Dell Poweredge R710 X5670

[zer0net]

Hello everyone,
I am able to get my hands on a Dell poweredge R710 X5670 with 128GB DDR3 Ram with H700 RAID for about $1500.

I plan to run Vmware ESXi 6 and use it for testing and possibly production.

is this a good idea? yes? no? why?

Thank you

 

[bambiboom]

Hello everyone,
I am able to get my hands on a Dell poweredge R710 X5670 with 128GB DDR3 Ram with H700 RAID for about $1500.

I plan to run Vmware ESXi 6 and use it for testing and possibly production.

is this a good idea? yes? no? why?

Thank you

zer0net,

That is a good series of PowerEdge, the LGA1366 CPU's are one the best, and the PERC H700 is very fast. A lot of R710's seem to have Seagate 10K and 15K SAS drives. I bought a Precision T5500 with a 146GB and 300GB 15K on a PERC 6/i and those had very good performance- 1208 on Passmark. There are two R710's on Passmark with an H700 however, scoring 7052 and 6788. The PERC 6/i systems score 743 to 1342- quite a difference.

The highest ratings in each category for R710:

Rating = 1922 (2X E5520 / Radeon 6670 / PERC 6/i )
CPU= 13234 (2X X5660)
2D= 513 (IG)
3D= 1314 (Radeon 6670)
Mem = 1615 (96GB)
Disk = 7053 (PERC H700)

So, yes, high quality, good performing and reliable servers. The X5670 is an excellent CPU, with 128GB RAM, and a PERC H700, and if it has a good array of drives included, it seems like a reasonable value. You can add a 2nd X5670 for about $160. If there is no appreciable GPU, you might consider a Quadro FX 3800- very good 2D and only $30-40. I use an elderly FX 580 on my elderly PowerEdge 2600.

Vmware ESXi 6 looks to be quite easy to setup.

What are you testing and producing?

Cheers,

BambiBoom

1. HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 six-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz > 32GB DDR3 ECC 1866 RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> Logitech z2300 > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440) > Windows 7 Professional 64 >
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15

Pending upgrade: HP /LSI 9212-4i PCIe SAS /SATA HBA RAID controller, 2X Seagate Constellation ES.3 1TB (RAID 1)

2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) > Xeon X5680 six -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz, 24GB DDR3 ECC 1333 > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > Linksys WMP600N PCI WiFi > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3490 / CPU = 9178 / 2D= 685 / 3D= 3566 / Mem= 1865 / Disk= 2122] [Cinebench 15 > CPU = 772 OpenGL= 99.72 FPS] 7.8.15

Pending upgrades: PERC H310, 2nd X5680

 

[kanewolf]

Have you been around 2U servers before? They can be very noisy. That is probably the biggest drawback of taking a device (R710) designed for a data center and bringing it home.

 

[zer0net]

Hello everyone,
I am able to get my hands on a Dell poweredge R710 X5670 with 128GB DDR3 Ram with H700 RAID for about $1500.

I plan to run Vmware ESXi 6 and use it for testing and possibly production.

is this a good idea? yes? no? why?

Thank you

zer0net,

That is a good series of PowerEdge, the LGA1366 CPU's are one the best, and the PERC H700 is very fast. A lot of R710's seem to have Seagate 10K and 15K SAS drives. I bought a Precision T5500 with a 146GB and 300GB 15K on a PERC 6/i and those had very good performance- 1208 on Passmark. There are two R710's on Passmark with an H700 however, scoring 7052 and 6788. The PERC 6/i systems score 743 to 1342- quite a difference.

The highest ratings in each category for R710:

Rating = 1922 (2X E5520 / Radeon 6670 / PERC 6/i )
CPU= 13234 (2X X5660)
2D= 513 (IG)
3D= 1314 (Radeon 6670)
Mem = 1615 (96GB)
Disk = 7053 (PERC H700)

So, yes, high quality, good performing and reliable servers. The X5670 is an excellent CPU, with 128GB RAM, and a PERC H700, and if it has a good array of drives included, it seems like a reasonable value. You can add a 2nd X5670 for about $160. If there is no appreciable GPU, you might consider a Quadro FX 3800- very good 2D and only $30-40. I use an elderly FX 580 on my elderly PowerEdge 2600.

Vmware ESXi 6 looks to be quite easy to setup.

What are you testing and producing?

Cheers,

BambiBoom

1. HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 six-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz > 32GB DDR3 ECC 1866 RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> Logitech z2300 > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440) > Windows 7 Professional 64 >
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15

Pending upgrade: HP /LSI 9212-4i PCIe SAS /SATA HBA RAID controller, 2X Seagate Constellation ES.3 1TB (RAID 1)

2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) > Xeon X5680 six -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz, 24GB DDR3 ECC 1333 > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > Linksys WMP600N PCI WiFi > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3490 / CPU = 9178 / 2D= 685 / 3D= 3566 / Mem= 1865 / Disk= 2122] [Cinebench 15 > CPU = 772 OpenGL= 99.72 FPS] 7.8.15

Pending upgrades: PERC H310, 2nd X5680

Thank you for a quick reply.
Oh yeah I can totally add another CPU. Thank you!

As for HDD the option is 8x450GB 10k SAS (most likely seagate)

So total comes to about $1900 with dual x5670, 128GB DDR3, PERC H700/512MB cache, 8x 450gb HDD, dual hot swap power supplies,

I plan to run a windows 2008 or 2012 domaincontroller/file server VM, and a linux email server VM for production
and for testing I plan to run few linux VMs, couple windows webserver VMs, basic stuff

EDIT: Do I need a graphics card?

 

[zer0net]

Have you been around 2U servers before? They can be very noisy. That is probably the biggest drawback of taking a device (R710) designed for a data center and bringing it home.

They are indeed noisy, but this will be for my small office so its all good

Thank you

 

[kanewolf]

That is the biggest SHOCK many posters run into when they get a 1U or 2U server "cheap". If they have never worked with servers, they aren't prepared for the noise.

 

[bambiboom]

zer0net wrote:

"Thank you for a quick reply.
Oh yeah I can totally add another CPU. Thank you!

As for HDD the option is 8x450GB 10k SAS (most likely seagate)

So total comes to about $1900 with dual x5670, 128GB DDR3, PERC H700/512MB cache, 8x 450gb HDD, dual hot swap power supplies,

I plan to run a windows 2008 or 2012 domaincontroller/file server VM, and a linux email server VM for production
and for testing I plan to run few linux VMs, couple windows webserver VMs, basic stuff

EDIT: Do I need a graphics card?"

zer0net,

That should be a really solid worker. And you have a big range of work for it.

That's a very good array- RAID 50?

GPU: The R710 uses the Matrox G200 IG which is probably fine. I use a single Dell 19" LCD with my antique PowerEdge. Thatruns well enough with the IG, and in CM DOS land, it doesn't matter, but with graphical interfaces I feel the performance is better with the FX 580- or perhaps it just looks better and feels sanitary.

My thought was that the amount of setup of Vmware ESXi 6 and maintenance with multiple platform VM's- all those 700 menus- even an inexpensive used Quadro can run a pair of small monitors at a good resolution. Again, it's only a vague engineering intuition to want to separate the system memory and processing from graphics reserved memory and processing. I have no real evidence that it would degrade processor performance- it's that I think of IG as "CPU distraction".

These things are bloody noisy aren't they?

Cheers,

BambiBoom