
Ask HN: Cheap Physical servers?  - jameshk
Trying to find a cheap physical server for a project, any ideas? Here&#x27;s what I want:<p>- (EDIT) $700-1000 price
-1-2 U rackmount or desktop form factor
- No nodes or anything fancy like 2 PSU&#x27;s
-Reliable, fairly powerful components
-Able to run linux<p>EDIT: I&#x27;m trying to start a hosting startup, and want my own servers.<p>EDIT: Thanks everyone so far, still have not found anything perfect yet, though.
======
ChuckMcM
Your best bet is to hit up one of the various resellers. These guys, like
Northbay Netoworks in the Bay Area, buy up unused and distressed assets from
companies and then resell them on the open market. They will hit up someone
like me when we have 100 - 150 "old" servers we want to get rid of, and
someone like you when you want to buy a "couple of racks worth" of servers to
try something out. Servers that are 4 - 5 years old can be had for $400 - $500
per server caveat they may or may not have memory in them. (which is a problem
if they take DDR2 memory which is no hard to find).

Conversely there are places like auctionbdi.com which liquidate old buildings
and will sell a pallet worth of old servers for $50 - $500 but you really need
to go there first to look at them to get a good estimate of how many are
recoverable out of the stack. Often times you'll be able to create maybe a
dozen "good" servers out of a stack of 50 "liquidated" servers of identical or
nearly identical type.

The post liquidator market is a place like "Weird Stuff Warehouse" (sunnyvale)
which buys pallets of stuff and pulls out the resalable stuff into their
shops.

If you want exactly 1 machine then a card on the bulletin board of a hacker
space saying what your minimum requirements are is a good investment, you can
often get one machine for free from someone who is trying to get rid of an old
machine (I've "donated" several machines that way)

And of course you can create a virtual machine on an existing desktop and just
play around with concepts before you get physical hardware.

~~~
jameshk
Useful info, thanks.

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Yeri
Find a supermicro reseller and build your own.

Back in the days when I ran my own servers (before virtual machines were so
easy and cheap -- and I'm talking 10 years ago) all my servers were supermicro
cases (and sometimes motherboards), and bought all the other components
individually.

Definitely cheaper than a HP or whatever server.

~~~
kevinday
I've had really good experiences with Amadi Systems as a Supermicro reseller.
[http://amadisystems.com/](http://amadisystems.com/)

I've stopped buying Dell/HP entirely now, because the price of Supermicro's
stuff is so much better and you don't get into warranty arguments like you do
with HP about running non-approved OSes.

~~~
jameshk
I'll check them out, thanks.

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leepowers
Do you mean dedicated servers? Hetzner, which is based in Germany, has some
very inexpensive dedicated server plans:

[http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver](http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver)

------
conjecTech
If I were you, I'd take a moment to reconsider just how crucial it is at this
stage to have your own servers. I've been in a similar position before, and as
appealing as the notion may seem, it's going to create a lot of work that
while immediately fulfilling, isn't going to be really moving your product
forward.

~~~
jameshk
I'm creating a hosting company, like Heroku and can't be hosting my customers
stuff on another company's servers, thanks for the advice though. Also there
are some cheap $99 servers that might get the job done.

~~~
michaelmior
FWIW, Heroku uses AWS.

~~~
jameshk
Also, would it not be inefficient to virtualize a virtual machine on a virtual
machine?

~~~
michaelmior
If you're planning on using virtual machines, then potentially yes.

~~~
namityadav
As far as I know, AWS doesn't allow running a hypervisor inside another
hypervisor.

~~~
michaelmior
Ravello [1] seems to do this with with VMWare and xen-blanket[2] claims to
allow running Xen on AWS.

[1] [http://www.ravellosystems.com/](http://www.ravellosystems.com/) [2]
[https://code.google.com/p/xen-blanket/](https://code.google.com/p/xen-
blanket/)

------
vhodges
Here are some links:

[http://eracks.com/](http://eracks.com/)

[http://unixsurplus.com/](http://unixsurplus.com/)

[http://www.newegg.com/Server-
Barebones/SubCategory/ID-8](http://www.newegg.com/Server-
Barebones/SubCategory/ID-8) (Add CPU/RAM/HD and you're all set)

------
jameshk
I mean real physical hardware, like an HP server you buy and setup yourself.

~~~
abofh
At your pricepoint, you're looking a white-label reseller; There's no margin
at a full-sized server for 600$, so there's not a lot of interest in selling
them.

