I’m not tech illiterate, but it’s also not my job or anything. That said I managed to figure out how to get a synology up and running and it hosts my Jellyfin and *arrs. Nothing too exciting. I also have a couple of vps’s that I use for nextcloud, a recipe server, all in docker containers. Not nothing but also, not the hardest thing to accomplish.
Well, my manager gifted me an old Dell PowerEdge R720 and 4 hard drives. Yeah, this is way more than I know what to do with, or even where to start. Do I need to plug both power cables in? I still need to figure out how to get a monitor hooked up to it with what looks to be a VGA cable. And even then this thing is a behemoth and what do I even do with it?? My manager was so excited to talk to me about it and I’m all 😵💫
Where do I start?
depending on specs it will be a little power hungry, but a good virtualization platform.
yes, the power supplies are likely redundant and the server will complain if they are not both powered.
it will use a VGA connection, but you should be ale to find cheap VGA monitors or cheap adapters.
RAID controllerfor those drives? how many processors and cores? how much RAM? what OS are you planning on running on it? iDRAC included? (if so, likely idrac6, but still usable)
this hardware is very well supported by linux - I have used these older servers extensively. your boss was right to be excited for you. its a great exploration platform that you will be able to do lots of things with.
fire up a live linux distro and get detailed specs on the box - that will guide what you can play with right away.