What To Do With An Aquired Server?

I have a Compaq Proliant 3000 server, Exabyte Mammoth EXB-220 and an Exabyte 430 M2 Mammoth-2 and plenty of tapes sitting in my basement collecting dust. I am just a home network hobbyist and a newbie as well. What fun and useful things could I do with this equipment? Just trying to decide. I was hoping at one time to do some web hosting but I have decided against that.

Thank you

Do you know what gen the Proliant is? (also, what clock speed if you know)
The specs on it are a bit... antiquated, so as far as "useful" goes I don't know what you could really accomplish.

I'm not sure what generation it is. It accepts duall processor boards and I do have two boards although one of the boards is not installed. Yes it does seem a little old. I was wondering if I could use it for a home media server. I have a smart TV that uses Plex and right now I use an older dual core laptop running Plex media server and connected to 3 TB of external HD. I was thinking maybe I could replace the dual core laptop with the 3000 but not sure if it will handle it. I don't think Plex uses a lot of resources because my daughter plays minecraft on that same dual core laptop while I am watching a movie using the Plex media server and the video does not skip at all.

Also, any way to use the tapes as a drive? I think there is at least a TB in tapes too when they are all connected, but I assume they can only be used as backup? I'm not sure. The equipment was given to me.

Thank you.

I wouldn't use the tapes for anything other than backups - they're great for backups because they're extremely durable but using them to read media would be a tad slow.

Looked up the minimum requirements for Plex and this guy falls underneath the minimum requirements. (single core processor, clocked somewhere between 300 Mhz and 600 Mhz - minimum for non-HD content is 1.5Ghz single core) That isn't including the RAM constraints that it most likely won't meet either.

This guy isn't capable of too much I'm afraid.

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Yeah that's what I thought.

Maybe I could use it to back up all my networked PCs at night? I thought about putting a light version of Linux on it. Is there any software out there that could handle backing up certain files on any networked PCs. Say for example it would monitor My Document folders of any of the connected PCs and perform backups and then if any of our drives crash, we wont lose anything.

Just a thought.

Thanks.

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That is the answer to any question regarding what to do with something you aren't sure what to do with.

Yeah that's what I thought.

Maybe I could use it to back up all my networked PCs at night? I thought about putting a light version of Linux on it. Is there any software out there that could handle backing up certain files on any networked PCs. Say for example it would monitor My Document folders of any of the connected PCs and perform backups and then if any of our drives crash, we wont lose anything.

Just a thought.

Thanks.

You certainly could do a nightly backup with it. (or weekly, or whatever suits your fancy) I've never set anything like that up so I can't recommend any specific flavor of linux for you, nor can I recommend any freeware scheduled backup software; I'm sure a little research could point you in the right direction, though.

The tapes are usable from a fun perspective, but I'd say you'd be better off backing it up on an HDD for personal use stuff. Who wants to be stuck changing and storing tapes?

Honestly I'd strip out the guts and use that beast of a case for fun. It should be plenty big enough for a full sized board for gaming/working.whatever and a mini itx for a home server.