Looking into Dell R420, what can I use this for? 

Title: Looking into Dell R420, what can I use this for? What I learned: Dan is unlucky with hardware, the R420 is larger than his rack can handle, it's large, he tried to cancel it, messaged seller, took weeks, they helped him but still got a server for free? pretty good machine, extra to his cluster. Dan bought cages, server is used haha ip from user, how to take off lid, he only has 1 cpu hot cold, and he has 3 sticks cause he's not compensating, and he has riser card but ya know there's issues with his riser card cause bios, he tried clover but epic fail, so he takes a moment to do some mental troubleshooting, reminder that fans go brrrr. 1st actual use case: Docker containers 4:54 aand explains why fans go brrrr cause of workload, emphasis on THIS GETS LOUD REALLY LOUD, recording = nah bro cause fans go brrrrr, It's okay to turn off cause not call of duty game server not his words, that's me. remember this, THIS DID NOT FIT IN HIS RACK AT ALL. Side tracks to power supply to show he's not compensating, total Giga C. No sarcasm there, srly. Roasts the age which is funny because he was here before DSL, and Pentium, Dan says somebody suggested this as a starting piece of hardware for a cluster, but THIS DID NOT FIT IN HIS RACK AT ALL. To answer the question you came here to answer: I've spent a solid 4 months learning about this ancient yet still quite capable machine as I got one as a gift, here's some of the possible use cases I came up with while trying stuff out. Install Ubuntu Server: - Host a website. - Host a mailbox. - Host Docker containers doing both of those. Install WIndows Server: - Uninstall it because this server goes from being a honda civic firing on 3 cylinders to a honda civic rolling downhill while being tied to a tree Install Ubuntu 20.04: - Host game server but don't go overboard bucko. - Create a private network server to save crap cause I know you're a digital hoarder like me Install Ubuntu 22.04: - Try to run Ollama cause you like AI, instead spend 7 hours on ebay wondering how much PayPal credit will approve you for, find out it's only $1200, switch to amazon and check affirm, realize that you're better off waiting till the new Ryzen generation 7950x drops is price and building a second PC. Didn't Amazon literally lift off using PayPal? eh to close this off! Do I recommend this as a PURCHASE? no. Unless you're getting a working unit for $150 or less with plenty ram and a second CPU, it's irresponsible of me to suggest this. Now, there's an exception to this. If you're trying to learn how servers work, how to work with them, and you love to tinker, for under $200 you can get the specs below on ebay. No I am not linking to it, I roasted this video out of respect and posting a link to some ebay posting is not gentleman like. 2x Xeon E5-2430 2.2ghz 6 Core 15mb Smart Cache 7.2 GT/s 6x 4gb PC3-10600R Memory = 24gb Total H310 Raid Controller 2x 1tb SAS Hard Drives iDrac7 Basic 2x 550w Power Supplies If I'm being honest, I'm glad this video didn't include much information because it made my go out and find out on my own what this equipment is capable of. 10/10 would recommend you subscribe.

I own a maxed out R420 and T420, they are still good today to run Vm's. The T420 is a better choice for a home lab, it's almost silent.

I put the Icy Dock slim line sata drive bay to use for Proxmox Backup Server OS. The 4 drive bays I use for PBS storage, BTRFS raid10 4 x Exos x18 18TB drives. Works like a champ!

got a a dell R420xr and bought 2 2370 cpus 20 cores each for 20 usd from ali express and added 192gb ram for 80 usd also upgraded the sas controller for 15 usd and installed a docker container called servermanager that lowers the cpus fans to 15% which makes the dell silent and cpus stays around 52 degrees .

Check the pcie Sterings so all lanes are available and not dedicated to socket to socket. Also the empty cpu socket might be Connected to the pcie slot with the m2. I have a loud 1U serve and a small apartment.

Try second riser, might be that this one is directly connected to the CPU you don't have installed.

Yeah servers are atleast 70cm dep. I am in a similar situation as you. I have three servers that i cant use because of space and noise

looks like you are using a sata m.2 ssd in a pcie (nvme) riser, thats why its not being detected

2 minutes and 14 seconds of stereo is enough. Just use your left ear for the rest of the video.🤪🤪