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What is the best price for a storage server
Hello LET, what would be the right price for the following specifications? (Please don't troll)
1x l5630 / 16 GB Ram / 32 TB HDD = price ?
1x l5630 / 32 GB Ram / 48 TB HDD = price ?
1x e5-2450l / 32 GB Ram / 48 TB = price ?
1x e5-2450l / 32 GB Ram / 96 TB =price ?
1x e5-2430 / 32 GB Ram / 48 TB = price ?
1x l5630 / 8 GB Ram / 8 TB HDD = price ?
1x l5630 / 16 GB Ram / 12 TB HDD = price?
- All server it's dedicated server no VPS / VDS
How much would you be prepared to pay for such a thing?Any price or feedback is welcome
Thanks for your time!
Comments
$7
0.42
7
If the specs are halfway reasonable you might find buyers for a low enough price who want a storage server (modulo your reputation).
definitely 7$
$7+$666 in account credits.
@jsg Hello , l5630 have 4c/8t , e5-2450l 8c/16t and e5-2430 6c/12t
32 TB Have 4x8 TB
48 TB Have 4x12 TB
96 TB Have 8x12 TB
8 TB Have 4x2 TB
12 TB Have 4x3TB
all hdd it's sata , 7200 RPM
Raid controller it's p420
Ram memory it's 1333 MHz ddr3.
network shared 1 gbps
DC it's random on the world , (Most likely Europe)
Regards ,
Calin
0
The best price is FREE
Oh, come on, yes it's old processors but with halfway decent memory, a decent hw Raid controller and 4 (or 8) disks (albeit highly likely consumer ones of some age). If such a server were placed in a not crappy DC, it might serve well as a cheap storage box. I've seen quite a few storage VMs on hardware that wasn't better selling like warm bread here on LET.
For me personally the major obstacle would be the question whether I'd buy anything from @Calin but the machines aren't too crappy it seems.
Look man. You do you. I was asked what I was prepared to pay for the server configuration above and I responded with almost no demand.
This is a question about price determination, therefore it's an economics question. Because of limited data and assumptions, this is simply a theoretical exercise.
He's asking people "how much would you pay", which is realistically a pricing strategy based on customer feedback and availability of alternative options to the customer.
Your non-answer (he asked for a price, not an equation based on a ton of variables) is assuming you've already purchased this, what can you do. There are many substitutes to these tech requirements that pretty much ignores the critical fact that the customer has other options.
Yes the hardware proposed here is significantly older. It's not worth the CPU anymore, it's not worth the RAM. There are better CPU/RAM offers where the suppliers have already received a ROI (e.g. OVH/SYS/Kimsufi/Hetzner/Online brands) so lets say the cost of the physical hardware is negligible. Let's say @Calin isn't buying these and are getting them for free (while incorrect, but ok. This tips in @Calin's favor). The only cost centers are the cost of storage and the network cost (or wrap it up with power cost and call it a "datacenter cost").
For most people, network costs are pretty much the same regardless of the server's configuration. General rule of thumb is that older hardware has more power consumption for less efficiency (aka higher energy bill), but for the sake of this analysis let's assume this is the same (again, in @Calin's favor). So the hard drive costs are the only major point of concern. But hey, the cost of hard drives should be the same for both servers since server hardware performance isn't related to the cost of storage.
Back of the napkin analysis (in my opinion) suggests that for the same price @Calin can purchase and sell the servers for, I can probably talk with a real provider here and establish a request for an EOL server (that's still newer than the hardware outlined above) with some extra hard drives for, realistically, cheaper pricing than what Calin can get (in that datacenter with the hardware he purchases, assuming same profit %, etc.).
So I believe the answer is "$0" because that's definitely not going to be in demand if people can find better alternatives at the same price point. So unless there's a uniqueness factor involved that makes this offer significantly better than a competitor, then I don't see it as very valuable. I'd like to disincentive purchasing these hardware as, even if they are much older, it's still a bit of an investment for an individual.
Relax. Don't get too worked up there champ.
Seems like more advertising, again...
Quick note, it seems he's already purchased the hardware (it's on his website and his WHMCS but no stock), but I think it's a question of purchasing the storage. Pricing for the base kit seems to be a little higher than competitive market rate.
Yeah I don't see any decent economic reason to pursue any of these listings. At the end of the day, he's a middleman then and will have you pay for his "cut of the profits".
LET has always been a budget-conscious consumer-base. This isn't a good deal for anyone on LET.
42$
always 42$
Add RAM and decent SW RAID setup and these servers are plenty fast for majority of users on LET, or elsewhere.
It's surprisingly little CPU people need generally, and surprisingly much RAM & IOPS they need. RAM + IOPS solve a lot of bottlenecks
SW RAID typically also faster than HW Raid with same drives. HW RAID benefits are elsewhere imho.
@HalfEatenPie
I get your point and find it well thought, but I still disagree. For one all but the last two systems have a low power CPU (maybe the last 2 ones too, me not know or care) plus, and more importantly: what do you think @cociu's, to provide one example, storage VMs ran on? I'd bet he used "stone-age" processors, DDR3, etc. too ... yet they sold like warm bread.
