Why some server racks have 2.5" drives only

[cah8429]

I'm poking around and looking at a lot of these older rackmount servers (like the HP Proliant) and I'm wondering why some of these have 2.5" drives only? Are they intended to use SSDs only, or are 2.5" HDDs actually used in these things? I thought it'd be pretty cool to get one of these refurbed servers but I'd like to know if it's a no-no to use 2.5" HDDs for server use or not for a personal/family server

 

[problematiq]

I'm poking around and looking at a lot of these older rackmount servers (like the HP Proliant) and I'm wondering why some of these have 2.5" drives only? Are they intended to use SSDs only, or are 2.5" HDDs actually used in these things? I thought it'd be pretty cool to get one of these refurbed servers but I'd like to know if it's a no-no to use 2.5" HDDs for server use or not for a personal/family server

there are 2.5" SAS and HDD's. You can fit 24 2.5" drives in a 2u servers as opposed to 12 in the same 2u chassis. Most business servers use SAS drives and the capacity between 2.5 and 3.5 drives at 15k RPM usually stay the same.
You can use 2.5" HDD's it would be no different than using 3.5" as far as reliability and speed. (though technically 2.5" drives are faster than 3.5" but the amount is so small no one mentions it.)

 

[faalin]

I'm poking around and looking at a lot of these older rackmount servers (like the HP Proliant) and I'm wondering why some of these have 2.5" drives only? Are they intended to use SSDs only, or are 2.5" HDDs actually used in these things? I thought it'd be pretty cool to get one of these refurbed servers but I'd like to know if it's a no-no to use 2.5" HDDs for server use or not for a personal/family server

there are 2.5" SAS and HDD's. You can fit 24 2.5" drives in a 2u servers as opposed to 12 in the same 2u chassis. Most business servers use SAS drives and the capacity between 2.5 and 3.5 drives at 15k RPM usually stay the same.
You can use 2.5" HDD's it would be no different than using 3.5" as far as reliability and speed. (though technically 2.5" drives are faster than 3.5" but the amount is so small no one mentions it.)

It depends on the server you get. I picked up two HP proliant gen 6 servers, one is a 6x3.5 drive while the other is a 8x2.5 with the capacity to upgrade to 16 bays and both servers are a sas/sata drives. We ended up upgrading our gen 7 server to bigger drives and was able to put them in my older gen 6.

The gen9 we just bought has the capacity for 24 drives up front and another 2 in the rear.

 

[problematiq]

I'm poking around and looking at a lot of these older rackmount servers (like the HP Proliant) and I'm wondering why some of these have 2.5" drives only? Are they intended to use SSDs only, or are 2.5" HDDs actually used in these things? I thought it'd be pretty cool to get one of these refurbed servers but I'd like to know if it's a no-no to use 2.5" HDDs for server use or not for a personal/family server

there are 2.5" SAS and HDD's. You can fit 24 2.5" drives in a 2u servers as opposed to 12 in the same 2u chassis. Most business servers use SAS drives and the capacity between 2.5 and 3.5 drives at 15k RPM usually stay the same.
You can use 2.5" HDD's it would be no different than using 3.5" as far as reliability and speed. (though technically 2.5" drives are faster than 3.5" but the amount is so small no one mentions it.)

It depends on the server you get. I picked up two HP proliant gen 6 servers, one is a 6x3.5 drive while the other is a 8x2.5 with the capacity to upgrade to 16 bays and both servers are a sas/sata drives. We ended up upgrading our gen 7 server to bigger drives and was able to put them in my older gen 6.

The gen9 we just bought has the capacity for 24 drives up front and another 2 in the rear.

The numbers I put were the max values for the front of a 2U server. And really, I've only seen a max of 8 3.5" drives in the front of a 2U server so not sure why dell says 12, maybe they were counting the rear drives.

 

[faalin]

Dell PowerEdge C2100 does have 12 3.5" drives in the front.

Im pretty sure since the HP Proliant gen 8 they have been 2.5" drives. You can still find some gen7's that are 3.5"

But you can pick up HP Proliant gen6's on ebay for under $200, I picked up two gen6 with dual X5570 and 32Gb of ram. the 3.5" drives are running 12TB while the 2.5" drives is only 1.5Tb.

I mainly picked them up to learn and manage serves so I didn't screw them up at work. You can also load windows server 2016 on them for 180 days before Microsoft throws a fit that they aren't validated, at that time you just format and reinstall 😀

 

[cah8429]

Thank you for the information guys! I see an HP Proliant DL380 G5 for sale for a good price (refurbished, 3 year warranty, x2 E5410 Xeons) at $80 a pop. Does that sound fishy at all? It'd be pretty neat to grab something like this and set it up as a family Nextcloud and Plex server

 

[faalin]

ive never seen a server sold with an OS, but does it come with any drives. It sounds about right for a G5, like I said I paid right around $180 for my G6 with dual X5570's 24GB ram, and 2 146GB 2.5" sas drives.

That G5 will do the job for a Nextcloud and Plex server, just keep in mind the fans are going to be loud and they cant be replaced with different ones.