I'd go back to why you believe you need a physical server and re-evaluate.

~~~
jameshk
I'm ok with used, and the current suggestions have been more than helpful,
although I took your advice and changed the price range to $700-1000.

------
quaffapint
Saw this over at slickdeals... [http://slickdeals.net/f/6883520-dell-
poweredge-t20-intel-has...](http://slickdeals.net/f/6883520-dell-
poweredge-t20-intel-haswell-pentium-g3220-3ghz-server-w-4gb-memory-and-500gb-
hdd-249-free-shipping)? ...Add some more RAM and it might work for you and
save some $ to boot.

------
vacri
Perhaps try an HP N54L, less than $300 (with no drives, but can hold 4). It's
a little boxy 'tower' with good build quality.

[http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/products/proliant-
servers/product-d...](http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/products/proliant-
servers/product-detail.html?oid=6280790)

------
nodesocket
I have a few Dell servers from a previous startup that were racked for about a
year, and been in storage since. I'm in San Francisco. Let me know if you're
interested in anything, and we can figure out prices.

    
    
        Dell PowerEdge R415
          16GB memory
          (2x) Processor, 4180, 2.6, 6MB, Opteron *16 cores total*
          250GB 7200rpm Western Digital Drive
    
        Dell PowerEdge R210
          8GB memory
          Processor, X3450, 2.66/4.8, 8MB, Xeon Unitary Lynnfield, B1
          (2x) 250GB 7200rpm Western Digital Drives
    
        (2x) Dell rack rapid rails (slide out). Super nice.
    

I also have a Dell 24 port PowerConnect 2824 switch as well, specs at
[http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/powerconnect-2800/pd](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/powerconnect-2800/pd)

------
akg_67
What you need is white label hardware suppliers. In US, look at Supermicro,
Silicon Mechanics, etc. I believe there a few others, a google search on white
label server providers should yield you a few hits.

Also consider looking up on Alibaba and see if you can find a server
manufacturer in China or Taiwan.

------
sitkack
Given your lack of experience with hardware, I am not sure this is the
business for you.

~~~
jameshk
I have experience with more high-end systems, but my budget is small.

------
cjbprime
I'm using a Dell C6100, on recommendation from
[http://www.servethehome.com/](http://www.servethehome.com/) :

[http://blog.printf.net/articles/2014/02/10/dell-c6100-xs23-s...](http://blog.printf.net/articles/2014/02/10/dell-c6100-xs23-sb-
server/)

Serve The Home forums are going to be the right place to look for specific
deals.
[http://forums.servethehome.com/index.php](http://forums.servethehome.com/index.php)

~~~
turnip1979
The price of those servers have gone up unfortunately. I got one for dirt
cheap when they first hit ebay. Also, those puppies are loud.

------
nairteashop
We used to OEM HP ProLiant DLs at my last gig. Great hardware. The new DL320e
starts at $579 list, so will definitely fit within your price point:

[http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/proliant-
servers/product-d...](http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/proliant-
servers/product-detail.html?oid=5379527)

If you plan to buy a few of these, definitely give their OEM / enterprise
sales guys a call - they give very good discounts off list (based on volume,
of course).

------
haeberli
So - it depends a bit on your purpose - if you just need a linux box, with no
particular performance constraing, a Raspberry Pi might do. For a bit more
performance, ODroid is nice - see
[http://www.hardkernel.com/main/main.php](http://www.hardkernel.com/main/main.php).
~$200 at the high end. You can of course add some storage via USB. For a
serious server machine - the above recommendations may be plausible.

------
dudeson
At first i would suggest you buy a VPS (
[http://virpus.com/](http://virpus.com/) ) Begin with a VPS and not with your
own physical servers. The competition is large and your investment might not
pay off. With just one server you can handle 100 costumers at ease so start
with a VPS and see how business will go and then buy your own servers.

Hope that helps. Let me know

~~~
jameshk
I'll be host VPS's so it would be inefficient, thanks though.

~~~
sitkack
You don't need your own hardware. There are literally thousands of colo server
providers that will rent bare metal machines, you can put any virtualization
tech you want on these. Lots of VPS providers run on say hertzner or similar.

------
vkdelta
Try Great Lakes Computers. they sell HP/Dell Blades and Rackmount. I have
bought from them couple of times for 20-40% of the price of the new Server.

[http://www.glcomp.com/products/servers/dell-
poweredge/blade-...](http://www.glcomp.com/products/servers/dell-
poweredge/blade-servers)

------
gscott
Some collocation facilities have their own servers you can pay a little more
for usually around $100 to 120 a month with everything you need and root
access to completely control the server.

I like dedicated servers even though the world is going to the cloud, a
dedicated server gives you control over your costs.