Is it wise to go for low price mainly when buying storage? Probably not and that' why I get your point and agree to some degree - but: it isn't wisdom and prudence that is king on LET, it's low price.
I think the stupid (pardon me) mistake @Calin made was to not mention DC specs, or even better, spelling out clearly the DC he where he's going to put those boxes. After all @Calin is thought of as Mr. "DC? My basement and wooden racks" by many here. That is my main concern too and the reason my answer would be "not even $7" but as I like politeness I didn't spell it out.
(Btw, No, I don't have any products from @Calin (yet?))
There are quite a few storage boxes on LET that run similar processors and DDR3 ...
Agreed with a but: why use sw Raid when there is a decent hw controller in the box?
Yep, fully agree.
Heard that often. Hint: software batteries ...
How about location and speed port?
Asking price on LET is bad decision imo, you need calculate how much you spend for it.
1x e5-2450l / 32 GB Ram / 96 TB =price ?
$100 with /28 IPv4.
Wow, you rent this from cuciu? Fckoff, it is involucrated drives..
I strongly suggest to first find out in which DC ...
Thank you I will once an offer comes in.
Let us know when that offer comes in
I will.
around or under 50$
tldr at the bottom.
That's fair. You're welcome to your opinion I do see where you're coming form, but I still don't agree. The L5630 series are still crap and are low-power-to-performance for that period (I own a few L5640s that I'm currently in the process of retiring). But there's still a difference between realistic and theoretical. Theoretically, it's crap. Realistically, you'll still get people buying them (theory usually assumes humans are reasonable, but we've come to disprove that regularly in academic literature) because of marketing but those people usually don't hold on to it for long until they figure out how shitty of a deal it is. Now the question is how many saps can you sell your servers to before everyone knows your deals are crap.
Quick note, look back at LET offer posts from service providers about 6/7 years ago (no disrespect to anyone, but many at the time used old hardware even for the time), look at how many people used L5640s and L5639s as their host nodes. Even then it was old hardware. Not saying it didn't get the job done, but compared to the standards people were using (Dual E5-2620v2s and such), they were outdated.
The funny thing is that ColoCrossing/Psychz/ColoAt/etc. bought a ton of E3-1230v2s like 10 years ago. The ROI on those pricing usually returns in about 10 months of rentals. After that, only thing you have to pay for is power and network. Everything else is pure profit. You see ColoCrossing, Psychz, and so many other people still selling these servers at different configurations. At the cheapest level, around 25 dollars, at the highest level, around 80 dollars a month. For a long time you still had Quadranet trying to sell crappy Core2Quads for 70 dollars a month (check out old WHT dedicated sever posts about them).
Dacentec/Centrilogic still does this using Ebay parts trying to target "RTO" as their unique factor to sell Dual L5420s and L5520s they bought by the pallet for around 40 dollars a month minimum to 50 dollars for the L5520s (even back then, you make your money back from eBay parts in 5 months). It's been like this for almost a decade (since then they've added E3s for RTO as well but they only rent Dual E5s, they haven't had a single deal yet where they sell Dual E5s for RTO, only rent). I Don't think a whole lot of people buy from Dacentec anymore because it's not a very good deal.
I'm not trying to talk crap about his server list, nor am I trying to refer to the individual's history of being the basement host. I'm speaking purely on an economic analysis level. You can sell these servers at whatever price you want, but even then it's not going to be worth his time and people are going to cancel pretty quickly/this line of server hosting won't really take off to make your money back (or make it worth it).
You want cheap storage? Use the various other offerings that'll give you that high-storage density at affordable rates. I just don't see these server offerings providing any value to the actual customer who'll buy it. Unless he's selling it where he's actually losing money, which... doesn't... make... sense...
Wow. This got long.
TLDR: I was expecting a short post but... It's not worth reading this.
Edit: Here's a few posts. Latest to oldest (to give you a snapshot of how pricing has changed). Quick note, I've added L5520 postings here as the L5639/L5640 CPUs at the time were like 20-40 dollar one-time CPU upgrade costs (so... super cheap...).
Today - $50/mo - Dual L5520 - Dacentec RTO - Website
2017-Sep - $49/mo - Dual L5639 - Virpus - LET
2017-Jun - $49/mo - Dual L5639 - Quickpacket - LET
2014-Oct - $120/mo - Dual L5639 - IOFLOOD - WHT
2013-Dec - $49/mo - Dual L5520 - Fliphost - LEB
2013-Nov - $79/mo - Dual L5639 - Versaweb - WHT
The point here is that at 2013-2014 period, there was still a "premium" for more CPU cores offered by older hardware, but by 2017 all people want is a return on power, space, and bandwidth usage on these servers. They're not worth anything hardware wise today. So you have 2 years of other newer hardware that's now being retired. I'm saying get one of those for cheap storage instead of old Dual L5630s and whatever crap he's suggesting.
Edit2: Speak of the devil.
