[captainmuon]

I've been thinking about getting a microserver. I already have a Synology NAS but I'd like something a bit more powerful to host Nextclound and a couple apps.

The Gen8 Microservers seemed neat, but they are getting old and rarer on eBay. Gen10 seems like a step back performance and feature wise.

With ILO not available (or a $100 upgrade), what is the benefit for a home / small business / enthusiast user of a Microserver vs. a custom built system? I could probably build a Ryzen based PC with a better performance / price ratio, just minus the ILO, and it's probably going to be quieter. Any optinions on this?

[dsr_]

The Microserver line is aimed at corporations who want to send out a local office server that they will maintain remotely; the local office might not have a rack or any other infrastructure besides a router-switch combo. Size is important. HP custom builds the case and the motherboard: repair is expected to take the form of swapping the whole box, possibly sliding the disks in and out.

If you don't care about size, you can do much better for cheaper, and be able to replace everything with standard parts if you have problems in the future.

[closeparen]

Wouldn't iLO be even more important if the server is meant to be deployed at a site with no technical staff?

[snuxoll]

iLO is available with an optional kit, though honestly you'd be better off getting the ML30 if you were buying HPE gear for a remote location.

[andreasley]

For a powerful microserver, you might want to consider SuperMicro's E300-9D-8CN8TP. It's tiny, comes with an 8-core Xeon D, has an M.2 slot, 4 x 10GbE and is even ESXi certified.

[Whinner]

It's also a lot more expensive

[charwalker]

4x10gb Ethernet has to add what, a few hundred dollars if they are Intel ports?

[MrGilbert]

"[...] host Nextclound [sic] and a couple apps"

So, what are these "couple apps"? You already have a decent storage solution. You might consider a RPi 4 with 4G RAM for NextCloud and some apps.

Other than that, I personally like the ASRock DeskMini A300. Slap an Athlon in it, and call it a day (keep in mind you need a "G"-Processor, with iGPU!).

At home, I've built a homeserver around a X470 and Ryzen 5 2600 - it runs everything using Unraid: Storage, Home-Assistant, PLEX, Node-RED, Grafana for the living room display, the secondary pi-hole instance, and also my personal Gaming VM. It runs at 15% load during idle, drawing 70 W (including Vega 56 GPU).

I'm pretty happy with my setup.