~~~
jameshk
I'm trying to start a hosting startup, and feel it would be out of the
question to use a provider for my use-case.

~~~
gscott
For a hosting start up I would suggest getting a massive server and paying for
it by an equipment lease. Personally I manage two racks full of servers and if
I had a magic wand it would be awesome just to have one or two big servers.
(64 gigs of ram, lots of 2.5 drives, 4 or 6 processors)

Right now co-location providers are desperate because Amazon and others are
taking away a lot of their business so you can get a good price.

I have a friend (manages his own servers) who has a hosting business and he
brings in enough to be happy, about $10k a month. He hosts ASP and .NET sites
with no marketing budget he just posts to various forums and website hosting
comparison sites.

I really like Supermicro servers and Dell Servers.... Supermicro makes some
really big servers that you can add your own components to and I find them
very reliable. For a friend some years ago I put together a $24k server and
they paid for it with a business lease through Bank of America.

I used to own the domain ehosting.com and tried doing hosting but it just
isn't my thing. Getting everything to work for a people was far more work then
I expected. If I were to try again I would just offer virtualized servers and
not have any hand in customers setups.

Having a specialty in hosting I believe is important. For example for $14.95 a
month from GoDaddy I have an account with unlimited space and unlimited
domains. I have hosted about 30 domains and 24 gigs of files all for $14.95. I
also have a virtualized server from GoDaddy for $39.95 a month which I use a
coupon code and save about 20% off a month.

~~~
jameshk
Thanks, but I prefer small, cheap 1U's because this first server is just a
test run/demo, and also because it's easier to scale.

~~~
stevekemp
"A hosting company" is a vague thing to want to setup, at the low-end you can
have a single rack with random boxes in it.

But to scale you need to consider running an AS, peering, redundant feeds,
PSUs, having remote access to reimage machines, etc, etc.

So rather than saying you want to be a host you'd get better response0s if you
said what kind of hosting person you want to be? Random wordpress? Giving
remote root on virtual machines? (Whats your antispam policy? How will you
monitor incoming/outgoing bandwidth? What kind of routers will you use? What
network topology to increase uptime? How many geographical locations?)

Lots of people started hosting companies back in the day by filling racks with
servers, before power costs made it hard, and these days reselling AWS, etc,
is the simplest way to start - no need to worry about infrastructure, and
still reasonably reliable.

------
LinuXY
[http://www.unixsurplus.com/](http://www.unixsurplus.com/)

~~~
jameshk
A nice option, thanks!

~~~
LinuXY
Welcome. Never had any issues with their gear.

------
pushkargaikwad
Can you also post at
[http://www.webhostingtalk.com/](http://www.webhostingtalk.com/), almost every
major host and independent resellers/hosts are there and few years back I was
able to find excellent server for just $90

------
gouggoug
OVH.us.

It is a French company. I worked with them when I was in France and it was
awesome.

They recently opened a datacenter in canada and they are the cheapest hosting
company I've ever seen.

I currently have 10 physical servers there and I have had no problems so far,
except maybe their crappy user interface...

------
gt565k
I've got (2) 1U Tyan B2881G28U4H servers with Dual Opteron 270 processors,
ram, and 15k scsi drives.

I shot you an email to see if you're interested. Bought these a while back and
they've been sitting in a closet ;(

Cheers

------
fiatmoney
This depends completely on what you're trying to do. Does it need to be
rackmountable? How many sockets? How many drive bays? For under-a-desk usage
(eg, somewhat quiet)?

------
jameshk
Sub-question for everyone: on some of the links people posted there were great
deals, but the server's had DDR2 RAM, would performance be decreased
significantly?

~~~
mutagen
This benchmark [1] shows little difference between DDR2 and DDR3 running on
enthusiast hardware. DDR3 runs at a lower voltage which is supposed to result
in some power savings, especially critical in most server applications, but
their benchmark showed little difference in power consumption as well.
Multiply the difference out by typical server memory configurations and it
might be more significant.

[http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/ddr3.html](http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/ddr3.html)

------
sitkack
ebay.
[http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l2632.R...](http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l2632.R2.TR2.TRC1.A0.H0.Xsunfire+x4600&_nkw=sunfire+x4600&_sacat=175698&_from=R40)
look for sunfire x4600 stuff. Very standard with lots of upgradability and
headroom.

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jameshk
Hmm...This post just disappeared from the front page and the ask section, any
ideas why?

------
burkeen
EBay.