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/176865/dedicated-servers-starting-at-27-97-month-first-10-buyers-only-ipmi-double-ram-double-bw
Literally right now. Dual L5640. 35 dollars. Chat with this guy directly to customize your server and see if you can get higher density hard drives in there. Reprise Hosting has been around for a long time so I trust them if you really do need these servers at budget prices.
I think our different views boil down mainly to 2 points:
Anyway, OP wasn't about diverse (let alone going deep) deliberations, it was about a concrete bunch of (yes, crappy old) dedis with lots of storage and how much one would be prepared to pay for those. Unfortunately a very important question (DC and bandwidth) is still open and I think the response to it will either create interest or stop the show right away.
Quite often HW Raid controllers do stupid shenanigans and makes management & monitoring use proprietary software. Stupid shenanigans we have seen are: age based performance degradation based on clock (yes! Adaptec did this!), disabling HDD built-in caches and providing no caches (Dell!), getting 1000 vs 1024 wrong making you loose few % of capacity (Dell!), decreasing I/O queueing depth on controller level to a fraction of HW capability (Dell! Just flash non-proprietary firmware tho), Asking for console user input during boot (I think this was Dell as well!), and finally RAID10 algorithm is by design slower than MDADMs (maybe newest cards finally fix this?)
More often than not it looks like the HW Raid controllers are designed to limit capabilities and performance, instead of uplifting. Makes sense because enterprises will just buy more boxes then. HP is probably the worst offender with this, had a 12+ drive HP storage server which was capped to 1 drive performance ...
i found it interesting tbh
But tbh, for storage nodes does it really matter what CPU if what you are looking for is the best $/TB ratio -- as long the CPU is powerful enough to get all basic stuff done for just a user or couple?
I've seen this argument for years upon years, people tried to piss on us on another forum for using old CPUs -- when all those CPUs were sitting 95-98% idle even during hard use, because nothing they did on the servers needed more typically? few people running ffmpeg, or transcoding in general does not justify that everyones price hikes up 20-40%
This! So true, many buy for the imaginary needs or bragging rights.
Yeah I've been around here long enough to see (and participate) in the e-penis measuring competitions that's still going on now. My analysis really isn't professional but rather focused on longevity. One of the biggest advantage a LET host tries to monetize is the notion of you're getting a deal. It's like stocking up on toilet paper because you got it for a steal and you're going to want to use it anyways. Except these are servers that require monthly/annual payments to. Most oversell on CPU and RAM (and if you're on OpenVZ/LXC, storage as well) to get a higher $$$ density/server. But over time, the customers will either:
LET market also sticks with the hype. There was a major push in 2013-2015 where people were selling Atom C2750s (the 8 core extremely low-powered servers) because it was a new "fad". There aren't a lot of people trying to sell C2750s anymore but the Dual E5s we had back then are still selling like hot cakes. Right now, it's the performance density of Ryzen and EPYCs that are really making the arguments work (memory bandwidth, affordability (to an extent), etc.). But as always, sooner or later people will stick with the tried and true E5s, or maybe move on to Xeon Silver/Golds.
But when we're talking about storage boxes, you're right the CPU doesn't really matter as much. The raid card and the hard drive capacity (and I/O) usually are the big winners here. I know Dacentec/Centrilogic is still selling Opteron 1354s (with DDR2 RAM) with 2x 2TB HDDs for 25 dollars a month. Their pricing doesn't really scale well but I know historically you can also ship a few hard drives to them to install it on any server you have with them (quick calculation, 4TB HDDs are around 55 dollars a piece, lets say you send them six, that's 330 dollars one-time. Across the first year, your "adjusted monthly" will be 52.5 dollars a month for an old Opteron with 24TB of usable space, realistically less since you're gonna want RAID. Still around 2.2 dollars a month per TB. But after the first year, it's basically a 25 dollars a month server, or 1.04 dollars a month per TB, significantly cheaper than current market rate). But this is without a raid card, so performance can be a little rocky based on load and all the fun stuff software raid comes with. I think the HPs at Dacentec come with a P212 with BBU.
But the point I'm trying to make is that at the end of the day, regardless of power or network, OP will have to price his servers to pay off these old hardware. As a customer who is budget conscious, do you want to pay a higher price to have someone pay off older hardware or would you rather just buy a server from someone who already paid off that server? Usually, you can talk with sales and most people are willing to work with you. They still make a profit on you (actual cost of 1-4U colocation at scale is... insanely affordable) and you save money. This is a market after all and as the customer, you have choices. I just don't see OP being competitive in this area, especially with those old servers. I know ya gotta start somewhere, but at least be competitive in a place where you have a definitive advantage.
Anyways cheers. I do see your point but I don't think we'll exactly agree on this topic but your points are 100% valid. I think I just have a different perspective on this. I'll definitely say you get a wider arrange of consumers on LET in regards to knowledge. So you'll definitely see people (usually newer people or lurkers) buy into these kinds of servers expecting all their problems to be solved because "what a deal!". Only to get bit at the end.