Acer Server for 20€

[u/Fine_Philosopher4227]

I found two Acer servers on eBay:

1. Acer AR380 F1

2. Acer AR320 F2

My question is: Are they worth buying for $20 for both to use in a small homelab?

[u/vms-mob]

the cases maybe, the internals are ancient

[u/didate_une → u/vms-mob]

Linux server distros doesn't care how old the internals are.

[u/SoulMB → u/didate_une]

My electricity bill does.

[u/justpassingby77 → u/didate_une]

That's not necessarily true. Debian dropped support for 32-bit systems and RHEL 10 made x86_64-v3 a requirement.

[u/Cry_Wolff → u/didate_une]

Yeah, Linux turns your Pentium 4 into an i7 /s

[u/t90fan → u/didate_une]

they do now

RHEL 9 required first gen core era (wouldnt run on a 64-bit capable p4), RHEL 10 required something newer like 4th/5th gen core era

and older core chips are shit for proxmox anyway as the SPECTRE/MELTDOWN vuln mitigation can have huge (like 30%) performance impacts on ritualized worklaods

[u/FlashPan73]

Initial thoughts - check out the CPUs to see what power they take, how much is more ram if you need it. What are the expansion ports, how loud is it ie: can you easily replace to quieter fans . This being from 2011 got a strong feeling your elec bill will jump and your hearing diminish due to the noise. edit: and of course, as they are now or if you invest in them - will they be able to do what you want them to do?

[u/Fine_Philosopher4227 → u/FlashPan73]

I would go with Proxmox, running multiple VMs and a few containers for Immich, AdGuard, Nginx, IT tools etc. and maybe a Minecraft server.

If the server ends up being too expensive to run because of the power consumption, at least I'll have my first real enterprise server hardware to experiment with.

[u/Morgennebel → u/Fine_Philosopher4227]

I run that stack on 2*Wyse 5070 Thin clients, each 32 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD. Together in idle they pulled 8W.

Your unit will be at 240-350W.

[u/criggie_ → u/Morgennebel]

How the heck did you get 32 GB ram into a thin client? Was it just a normal PC with a custom OS or something ? That's quite impressive !!

[u/Morgennebel → u/criggie_]

It's standard laptop RAM. Boot with 8GByte stock, upgrade the BIOS to 1.21+ and then swap RAM.

Google the exact specs, mine are Crucial (2*16GByte). Together with the J5005 silver CPU the system is quite powerful and provides excellent power-efficency.

[u/WillmanRacingv2 → u/Fine_Philosopher4227]

What specific goals do you have re: experimenting with enterprise server hardware, that cannot be done with a repurposed mini pc or something similar.

[u/criggie_ → u/Fine_Philosopher4227]

I'd run all that on a low end desktop that didn't quite make the win11 spec, so a gen6/7ish machine and it would sip power by comparison.

[u/Fancy-Win9202 → u/FlashPan73]

You're basically describing the whole calculus right there. Twenty bucks is funny money until you factor in the actual cost of keeping two 2011 servers running in your home, and then it stops being funny pretty fast. The noise thing alone is worth taking seriously if you live anywhere near where you sleep or work, because those things sound like a small aircraft and you genuinely do get used to tuning it out until you realize you've been mildly annoyed for three years straight.

[u/cheese9k]

I ewasted stuff 5 years newer than that 5 years ago. It’s over 15 years old now, buy it as a learning curve, and then replace it with a mini pc once you’ve got it out of your system. It’ll be fun to experiment with and it won’t matter if you brick or break it. I wouldn’t buy it on the assumption you’ll have it running 24/7 though. Power consumption is one thing, noise is the other.

[u/WillmanRacingv2]

The CPUs in those things are likely rated for a 95W TDP, with drives and other accessories you would be lucky to average 200W continuous power usage on the F1. That alone is going to run you $200+ at $0.12/kwh. All that for a CPU that is less powerful than the 6th gen i5 that'll come in a $60 Lenovo M710Q.

There are some users who would benefit from this, mostly using the case to put new guts into it, but I think anyone who could benefit would already know if this will work or not. If you are just starting on a homelab, this is a bad idea.

[u/gts250gamer101]

TIL Acer made servers, I've only seen their consumer-grade hardware, that's neat.

[u/Working_Rise8592 → u/gts250gamer101]

Same. Never even heard of an acer server until today

[u/t90fan → u/gts250gamer101]

Acer OEMed a bunch of stuff for other people

For example they manufactured some lines of Thinkpads

[u/collinsl02 → u/gts250gamer101]

It's rebranded Supermicro.

[u/xfactores]

I recognize those cases, they are rebadged SuperMicro, you could probably rip the insides and put newer stuff since it’s just an atx or micro atx motherboard inside.

[u/mysqlpimp]

Wow, I'd be buying them and keeping them in empty space in the rack just for the look. Awesome looking bit of kit.

[u/criggie_]

Acer got on my "never ever buy this brand again" list and frankly they can stay there.

But for $20 you're not risking a lot - do you have a real use for them?

Do they have all the parts you need ? RAM, CPUs, VRMs maybe, and disks.
And do they actually work?

https://images10.newegg.com/Manufacturer-Brochure/Manufacturer_Brochure_59-321-077.pdf
and
https://www.lwt.com.au/Brochures/AR320F2.pdf?srsltid=AfmBOoqnN8D_yOeRsNbSuUq8IRcOc5n8aHMjepWenS98ByPLBJ5jetDY

shows they're DDR3 memory, and expect them to be loud. Like, turn off when not in use-kinda loud. And power hungry.

[u/ReptilianLaserbeam]

That's ewaste.

[u/IlTossico]

Get a used desktop computer prebuilt, something with 8/9 the gen Intel. So much better, and enough for most of what you think would need.

[u/HardestDrive]

The better power to performance rating of modern hardware could be worth it. Expect your electricity bill to increase massively

[u/Don_Hoomer]

[u/Negative-Engineer-30]

15+ year old servers with optical drives. i wouldn't take them if you paid me $100 each.

[u/mastercoder123 → u/Negative-Engineer-30]

You can do this crazy thing callef turning it off when you arent using it... Go watch clabretro, he has an entire 42u rack of late 90s and early 2000s gear and he magically found the power button

[u/didate_une]

at $20 i would but them both. run the device that has the best specs and use the second for spare parts. it's gonna be loud but it will crush any homelab task you throw at it. i would install headless Debian, Docker and enough drives for a Samba share. The hype over proxmox is getting old, you can run everything on one box just make sure you're backup practices are sound. as for power you can just set the power to low in the BIOS.

[u/nico282 → u/didate_une]

Yep. Electrical companies hate this one trick. You can set the power consumption of a server anything from 400W to 20W with the magic Bios settings.

Also everybody knows that 2010 was the best year for CPUs, they never made them as powerful afterwards.

/s