for the rest as I think that you already know the funding was running low lately so this month I've been checking the market for some interesting deals in case it would be necessary to cut some costs/services later on and ultimately ended up coming across and taking a replacement for the main server posted here. as usual for those interested since at the end of the day for the most part you're the ones ultimately paying for these servers as well as for me for future reference here you have now the full documentation and specifications of the this new main replacement server so you can know:
- motherboard: Intel μATX S1200SPL 03.01.5049 (Intel Silver Pass 80 W max cpu Windows 8 1,216,947 hours MTBF)
- chipset: Intel C236 (PCI Express 3.0 8xSATA III RAID 22 nm Skylake 6 W)
- display: Matrox MGA G200e SE [102b:0522] (PCIe x1 2.5 GT/s 16 MiB DDR3 VRAM)
- bmc: Emulex Pilot III (ARM926EJ-S 400MHz DDR2 800 MHz IPMI 2.0 Intel RMM4 Lite)
- cpu: Intel H4 Xeon E3-1230 v6 (4x2x3.5-3.9 GHz 4x32 KiB L1d 4x32 KiB L1i 4x256 KiB L2 8 MiB L3 14nm Kaby Lake 72 W)
- memory: 2x8 GiB DDR4 ECC 2400MHz Samsung M391A1K43BB1-CRC (SR 17-17-17-39)
- nic: 2xIntel I210 (PCIe x1 2.5GT/s 1GbE Springville)
- hdd1: 4 TB HGST Ultrastar 7K6000 HUS726040ALA610 (SATA 3.1 6.0 Gb/s 3.5 inches 7200 rpm 128 MB ise 2M hours MTBF fw: A5GNTD05)
- hdd2: 4 TB HGST Ultrastar DC HC310 HUS726T4TALA6L1 (SATA 3.2 6.0 Gb/s 3.5 inches 7200 rpm 256 MB tgc 2M hours MTBF fw: VLGNX984)
- cooling: fanless water cooling
- system: up-to-date Fedora Linux 39 (Server Edition)
- kernel: up-to-date 64-bit Linux kernel 6.10.9 (microcode: 0xf8)
- reboot: ~45 secs (typical)
- monitor: mrtg.fpsclasico.eu
- condition: used hardware
- passmark: https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V11/ ... 6599760881
- CPU Score: 8,820
- Single Thread: 2,358 MOps/Sec
- RAM Score: 3,035
- Gaming Score: 2,015
- CPU Score: 8,820
- datacenter: OVHcloud (multi certified)
- location: Limburger Str. 45, 65555 Limburg an der Lahn, Germany (Rack L101A03)
- network: Shared 1000 Mbit Uplink, 250 Mbit Upload, Unmetered (Cisco Systems, Inc)
- hostname: fpsclasico.eu
- diagnosis: looking glass | smokeping
- speedtest:
- type of product: budget professional small business dedicated server
- usage: primary game server and router, stats server, files and video serving, voip server, data mirroring
- price: 27.82 €/Month
- hardware monitor sample while stress testing
Code: Select all
21:26:01 up 32 min, 2 users, load average: 7.98, 6.24, 3.33
CPU:
core 0:
thread 0:
freq: 3699 MHz
thread 1:
freq: 3700 MHz
temp: 57.000℃
core 1:
thread 0:
freq: 3699 MHz
thread 1:
freq: 3699 MHz
temp: 58.000℃
core 2:
thread 0:
freq: 3700 MHz
thread 1:
freq: 3699 MHz
temp: 57.000℃
core 3:
thread 0:
freq: 3699 MHz
thread 1:
freq: 3699 MHz
temp: 58.000℃
freq: 3700.014 MHz
temp: 58.000℃
M/B:
temp (PCH): 34.5℃
temp (N/B): 29.8℃
temp (S/B): 27.8℃
RAM:
DIMM_A2: 35.25℃
DIMM_B2: 35.00℃
BMC:
SSB Temp: 37.00 C
BMC Temp: 38.00 C
+12.0V: 12.27 V
+3.3V Vbat: 3.13 V
MEM:
bios: 713.91 MiB
used: 1220.84 MiB
Status: No errors detected
HDD1:
temp: 37.0℃
written: 89.07 TiB
read: 76.27 TiB
workload: 8.58%
rate: 110.60 MiB/s
health: PASSED
HDD2:
temp: 36.0℃
written: 37.82 TiB
read: 3453.72 TiB
workload: 163.29%
rate: 123.07 MiB/s
health: PASSED
LAN:
multicast: 4161
rx_bytes: 6.875 MB
