Two Legends Walk Into a eBay Listing
You’ve decided to level up from that aging NUC or repurposed desktop. You want actual ECC RAM, redundant PSUs, proper IPMI, and enough PCIe slots to embarrass a gaming rig. Congrats — you’ve officially entered the used enterprise server rabbit hole, and there’s no climbing out.
The two names you’ll see constantly at the $200–$500 price point are the Dell PowerEdge R720 and the HP ProLiant DL380 G9. Both are 2U pizza boxes that were enterprise workhorses in their day. Both have massive communities, good Linux support, and will absolutely rattle your walls if you don’t deal with their fans.
But they are not the same machine, and which one you pick matters more than you’d think. Let’s go through it properly.
The CPU Situation: This Is Actually Important
The biggest real-world difference between these two is the CPU generation, and it’s not close.
R720 ships with Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge Xeon E5-26xx v1 or v2 processors. We’re talking 2012–2013 silicon. Still capable, still multi-core, still runs Proxmox or k8s just fine. The v2 chips (Ivy Bridge-EP) are the sweet spot — something like the E5-2670 v2 (10 cores, 2.5GHz) gives you solid throughput for the price.
DL380 G9 ships with Haswell-EP or Broadwell-EP Xeon E5-26xx v3 or v4. That’s 2014–2017 silicon, one or two full microarchitecture generations ahead. The v4 Broadwell chips in particular are legitimately good: better IPC, DDR4 memory support, and more PCIe lanes on the CPU die.
What does that translate to in practice? Roughly a 25–35% performance-per-clock improvement going from v2 to v4, plus DDR4 bandwidth advantages. If you’re running CPU-bound workloads — transcoding, LLM inference, heavy compilation — the G9 wins on raw throughput.
The R720 runs DDR3. The G9 runs DDR4. DDR4 is cheaper per GB in 2026 because everyone dumped it when DDR5 took over. This actually works in the G9’s favor for memory upgrades.
Both support 24 DIMM slots, which means up to 768GB RAM on the G9 (with 32GB LRDIMMs) or up to 384–512GB on the R720. You’re probably not filling either, but it’s nice to know the ceiling exists.
eBay Reality Check: What You’re Actually Paying in 2026
Both of these are well into their “falling off a cliff” depreciation phase, which is great news for your wallet.
| Config | R720 | DL380 G9 |
|---|---|---|
| Bare bones, no drives | $80–$150 | $150–$300 |
| Decent dual-CPU build (E5-2670 v2 or equiv.) | $200–$350 | $300–$500 |
| Loaded with RAM (128–256GB) | $300–$500 | $400–$600 |
| With drives (8x SAS) | Add $50–$200 | Add $50–$200 |
The G9 commands a premium because the CPU generation is meaningfully better and the platform is newer. If budget is the first constraint, the R720 still makes total sense. If you want to buy once and not feel the upgrade itch in two years, the G9 is worth the extra $150.
Watch out for listings that include “no iLO Advanced license” on the HP side or “iDRAC Express only” on the Dell side — more on that in a minute.
Fan Noise: Both Are Loud. One Is Worse.
Let’s not sugarcoat this. Neither of these belongs in a bedroom. They are enterprise servers. They were designed to live in a data center where ambient noise is already 70dB and no one cares about another jet turbine.
Out of the box, the R720 in particular sounds like it’s trying to achieve liftoff. The fans ramp to full speed on POST, then throttle back based on thermal and ambient sensors — but “throttled back” on a Dell 12G server still means “you’ll hear it clearly through two closed doors.”
The DL380 G9 is not quiet either, but HP’s fan curve tends to be a bit more forgiving at idle, especially after a firmware update.
The good news: you can tell both of them to calm down via IPMI. On the R720:
# Set fan speed to ~25% (hex 19 = 25% duty cycle)ipmitool -I lanplus -H <idrac-ip> -U root -P <pass> raw 0x30 0x30 0x01 0x00ipmitool -I lanplus -H <idrac-ip> -U root -P <pass> raw 0x30 0x30 0x02 0xff 0x19The first command disables automatic fan control. The second sets manual duty cycle (0x19 = 25%). Adjust 0x19 upward if your CPUs or drives run hot. You’ll want to monitor temps after you do this — you just told the BMC to stop making decisions for you.
For a quick temperature check:
ipmitool -I lanplus -H <idrac-ip> -U root -P <pass> sdr type TemperatureOn the HP side, fan control via IPMI raw commands is less reliable — HP’s fan management is tightly coupled to iLO. Your better bet is installing the HP System Management Homepage or using hponcfg / ilorest to check thermals and configure thresholds. Fan noise reduction on the G9 is mostly achieved by setting the right iLO power profile:
# SSH into iLO CLI and set power regulator to OS Control modeset /system1/oemhp_power1 oemhp_powerreg=OSControlThis lets the OS (or Proxmox/KVM) drive ACPI power states and generally results in saner fan behavior at idle.
iDRAC vs iLO: The Remote Management Gotcha
This is where a lot of first-time buyers get burned, so pay attention.
Dell iDRAC7 (on the R720) ships in two flavors: Express and Enterprise. iDRAC Express gives you basic sensor data and remote power control. iDRAC Enterprise gives you full KVM-over-IP remote console, virtual media, and the works. The license is stored in the BMC and is tied to that controller.
The good news: Enterprise licenses for iDRAC7 are plentiful and cheap on eBay. You can buy a license key for ~$10–$20 and activate it via:
racadm -r <idrac-ip> -u root -p <pass> license import -f idrac_enterprise.xmlOr through the iDRAC web UI under Overview → iDRAC Settings → Licenses.
