I have a ThinkServer with a similar Xeon, running proxmox -> Debian, so I was looking like “huh, interesting” until I saw the internals.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck all that. Damn it Dell, quit your weird bullshit. It’s just a motherboard, cpu, cooler, and ram. Slap in intake and exhaust fans. Figure it the fuck out.
E: and it better have a goddamn standard psu, too. Fuck yourself, Dell. I’ve seen your shit.
Hmm, I don’t have direct experience with ThinkServers, but what I see on eBay looks like standard ATX hardware… which is not really what you want in a server.
The Dell motherboard has dual CPU sockets and 8 RAM slots. The PSUs are not the common ATX desktop format because there are 2 of them and they are hot swappable. This is basically a rack server repacked into a desktop tower case, not an ATX desktop with a server CPU socket.
The one saving grace is that their one-off custom damn shit always feels well designed, and they move a lotta units (which helps with repairs when everything is GD custom). Dunno if that’s changed in recent years.
With that said I avoid them for personal use usually for the same reason, why have a desktop if you don’t get the benefit of parts compatibility?!
