tl;dr Impulse-purchased an IBM x3650 M4 7915 to serve as the keystone of my homelab build; I’m either a mad genius or simply insane
I should preface this by saying I’m of a certain age, and with that comes a weird combination of nostalgia and reverence for x86-based IBM hardware. The first computer I could call my own was an IBM PC-XT I got second hand in the mid-90s. Not long after, I graduated to a PS/2 Model 80 that was in amazing shape and kitted out with an original VGA monitor, model M keyboard, and second-gen PS/2 mouse—if only my teenage self understood the treasure that setup would become.
Anyway, last night, in addition to some other odds and ends, I impulse-purchased an IBM x3650 M4 7915 primarily because I really appreciate System x hardware, but also mostly because it was like $110 USD with free shipping.
Planning to use this as the basis of a scratch homelab build primarily for use as a learning platform. I know there’s a lot of trial and error, pain and frustration, but also the acquisition of knowledge, and that valuable kind of growth that only comes in the wake of tremendous failure and defeat, sprouting like fireweed on an expanse of charred wasteland after a cleansing wildfire.
Either I’m a mad genius, or I’m simply insane
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Hah, my old company that I left a year ago still runs those as their primary ESXi cluster.
I’m glad I left that place. I remember paying more than that for the annual hardware-only support on it lol.
I love the IBM x3650 range. My absolute favourite workhorse.
if only my teenage self understood the treasure that setup would become.
Oh yeah that’s sad, I remember moving out of my parents house 15 years ago only to come back for Christmas and asking where the old Tandy computer was… My mother threw it out, that thing had a bunch of great classic games running on DOS like Rampage, Pitfall, Star Trek, galaga, centipede, etc… I’m still mad.
Congrats! You just paid for shipping and got the server free.
If anyone will try to tell you it’s garbage - don’t listen. It’s still the cheapest way to get multicore performance with up to 768GB RAM. Downside? It’s noisy and power hungry. If you can live with that - you will enjoy it. It’s well designed machine that will serve you well.
Downside? It’s noisy and power hungry
Pretty big downside tbh and pretty meh Xeon CPU at this point (equal to a 7th gen i7).
But plus side is the space for HDD, memory is easy to get cheap (DDR3) and a solid case to build in a new build at worse.
Well you can’t put two I7s on one board :)
That’s why I’m saying - it’s a cheap way to get to those levels of performance, not the best way.
In 90% of cases small 920x would be sufficient for homelab, but if someone likes big, loud enterprise machines - this one is oldie but goodie.
Also an i7 of that age doesn’t go up to 12 cores, for multithreading that is quite a benefit. Especially in a server.
Well you can’t put two I7s on one board :)
Technically you can : https://www.newegg.ca/p/pl?d=dual+processor+motherboard
Question is, why would you? 😂 You will get better performance from a Xeon or Epyc cpu for probably less.
The x3650 M4 7915 is a fine server, although outdated to today standards can still pull his weight if hidden and not scared of power cost (like OP mentioned, he’s not haha.
I’ve got space to keep this baby out of the way, so the noise problem is a non-issue, and we have residential solar panels installed which significantly mitigates our utility costs, so I’m in a situation where those factors—while still significant—aren’t as big an issue for me atm.
Like I said, nostalgia was an admittedly outsized factor in my decision making process, and I’m fully cognizant of the limitations of this rig, even with significant upgrades, but as a starting point, and with my current planned uses for it, I’m feeling fairly happy with my decision.
I had a System X tower (forget what model right off hand) previously. Thing was an absolute beast in terms of size and weight, took two people to manhandle, poor FedEx guy complained about it lol. You think rack mounted servers are loud, my 1U is deathly quiet compared to the jet engines cooling that model of System X. Was always a thrill turning it on though!
I’ve been watching to add another System X to my collection. I love IBM gear where and when I can get it.
I have 3 of those make sure they’re fully updated otherwise a chip is slowly killed at every reboot
For more information https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zl4iDxGD7cQ
Im interested in your journey with that one. Im keyboard ‘nerd’ myself and own lots of ibm keyboards. Model f XT and AT both work over usb after converting them. Lots of model M:s, beamspring mainframe keyboard it weights over 5kg… Thats also converted to usb and littlebit exotic M50 and F50. I regret selling my model F104 aka Unsaver. But i really needed money at that point in my life.
The best part of those machines was the warranty service, which I used regularly when I was supporting these machines in production.
If you don’t already know about Morten Hjorth, he has an absolute priapism when it comes to IBM and Lenovo server gear.
He has made a YouTube channel with a huge amount of videos about his obsession over them.
That’s a nice heater! And a very good door stop. Nice catch.
Meh. You paid someone to get rid of their ewaste.
With top end processors you’re still left with garbage CPU performance, especially single thread performance. 24c/48t of crap 🤷♂️ I’m not sure why guys in this group get so excited over cores and threads. Omgmoar! 🙄
For what you’ll pay in electric you could have had a brand new machine on a desktop processor that would decimate that machine on 1/4 of the power. (I went from 2660v4’s to a 13500, cut my power by now than half and have significantly better performance in every way. Paid for itself in 18 months)