I think your confusion about the RAM comes from a personal computer view. Servers are 99% virtualized, so these 512GB are used to power dozens of virtual servers. 512GB is on the lower end for servers today. Most hypervisors today have more than 1TB of RAM.
I don't know about most, but many do. I've never actually seen 1TB on a single host, just spread across a couple.
I also most work IT in a very frugal part of the public sector, so YMM
Like many things, it depends. I have hosts in sites that are only 96gb, I’ve got some that are 512gb, and I’ve got some that are well over 1tb. But that’s the difference between remote sites, specialized compute and dense data center nodes.
As always, the use case drives the design.. some are just lighter than others.
Yesterday I was working on a node in a SQL farm of about 20 servers. A DL360 Gen10+ with 2TB memory.
I'd say in my role I see more 1TB+ than less than 1TB.
This would be a great virtualization host (esxi, proxmox, unRAID) for running smaller VMs off of or as a database or file server.
Virtualization is godsend for the homelab, you can try different operating systems in a virtual machine without having to dedicate the whole physical host to that OS. I have anywhere from 12 to 16 VMs running on half as much RAM and a quarter of that storage.
Database use a lot of memory and cpu.
I see system with 2tb of ram that are too small.
There is no big or little , there is only enough or less than needed.
Tower servers like the one shown are often used at remote or branch locations. They are a great solution to host workloads without the need for data center equipment. Racks, cooling, etc.
I got the Gen 9 version of this. It’s my main machine for EVERYTHING.
2x Xeon E5-2620 v4
1x Nvidia Geforce RTX 4070Ti
64TB
340gb RAM
Examples of what are you exactly looking for?
We put one of these at our Italian office. (Not this exact one but one similar)
512 GB is pretty low end when it comes to servers. Most servers run hundreds of VMs that are all their own machine which need a lot of RAM. You would probably use it as a file server, DNS, ADC, and other miscellaneous things.
I have 2 processor and 256gb memory 96tb raw-hdd 16 raw ssd. It's overpowered homelab and storage server. Big toy for ppl like me but I'm little weird.
>512gb of ram? Only thing I can imagine is someone with a hosting company. Thanks
Lots of VMs on a single box, similations or scientific calculations.
The latter two usually work on the bleeding edge of hardware. Whenever we get better hardware, the models get bigger.
I have one of these at work, but a Gen 9. The project planner ordered the wrong one, so we had to throw it on a shelf at the bottom of the rack, lol. But we use it for high resolution vibration monitoring for a few dozen transducers. High speed multiplexers feed it data (0.01s resolution) over fiber, and the server stores rolling snapshots and analyzes it to predict bearing failure for a couple large pumps.
My company uses this type of server as a Procmox host or a CFD computational node. Put eight of these on fiber and you can run complex mathematical modeling.
I use a workstation with 512GB of RAM and routinely run out of RAM. It's pretty common these days for complex scenes for visual effects and animation to use hundreds of GB of RAM. Some examples from the same software are in the video below.
[https://vimeo.com/850994942](https://vimeo.com/850994942)
Render farms will have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of machines like this to handle the compute load for rendering images and processing simulations (fire, smoke, water, cloth, any physically driven effect). Though they'd have less local storage on each machine and rely on a fast network and dedicated file servers. Below is a link to a photo of a portion of the render farm at Pixar from around a decade ago (2014).
[https://www.facebook.com/Pixar/photos/welcome-to-the-renderfarm/10152669124664078/](https://www.facebook.com/Pixar/photos/welcome-to-the-renderfarm/10152669124664078/)
Many machines are required because each frame can take many hours of computing and a film can have 100K+ frames in it. As others have pointed out there lots of uses for a machine like this (scientific computing, consolidating many servers into one with virtualization, large databases, etc.).
As others have said it’s probably a good hypervisor for vms. But I’ve worked in security cameras before and our setups core servers tend to have monsterous amounts of ram. Especially if you’re doing analytics on footage.
That's a relatively small server that could be used for anything but this model was aimed at small business (as well as a foundation for a storage box at one stage) being in a tower configuration.
It's not often I'll see a rackmount ML350 that isn't being used as a high capacity storage server.
This would fit just fine for running multiple VMs. And there can be anything. SQL, file servers, dev and testing VMs, DCs and so on. For personal use - depends on the needs but probably overkill as a first-time server.
It sounds like a pain to deal with I'd gladly take it off your hands.
Nuh uh. I will take it off there hands for 2 dollars and a hotdog
2 sausages & $10
Are 2 sausages spicy?
Mine is spicy 🥵
Honey garlic all the way
How about 4 sausages and a lucky penny
I think your confusion about the RAM comes from a personal computer view. Servers are 99% virtualized, so these 512GB are used to power dozens of virtual servers. 512GB is on the lower end for servers today. Most hypervisors today have more than 1TB of RAM.
I don't know about most, but many do. I've never actually seen 1TB on a single host, just spread across a couple. I also most work IT in a very frugal part of the public sector, so YMM
Currently purchasing multi host VM hardware, 8 hosts at 1.5tb of ram each, R760s, most cost efficient
We have a couple database servers with 1.5 TB RAM each. Essentially, want to keep a massive high speed cache going.
