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What Is A Good Sub $300 Computer I Can Use For A Server? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 months ago by qwestjest78@lemmy.ca to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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I have a refurbished Lenovo Thinkcentre that I was running Truenas off of. Everything was working great, but it got hit with a power surge and after lots of trouble shooting it appears the motherboard is fried and I don't trust my ability to soder and fix it.

No now I need to upgrade my setup. Wondering what is a good sub $300 computer I can order that will run Jellyfin, Immich, and a few light services off of? With Truenas you seem to need two SSDs. One to boot and one to run apps, so it seems like a mini PC will not work.

I have a seperate HDD drive bay with a few hdd's in it full of shows and picture. Just need a PC to run my services.

I would prefer something I can order off Amazon or can be shipped quickly so I can get back up and running again.

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[–] potatoguy@mbin.potato-guy.space 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

mainly the v4 (comparing to other server cpus)

It consumes less energy than the other server cpus from intel that are generally available.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Except the hardware itself is really old which means that the performance will be much lower and thus the CPU usage will be higher. The older systems also have much slower memory and bus speeds.

You would be much better buying a more modern consumer CPU since the performance boost will mean that the CPU utilization will be lower. Most workloads including Jellyfin do not benefit from tons of slow CPU cores. Things will work better the higher CPU and ram frequently you have.

Server CPUs are a poor choice outside of very specific applications

[–] potatoguy@mbin.potato-guy.space 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My E5-2667 v4 (8 cores, higher frequency) using almost nothing of energy while watching some asmr on freetube and responding:

Edit: it has a higher tdp than the 2650 v4, and has 16gb of ddr4 ram

My E5-2667 v4 (8 cores, higher frequency) using almost nothing of energy

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

11W is actually a lot lower than what I was expecting. It isn't crazy efficient but it isn't bad.

Are you sure it supports DDR4? The Intel spec page says it has a clock of around 2.5GHz with DDR3 memory

[–] potatoguy@mbin.potato-guy.space 3 points 2 months ago

From dmidecode, DDR4:

Edit: Broadwell supports both DDR3 and DDR4, with some caveats

Handle 0x0073, DMI type 17, 40 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x0070
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Total Width: 72 bits
        Data Width: 72 bits
        Size: 8 GiB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM_B1
        Bank Locator: NODE 1
        Type: DDR4
        Type Detail: Synchronous
        Speed: 2667 MT/s
        Manufacturer: Undefined
        Serial Number: A64010B5
        Asset Tag: DIMM_B1_AssetTag
        Part Number:                     
        Rank: 1
        Configured Memory Speed: 2400 MT/s
        Minimum Voltage: 1.14 V
        Maximum Voltage: 1.26 V
        Configured Voltage: 1.2 V

Handle 0x0076, DMI type 17, 40 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x0070
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Total Width: 72 bits
        Data Width: 72 bits
        Size: 8 GiB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM_D1
        Bank Locator: NODE 1
        Type: DDR4
        Type Detail: Synchronous
        Speed: 2667 MT/s
        Manufacturer: Undefined
        Serial Number: A6401009
        Asset Tag: DIMM_D1_AssetTag
        Part Number:                     
        Rank: 1
        Configured Memory Speed: 2400 MT/s
        Minimum Voltage: 1.14 V
        Maximum Voltage: 1.26 V
        Configured Voltage: 1.2 V
[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The CPU may not use too much power, but the chipset and all the supporting circuitry will. Supporting 4/8channel memory aint free. And RAM can use a ton of power too.

[–] potatoguy@mbin.potato-guy.space 1 points 2 months ago

I can see it consuming a bit more, yes, but i didn't measure it to know for sure.