munch munch munch
This page is dedicated to my 42u Server Rack and the servers contained within it, or something along those lines for anyone who is interested. I’ll also give a rough estimate on how the whole thing has cost me thus far at some point within this page.
Specifications
- Cisco SG200-26 (26 Port Switch)
- ThinkServer RS140 w/ 32GB RAM, 1.2TB HDD, 4 Cores
- ThinkServer RS140 w/ 8GB RAM, 300GB HDD (Used for small docker containers), 4 Cores
- HP ProLiant DL360p G8 w/ 32GB RAM, 3 .approx TB HDD/s (waiting for 4 more caddies), x2 8 Core CPUs (16 Thread), total of 16 Cores, 32 Threads.
- HP ProLiant DL380 G7 w/ 8GB RAM, 7.5TB HDDs
- My Friend’s Server: HP ProLiant DL120 G7, 20GB RAM, (undisclosed storage), 8 Cores
- Dell Poweredge R230 – being fixed up :), planning to add 64gb ram (ddr4)
- PiKVM w/ 4gb RAM & 64gb storage (sd card lol, since it is a raspberry pi and I’m lazy) coupled with a lovely HP KVM Switch
I am averaging a new server every 2-3~ish months, which honestly probably isn’t a great idea. The cost of power isn’t too bad, just have to keep a close eye on the wattage. I plan to get a lovely rack-mounted router instead of using a crappy eero 6 (because I’m a lazy bean – yeah that’s it). The eero isn’t all that bad – around 2.5Gbit/s LAN speeds, and local rack speeds of around the same.
Storage & Stuff
Please Note: not all of these drives are currently in use lol (aka I need to buy a storage array server) yippee!!
- x1 10tb 3.5″ SATA
- x1 4tb 3.5″ SATA
- x10 4tb 3.5″ SAS
- x10 3tb 3.5″ SAS
- x2 1.2tb 2.5″ SAS
- x1 1tb 2.5″ SATA
- x20 900gb 2.5″ SAS
- x1 600gb 2.5″ SAS
- x2 300gb 2.5″ SAS
- x1 146gb 2.5″ SAS
This totals to approximately 106.745~ terabytes. Funsies!! Some say this is way too much storage, but you can never have too much!
Now, aren’t Ethernet Cables fun?
- x50 Mixed Length Ethernet Cables (around 300 .approx ft) – CAT6
- x30 ✨ sealed ✨ short-length Ethernet Cables – CAT6
- x25 also sealed meh-sized 1m-ish Ethernet Cables – CAT6
So around 105 total ethernet cables (still think I’m sane? ahhahaha)
General/Operating Costs
As we all know, the average British electricity bill is pure bullsh*t – 23.51p/kWh is my current tariff, however I have a sneaky trick up my sleeve!
Electricity Costs (Operating Costs)
Using my servers’ built-in power meter and power capping features I can lower my costs my around £30/mo. For example, using iLO4 I set my DL360p G8’s power cap to 80w which equates to around 0.08kWh. This means that my total cost for the DL360p G8 is £13.53 to run 24/7 each month even though the power supplies within the server count up to 750w each (x2 PSUs however one is redundant).
However, on the other hand, a Raspberry Pi 4B (e.g. my PiKVM, which uses a RPi 4B) uses hardly anything!
This was calculated with the power tariff at 23.51p/kWh.
| RPi State | Power Consumption | Cost (GBP) per / hour |
|---|---|---|
| Idle | 540mA (2.7w) | 0.0534 |
| ab -c 100 -c 10 (uncached) | 101mA (5.1w) | 0.119 |
| 400% CPU Load (stress –cpu 4) | 1280mA (6.4w) | 0.1504 |
It is unlikely that the PiKVM will be running at 400% load, thus for a monthly cost-basis I’ll base it off the uncached model. Therefore, it would cost around £0.8627 to run a RPi 4B for an entire month. Mind you, the price of electricity is finally getting cheaper again, so when my tariff updates, I will also update this (estimated around 21p/kWh – yippee!)
Software & Self-hosting
| Device | Operating System | Rough System Specs |
|---|---|---|
| ThinkServer RS140 | Arch Linux | 32gb RAM, 8 Cores |
| ThinkServer RS140 | Debian 12 | 8gb RAM, 8 Cores |
| HP ProLiant DL360p G8 | Debian 12 | 32gb RAM, 16 Cores |
| HP ProLiant DL380 G7 | Still working on it | 8gb RAM, 8 Cores |
| Dell PowerEdge R230 | Waiting on delivery | No RAM – 4 Cores |
You can see an entire list (I am constantly updating it) on the resources page, either way, here’s a summarised list:
- Jellyfin, Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, etc
- Homepage
- Glance
- Dockge
- NGINX Proxy Manager
- Statping-ng
- etc (see the resources page for a full list: :3 )