rx_packets: 11.766 Kp
tx_bytes: 0.985 MB
tx_packets: 6.626 Kpwhen it comes to the hardware, the motherboard is a intel based mid 2010's server board that even features two integrated intel network card as a bonus. as usual, not stuff that is really gonna be used but a great bonus for the budget. the standout feature of the motherboard and flagship extra of the entire server is the integrated bmc ipmi controller interface that as with the rest of the extras although not strictly needed to operate a server is greatly welcome as it makes server management a lot more easier and efficient and consequently robust overall. quite frankly that's a feature that typically is provided separately from the regular service at prices as high as almost 100 euros for 24 hour of service so have it included out of the box in the base package is definitively a incredible feat. overall a solid intel based motherboard from the Windows 8/Windows Server 2012 generation that quotes more than 1.2 millions hours of mtbf still more than relevant for a small dedicated nowadays. the cpu is a Intel E3-1230 v6 from the server based series Xeon featuring four dual threaded cores (4x2). overall it's a cpu very similar to the previous one (so it should be way more than needed) but obviously from intel instead of amd. both are 14 nm chips however the biggest difference between them lies in the fact that the previous one was rated at 95 watts for eight dual threaded cores (i.e. 6 watts per thread) while this one is 72 for half the size making it potentially up to a 50% more powerful per unit (i.e. 9 watts per thread). this can be seen in the fact that although the previous one could just do the base 3.4 GHz frequency in all cores with higher clocks only limited to smaller burst this one can easily do 3.7 GHz out of the box like no problem in all cores keeping cpu unitary usage not even at 50% when servers full. in that sense another great feature of the server is that it's actually water cooled not even hitting 60 degrees when stress testing it. again yet another non fundamental extra but that it adds yet even more value to the package. the only small downside of the cpu is the lower caches sizes could probably be a bit larger, like twice that, but well given the top class equipped ram that's probably not a problem at all (ex. the ram alone is even faster than the L2 cache of the more than capable secondary server) so the ram is once again another great improvement over the previous server and another standout feature of the server. this time it was sold as ecc and actually received as ecc (i.e. yet another bonus for the budget) unlike the secondary server that ultimately received regular ram and as extra they even over delivered 2400 MHz samsung sticks, the max supported by that cpu/mobo, over the billed 2133 MHz ddr4 which is what ran the previous server for the same budget. as can be read in the specifications the ram are top tier professional grade error corrected 2400 MHz ddr4 sticks. that ram is actually surprisingly good, I mean, the passmark memory result there it's quite similar to the one I get in my own computer with 4 GHz patriot sticks tuned to the max running almost at twice the speed. I assume in that sense intel memory architecture/performance it's probably superior to amd.
