1

We are retiring an old unit. It was going to the local recycling center, but as long as I’m using it for educational purposes (and I DBAN the drives), my super is letting me have it. So I’m looking for ideas on what I could do with it. Booting ESXi from USB has already been suggested, and I probably will. I just don’t know what to do next, y’know?

Specs below–what do you all think?

Dell PowerEdge R300
2 1T HDDs
16GB RAM
Xeon X3363, quad-core, 2.83GHz

10 Spice ups
2

Put in a LAMP server and attack it. Or Splunk it. Whatever.

1 Spice up
3

Seems odd to say you want it for a lab without actually having a plan in mind.

With limited ram you are also at a pass as to what you can do.

Though there are a thousand things you could do, for example if you are not familiar with AD/DNS or DHCP, set that up and add a client, practise bulk importing or PowerShell against your test AD, IIS or even make it your Spiceworks server.

Whatever captures your interest

2 Spice ups
4

have it run your very own minecraft server! haha or even any gaming server you want. its pretty cool to have the hardware required for it.

2 Spice ups
5

Well… what do you want to learn?

3 Spice ups
6

It depends on whether you objective is to do something or to learn something.

If you want to learn something, think about areas where you are specifically weak. Or areas that would likely be a benefit in your current or future jobs.

  1. Design and implement a Windows domain. Create and manage GPOs, DHCP, DNS, and all the other aspects of a domain.

  2. Create a VM host. Learn how to create, duplicate, backup, restore, and manage VMs effectively.

  3. Set up software-based web server, proxy, and firewall. Create an installation to actively serve web pages out your home IP.

  4. Install trial versions of WS2016 and get some hands-on experience.

  5. Teach yourself a programming language and write an application that can be used at work.

3 Spice ups
7

Maybe getting have several VMs with different flavours of Linux and learn to use them?

8

That’s a nice little legacy server. Great for a home lab if you want to fuss with Windows Server. What you do with it depends on how much you know or need to learn. If you are a server pro, then I don’t have any suggestions but if you want to learn server and have an OS license then you can have your own domain up and running at home. 16GB of RAM with an array of the two 1TB drives is OK for a starter. If you want more storage space, I suspect you can add more drives.

1 Spice up
9

Thanks for the responses, everyone! Lots of good suggestions.

Rod: I’m sure it seems odd, but it’s also odd that I would effectively have old server HW fall out of the sky and onto my dining table, isn’t it? But that’s why I’m posting at all: To get ideas for what I can do so I can make a plan. Your suggestions are on my list. Thanks!

IceBair: One of my coworkers recommended a Minecraft server! I’ll keep it in mind.

Robert: Learning is the priority. My supervisor suggested the VM host, but my next question was, “VMs that do what?” Hence my post here. Your list is on my list, as well. Thank you!

kalarse: I’ve already done a little bit with Cinnamon, but I can see that being fun.

Harry: Indeed. I’m not an anything pro–yet. No spare server licenses, but I bet there are evaluation licenses I could use for a time. Only two drive slots, but I’ve got a couple more RAM slots (6 total, running 4 x 4GB). That’s not a lot, but like you say, it’s a start.

1 Spice up
10

Learn what you do at work, if you use AD, set it up and learn how to script users, if you use DNS and/or DHCP, learn how they work, while under your own control.

There is a million and one things, and there is a specific home labs category on here, but you need to be approved.

You’ll find lots of ‘things to do’ in here

https://community.spiceworks.com/user-groups/homelabs

1 Spice up
11

Essentially just find something you want to learn… and build it. Then break it, or wipe and rebuild it better or without guides…

what interests you?

1 Spice up