I recently inherited a Dell PowerEdge R540 and while I'm not sure how old it is, I know it still works. I'm considering installing the Veeam Hardened Repository ISO on it, along with some large 3.5-inch disks for a total of about 70TB and maybe adding some extra RAM. I'm wondering if this setup is worth the effort?
5 Answers
The R540 still has plenty of life in it! If you're aiming to use it for non-production tasks or a small home lab, this sounds like a great plan. Just ensure you check Veeam's compatibility with your setup to avoid any issues later on.
For personal projects or small business needs, absolutely! Just be cautious if you're thinking about using it for critical production work; non-supported hardware can lead to headaches, especially when something goes wrong. If it's secondary storage, though, you should be fine.
Before you dive in, check the Dell support site with the service tag. It’ll give you all the details about the age, warranty, and original components. It's super useful to know what you're working with.
The R540 was released in 2017, so it's still fairly recent. If your budget is tight, this could be a smart option. You can find spare parts easily online if something breaks down. But if your organization can afford newer gear under support, that might be worth considering too.
We have a Dell R730 doing exactly this with large disks, and it's running smoothly. Just isolate it from outside networks too, and keep a spare disk handy in case of failure. Even faced ransomware, but our backups remained intact. Just saying, it's better to have backups than none at all!
Yeah, as long as it meets Veeam’s requirements, you should have no problems setting it up as a backup. Worst case, just run Linux on it and get it working that way.