as for the storage, there was this same offer with some sort of solid sticks but clearly it was completely sold out around the time of purchase so I just took a regular hdd offer instead (that also went sold out the day after btw) which probably for the use being is just as good if not better as it's very unlikely that you'll get the same kind of top tier sticks as you do with the hdds. so basically the server came with two enterprise data centre class 4 TB hard disks which are pretty much top of the line. once again as with the ram they also over delivered here, the offer was sold and is billed as 2x2 TB however I received twice the size (2x4 TB) for the same prize which just tells about the calibre of this provider hardware (i.e. that's just the "basic" instalment there). contrary to the standard both disks are different here which tells you that these disks have been probably decommissioned from other parts/services of the company like previous servers and/or data arrays. one is a little less than four years old and in perfect condition (for a drive of that calibre) while the other is a little more than four years old and is in a more used/questionable condition with very little write use but with some heavy read use (around 3.5 PB in total which is almost twice the usual 550 TB/Year maximum specified workload) which likely tell that this was previously a heavy downloads/torrent drive (this has been literally serving 250 mbps of data for the last four years straight). in any case considering you received top of the line twice the size you ordered disks there's probably no much to complain here beside giving the size (8 TB in total wtf) clearly this time I raided them for redundancy so it shouldn't be a problem. in that sense the secondary offer it's probably superior in that aspect, nevertheless, these disks here are expected to last at least for more than a year more. in addition to all that as bonus these disks even feature transparent encryption at rest and even enhanced security beyond that in the case of the secondary disk that is superior to the primary one in the embedded controller. once again, nothing really necessary per se but always good to have for extended functionality. as a curious detail is interesting to note that all those along with the secondary server hard drives are legacy 512 native sectors disks contrary to the more usual 4k advanced sector disks typically seem in more consumer oriented products probably for extended reliability as well as migration/compatibility with other technologies like solid disks that typically operate at that old sector size.
and I think that should probably the most remarkable about the hardware, as I said, a solid improvement over the previous server at a even more adjusted budget. probably the only downside in the hardware section is the lack of any gpu whatsoever to render some videos too, had not been because of that and then this server could probably even replace all the rest given the circumstances if necessary. as noted in the specifications, unfortunately in that aspect the server just features a display adaptor (not really a "gpu" by today standards) from the nineties embedded in the bmc (comparable to that of a psx) equipped with just 16 megabytes of memory that it's obvious that for other than accessing the bios along with other similar basic server management tasks as it's intended to is incapable of anything else. as I often said, it's obvious that by that budget you just can't have it all, it's what it's and quite frankly it's already a lot more than what should for the budget, but a lot, not a little more, a lot more. anyways I assume that for that I'll just stick to the secondary server which is still nevertheless also another great and solid offer to keep.
beside the hardware when it comes to the provider/network as noted there they are as well top tier and another great improvement (and reason) to update from the previous server. by the far the biggest flaw of the previous provider was the lack of IPv6 connectivity whatsoever and although I had managed to bring some IPv6 connectivity to it in the form of a external free service at the end of the day you get what you pay for (i.e. nothing) and the reality is that the IPv6 connectivity in that machine was down most often than not. although not critical, that's not ok nor acceptable by any late 2010's standards that mandate dual stack connectivity at all times let alone by year 2020+. just that fact alone, without even involving any budget/improvements, justified the change alone, now this new server has "perfect" (meaning as as good the IPv4) IPv6 connectivity as it should ever be. moreover when it comes to the network/connectivity once again these guys are far superior to the previous provider. not only they are iso 27k certified that they are pretty much everything else in the book certified as can be seen there so you can expect probably one the highest levels of service and availability in the business comparable to amazon, google, azure and the likes. even the location, significantly closer to Frankfurt, and the latency that rather than improving with the time it was slowly decaying there should as well be generally improved.
finally for the operative system I installed some up-to-date fedora 39 with all the latest updates over just a 2 TB raid there (instead of the whole array therefor leaving some spare space in case of need for the future) that should more than do the job at least for the time to come and as bonus I as well updated this web server along with it (the secondary server will probably follow along the way once I finish setting up and mirroring everything at some point for further improvement). and I think that should then be all with this report by now as said a nice update I think for the time being over the previous service and a good four euros per month cost reduction that although nothing dramatic it's always welcome nevertheless (that's like a bill less at the end of the year). so that should be it, from what I saw I believe that more or less people is gonna keep supporting this to some extend so I assume that then there should probably be no need to cut (meaning downgrade, which again this replacement now make a downgrade path a lot more versatile since this server now can do a lot more things than just hosting games) any services in the short/mid term so this should continue to run as-is likely for another season.