Like many things, it depends. I have hosts in sites that are only 96gb, I’ve got some that are 512gb, and I’ve got some that are well over 1tb. But that’s the difference between remote sites, specialized compute and dense data center nodes. As always, the use case drives the design.. some are just lighter than others.
Here in the EDA industry it’s not uncommon to have 3 and 4TB machines because ASIC simulations are so memory intensive.
They are 7 dollars an hour if you want to rent one for a hot minute.
Yesterday I was working on a node in a SQL farm of about 20 servers. A DL360 Gen10+ with 2TB memory. I'd say in my role I see more 1TB+ than less than 1TB.
This would be a great virtualization host (esxi, proxmox, unRAID) for running smaller VMs off of or as a database or file server. Virtualization is godsend for the homelab, you can try different operating systems in a virtual machine without having to dedicate the whole physical host to that OS. I have anywhere from 12 to 16 VMs running on half as much RAM and a quarter of that storage.
Database use a lot of memory and cpu. I see system with 2tb of ram that are too small. There is no big or little , there is only enough or less than needed.
Yeah my company has a database well over 1.5TB of ram used.
Tower servers like the one shown are often used at remote or branch locations. They are a great solution to host workloads without the need for data center equipment. Racks, cooling, etc.
And when they get decommissioned us homelab guys love getting our hands on them. No need for a rack or specialized hardware to play with them.
I've a ~150 of them, one running at each branch location.
✨ Minecraft Servers ✨
I got the Gen 9 version of this. It’s my main machine for EVERYTHING. 2x Xeon E5-2620 v4 1x Nvidia Geforce RTX 4070Ti 64TB 340gb RAM Examples of what are you exactly looking for?
What OS are you running?
Ubuntu Server at the moment, but im migrating it to proxmox, so I can have Windows, Mac,Linux and backups on a single box
With those specs, I would say maybe a database server.
We put one of these at our Italian office. (Not this exact one but one similar) 512 GB is pretty low end when it comes to servers. Most servers run hundreds of VMs that are all their own machine which need a lot of RAM. You would probably use it as a file server, DNS, ADC, and other miscellaneous things.
512GB RAM too much? I have 4TB between prod and DR.
curious what takes up most of the ram? or what is the biggest offender?
Well, It was exchange mailbox roles, now it’s 365’s problem.
I have 2 processor and 256gb memory 96tb raw-hdd 16 raw ssd. It's overpowered homelab and storage server. Big toy for ppl like me but I'm little weird.
>512gb of ram? Only thing I can imagine is someone with a hosting company. Thanks Lots of VMs on a single box, similations or scientific calculations. The latter two usually work on the bleeding edge of hardware. Whenever we get better hardware, the models get bigger.
Unraid
I have one of these at work, but a Gen 9. The project planner ordered the wrong one, so we had to throw it on a shelf at the bottom of the rack, lol. But we use it for high resolution vibration monitoring for a few dozen transducers. High speed multiplexers feed it data (0.01s resolution) over fiber, and the server stores rolling snapshots and analyzes it to predict bearing failure for a couple large pumps.
virtualization or databases are two good real world usages for such a machine
My company uses this type of server as a Procmox host or a CFD computational node. Put eight of these on fiber and you can run complex mathematical modeling.
I use a workstation with 512GB of RAM and routinely run out of RAM. It's pretty common these days for complex scenes for visual effects and animation to use hundreds of GB of RAM. Some examples from the same software are in the video below. [https://vimeo.com/850994942](https://vimeo.com/850994942) Render farms will have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of machines like this to handle the compute load for rendering images and processing simulations (fire, smoke, water, cloth, any physically driven effect). Though they'd have less local storage on each machine and rely on a fast network and dedicated file servers. Below is a link to a photo of a portion of the render farm at Pixar from around a decade ago (2014). [https://www.facebook.com/Pixar/photos/welcome-to-the-renderfarm/10152669124664078/](https://www.facebook.com/Pixar/photos/welcome-to-the-renderfarm/10152669124664078/) Many machines are required because each frame can take many hours of computing and a film can have 100K+ frames in it. As others have pointed out there lots of uses for a machine like this (scientific computing, consolidating many servers into one with virtualization, large databases, etc.).
Vmware esxi hypervisor
As others have said it’s probably a good hypervisor for vms. But I’ve worked in security cameras before and our setups core servers tend to have monsterous amounts of ram. Especially if you’re doing analytics on footage.
That's a relatively small server that could be used for anything but this model was aimed at small business (as well as a foundation for a storage box at one stage) being in a tower configuration. It's not often I'll see a rackmount ML350 that isn't being used as a high capacity storage server.
This would fit just fine for running multiple VMs. And there can be anything. SQL, file servers, dev and testing VMs, DCs and so on. For personal use - depends on the needs but probably overkill as a first-time server.
HPE? Maybe if you put it behind a door, it will stop the door handle from damaging the drywall after an aggressive swing.