Lately I received a primergy rx2530 m1, m2 and m4 (all maxed out with ram and cpus) and wonder if and which of them can be driven as energy efficient as any random diy built. I saw plenty of energy saving options on the Bios (cpu and ram related) but do not know how comparable this is with a consumer setup and which ones are important to be set. I will make my own measurements with truenas and proxmox but wonder if anyone else has those in use. I saw that the rx2540 might be the better option as it can pickup 8 x 3,5 hdd while on the rx2530s the m1 is the only one compatible with with 3,5. Also they have proprietary Hbas. Can those be switched into dumb mode where they allow the os direct access to the connected drives?
Thank you for any suggestions and sharing experiences.
The m1/m2 looks like poweredge r630 equivalent with v3/v4 cpu and m4 is using scalable Xeon which is one generation newer. All of them are great systems, especially when maxed out. The m4 being the newest is probably the best all around choice.
From power point of view, they’re gonna be “less” energy efficient than consumer diy stuff in that they’re supposed to be highly dense systems ran in a data centre with thousands of other similar servers, to pack as much punch in as little space as possible.
Another thing I’d be wary about is noise… 1U means you’re stuck with itty bitty tiny fans that need to spin very quickly and make a lot of noise, should your components heat up. Again, that whole data centre high density thing… noise isn’t something they’re optimizing for.