VCDX #181 Marc Huppert

HomeLab Stage LXXIV: More Dell Servers

After my last posting: HomeLab Stage LXXIII: New networks, I decided to invest again into more (a lot more) servers…..

I was able to acquire 22 x Dell R740 servers with SkyLake CPUs (Cascade Lake Upgrade possible). What the hell are you doing with so many machines?

Having is better than needing….. 🙂 My Motto

I replaced all other servers inside my Datacenter I with Dell machines and integrated all of them into my Dell OpenManage environment.

I am using several different system configurations, with GPUs, with NVMe, with SAS/SATA SSDs with internal HDD cages etc….

The 14th generation of Dell PowerEdge servers are so versatile, especially I love the fan configuration and power settings (important inside a HomeLab)

This is the actual server list:

  • 2 x R740 Main Cluster vSAN OSA with 100GbE and Nvidia RTX8000 GPUs
  • 2 x R740xd vSAN OSA with 10GbE amd Nvidia A30 GPUs
  • 2 x R740 vSAN ESA Storage Cluster with 100GbE
  • 2 x R740 vSAN ESA Compute Cluster with 25GbE
  • 2 x R740 vSAN OSA with 40GbE and Nvidia P4 GPUs
  • 2 x R740 vSAN OSA with 40GbE and Nvidia T4 GPUs
  • 2 x R740 vSAN OSA with 25GbE and Intel Flex 140 GPUs
  • 2 x R740 vSAN OSA with 10GbE and Nvidia T4
  • 1 x R740xd BCDR with 25GbE and NVMe & HDD
  • 1 x R740xd HoloDeck with 10GbE and NVMe & SSD
  • 1 x R740 Storage with 10GbE and HDDs (Full 24 x 2.5”)
  • 6 x R740 lend to my colleagues for their HomeLabs

All servers are connected to my PDUs (remote switched) and most of them are only powered on when needed, my power consumption is already up to 30.000kWh.

All servers are installed and integrated into vCenter into dedicated Clusters with vSAN Witness appliances (running in Datacenter III).

Stay tuned for the next episodes…..

#HomeLabKing

Looking for the next episode? HomeLab Stage LXXV: Cloud Foundation on Dell VRTX