Oh, I get it. But a baseline HP Proliant from that era is just an x86 system barely different from a desktop today but worse/slower/more power hungry in every respect.
For history and "how things changed", go for something like a Sun Fire system from the mid 2000's (280R or V240 are relatively easy and cheap to get and are actually different) or a Proliant from the mid to late 90's (I have a functioning Compaq Proliant 7000 which is HUGE and a puzzlebox inside).
x86 computers haven't changed much at all in the past 20 years and you need to go into the rarer models (like blade systems) to see an actual deviation from the basic PC alike form factor we've been using for the past 20 years and unique approaches to storage and performance.
For self hosting, just use something more recent that falls within your priceclass (usually 5-6 years old becomes highly affordable). Even a Pi is going to trounce a system that old and actually has a different form factor.
metaStatic@kbin.social 6 months ago
I have a HP Proliant DL380G7, basically the last server with a front side bus, and all the comments about it where about power per watt.
and they're not wrong.
I just don't think this is the community for old servers like this, self hosting is very much a practical consideration and the money spent on electricity running anything useful on these old things is better spent on a raspberry pi or stand alone NAS or something.
Krafting@lemmy.world 6 months ago
In my opinion, selfhosting is also about discovering how (and what) you could selfhost with old hardware and OS, just for fun and understanding a bit more about the history of hardware
But yeah for 24/7 services I have others way more modern servers and also an OrangePi