.
You kinda went ballistic: paying two times $1850 for used servers... You say it yourself: you now have more CPU than you need.
I simply upgraded my server's old Xeon to a Xeon with many cores: something like a Xeon E5-2683 v4 is 16 cores / 32 threads and they're basically free. And they consume less energy under load than your E5-2698 v4 (a E5-2698 v4 20 cores is a good choice too and they go for, what, $40? Less cores than that and those Xeons are basically given away now).
I literally have the "reddit special" $300 server: an HP Z440 workstation with 96 GB of ECC RAM in which I replaced the Xeon with a v4 with many cores and I paid not even $300 for the entire thing.
16 cores compared to 4 cores goes a long way.
It's always nice to read about other setups but I'd say there's a middle ground between "Xeon with only 4 cores" and 2x dual-Xeon 20 cores each for 80 cores / 160 threads total: instead of buying two $1850 servers you could have removed that old 4-cores Xeon and stuck a 14/16/18 or 20 cores Xeon in its place.
These 10 years old+ Xeons are really serious workhorses.
Very nice!! Thanks for sharing!
Of course. Thanks for reading it!