# Server choice



## jjachuf (Jun 25, 2020)

Hi.
I think it is my first consultation in the forum or at least in recent years.

In my company we have low-end IBM and Lenovo servers with freebsd for many years without any problem. We are now evaluating alternatives to buy a new server. We have these two options:

1) SERVER DELL T40 XEON E3-2224/32GB/3TB  3x1TB HDD/DVD
2) LENOVO-7Y52A00BLA SERVER LN SR250 XEON E-2124 4C1, 4ZC7A08699 32GB LN DDR4 -2666MHZ 2RX8 1.2 7XB7A00034 HD SAS 3TB  3X1TB LN 2.5 7.2K SAS 12GB 2

What I want to see is if someone has one of these servers, if they have had any compatibility problems or any reference that they can give me.

Thanks
Jose


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## aponomarenko (Jul 3, 2020)

Details on T40: https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=dcd1c48cd9

No reports for SR250 yet: https://bsd-hardware.info/?view=computers&type=Server


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## aponomarenko (Jul 3, 2020)

SR250 is probably not the best choice.

I see two posts with unsuccessful tries to boot FreeBSD:









						Lenovo SR250 7Y51 don`t starting NanoBSD 11.3
					

Hello everyone!  I have a problem with server Lenovo SR250 7Y51. It does not want to see a NanoBSD 11.3 flash drive. Even in Legacy mode. In this mode, the server does not want to work at all. NanoBSD flash drives are visible on other computers, and the server SR250 7Y51 easily installs Windows...




					forums.freebsd.org
				





			English Community-Lenovo Community


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## jjachuf (Jul 6, 2020)

Thanks *aponomarenko* , I'll see it.
Regards


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## Michael-O (Jul 10, 2020)

We've been using HPE servers for more than 10 years with FreeBSD. Never has issues. HP Smart RAID controllers are awesome. DL360 or DL380.


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## SirDice (Jul 14, 2020)

SuperMicro servers are good. We have a number of them, FreeBSD support has always been good but there are models that aren't supported. So check their compatibility matrix before buying (yes, they actually test FreeBSD compatibility).


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## kpedersen (Jul 14, 2020)

jjachuf said:


> 1) SERVER DELL T40 XEON E3-2224/32GB/3TB  3x1TB HDD/DVD



I actually bought one of these recently for a small business. They only wanted Windows Server so I never tested it with FreeBSD. However I can say that it provides more space for hard disks (than the one it came with) *but* only provides the blue plastic mounting for one. It is also apparently very difficult to obtain additional plastic mounts 

Other than that, the server is good. However it feels more like a desktop box in all fairness (They even use the case design for their workstation offerings). The most important thing for me was that it is quiet. I would hate to subject them to a 16 fan 4U beast running in their office leaning against their desk XD

Other things:
- Only has Display Port (albeit 2x) rather than VGA.
- Has a serial port
- Can take an external GPU (I used an old Quadro to provide me with VGA ports whilst installing). A GPU doesn't seem to be recommended by Dell however.

I got mine here: https://www.uk.insight.com/en-gb/productinfo/servers/0009614526
This machine is fairly cheap compared to the alternatives


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## rootbert (Jul 14, 2020)

big fan of supermicro here - so I recommend supermicro ... gone are my days of Sun/Oracle, HP, Dell and IBM ;-) (my best experience of the latter 4 with Dell) I have migrated quite some companies to using supermicro and have not heard a bad word about it - happy customers (90% Linux, 10% FreeBSD).


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## jjachuf (Jul 16, 2020)

thanks to everyone.
*SirDice *I didn't know supermicro. I liked it and as you say some have official compatibility (tested) for freebsd


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## rootbert (Jul 16, 2020)

also nice is the HTML5 based virtual console on supermicro ... this was a standardfeature, however, I remember a few years back (don't know the current situation) we had to pay for quite an expensive license (200-400€ IIRC) to activate those things on IBM, Oracle and Fujitsu-Siemens servers.


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## SirDice (Jul 16, 2020)

IPMI is enabled as standard, at least it was on every model I've had to manage. New models do indeed have HTML5 support with the latest IPMI firmware. Older models are stuck with Java.


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## Lamia (Jul 16, 2020)

rootbert said:


> also nice is the HTML5 based virtual console on supermicro ... this was a standardfeature, however, I remember a few years back (don't know the current situation) we had to pay for quite an expensive license (200-400€ IIRC) to activate those things on IBM, Oracle and Fujitsu-Siemens servers.


There are several sites online now that will provide you a valid license key at no cost.


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## rootbert (Jul 16, 2020)

For IBM we got a kind of hardware token to put on the mainboard so we could enable that ... (very basic, just a bunch of jumpers, but still if your company is running everything 100% correct you need it)


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