HP iLO 4 (on the G9) is similar — base iLO ships with everything but the remote console. iLO Advanced adds KVM-over-IP, virtual media, and some power management features. HP iLO Advanced licenses are also available on eBay but tend to run $15–$40.
Here’s the twist: if the server came from a managed fleet, the iLO license might already be activated. Check before you buy a license. Via ilorest:
ilorest login <ilo-ip> -u admin -p <pass>ilorest get /redfish/v1/Managers/1/ --select Manager. | grep -i licenseilorest logoutBoth platforms support IPMI over LAN out of the box — you can power cycle, get sensor data, and boot to virtual media without activating a premium license. But for full remote console (the thing that saves you from digging a monitor out of a closet at 2 AM), you need Enterprise/Advanced on both.
For one-time setup tasks like initial OS install, there’s also the physical front panel and USB. Not elegant, but it works.
RAID and IT Mode: Know What You’re Getting Into
Both servers ship with hardware RAID controllers, and both can be a pain if you want to pass drives directly to ZFS or mdadm.
R720 PERC H710 / H710P / H310 Mini: The H310 Mini can be flashed to LSI 9211-8i IT mode firmware, which turns it into a pure HBA — drives pass straight through to the OS, ZFS sees raw disks, everyone’s happy. The H710 and H710P are harder to flash; most people just leave them in RAID mode and create single-disk RAID-0 volumes per drive (jank but functional) or swap the controller entirely.
# Check what controller you have from Linuxsudo lspci | grep -i raid# Or from iDRAC racadmracadm -r <idrac-ip> -u root -p <pass> getconfig -g cfgStorageControllerHP P440ar: The Smart Array P440ar is HP’s controller and it’s notoriously sticky. There’s no mainstream IT-mode flash for it. Your options are: use HP’s Smart Storage with RAID (works fine, but ZFS users will be annoyed), or install a separate HBA card in a PCIe slot and bypass the P440ar entirely. HP sells the H240 HBA which is a rebadged LSI and can be used in IT mode.
To manage the P440ar from Linux:
# List all controllersssacli ctrl all show status
# Show logical drivesssacli ctrl slot=0 ld all show
# Create a RAID-0 single-disk logical drive (the jank workaround)ssacli ctrl slot=0 create type=ld drives=2I:1:1 raid=0If you’re planning a ZFS-heavy NAS build, the R720 with an H310 Mini flash is the cleaner path. If you’re okay with traditional RAID or adding a PCIe HBA, the G9 is fine.
Drive Bays and Caddies
R720 comes in 8x 2.5” or 8x 3.5” SFF/LFF configurations. The caddies are Dell-proprietary, screwless plastic sleds that are genuinely nice to use once you have them. Replacements run $5–$15 each on eBay. SATA and SAS both work; 2.5” SAS drives snap in with no adapter needed.
DL380 G9 comes in multiple front-panel configs: 8x 2.5”, 24x 2.5”, or 12x 3.5” depending on the SKU. The 24-bay SFF version is a popular choice for storage builds. HP Gen9 caddies are similarly proprietary, similarly cheap on eBay. The hot-swap backplane is the same across configs, which is nice.
If maximum raw storage density is the goal, the G9’s 24-bay SFF option wins outright — you can stuff 24 x 8TB SSDs in there and have a very angry power bill.
PCIe Slots and GPU Realities
Both servers have multiple PCIe 3.0 slots, but the GPU situation differs.
R720: Two 750W PSUs. Great for redundancy, less great if you want to run a beefy GPU. A single RTX 3060 (170W TDP) is doable, but you don’t have much headroom for two GPUs or a 300W+ card. The riser configuration on the R720 gives you a couple of full-length slots, so physically it fits. Thermally and electrically, know your limits.
DL380 G9: Ships with 800W or 1400W PSUs depending on config. The 1400W dual-PSU config gives you real headroom for a GPU or two. HP’s FlexLOM slot for the NIC is separate from your PCIe slots, which means you’re not sacrificing a slot for networking.
Neither of these is a GPU compute server, but if you want to run a small inference node with a mid-range consumer GPU, the G9 gives you more runway.
For quick PCIe inventory from Linux:
lspci -vvv | grep -A 3 "VGA\|3D controller"Power Draw: Budget for Two Circuits
At idle, expect:
- R720 (dual E5-2670 v2, 128GB RAM, no drives spinning): ~130–150W
- DL380 G9 (dual E5-2690 v4, 128GB RAM, no drives spinning): ~120–160W
They’re in the same ballpark at idle. Under load, the G9’s newer CPUs are more efficient per operation, so it often wins on performance-per-watt even if peak draw is similar.
If you’re running two of these — and you will, because one server never feels like enough — you’re looking at 250–350W constant draw. That’s ~$35–$55/month in power at US average rates. Budget accordingly. If you’re in a country with higher electricity costs, this math gets painful faster.
Running on a 240V circuit (NEMA 6-20 or 6-30) rather than 120V means lower current draw and the PSUs run cooler and quieter. If you have the option to wire a dedicated 240V outlet, do it.
Firmware Updates: The Maintenance Tax
Dell makes this relatively painless. idracadm7 and the Dell EMC System Update tool handle firmware for you:
# Install Dell's System Update on Ubuntu/Debianapt install dell-system-update
# Run updatessudo /usr/bin/dell-system-update --apply-allHP’s tooling is more involved. ilorest handles iLO firmware, and the HP Service Pack for ProLiant (SPP) ISO is the recommended way to update everything else. It boots from USB or virtual media and patches everything in one shot. It’s a big download (~10GB) but it works.
# Update iLO firmware via ilorestilorest login <ilo-ip> -u admin -p <pass>ilorest flashfwpkg <firmware.fwpkg>ilorest logoutBoth platforms need periodic firmware updates for stability, security, and compatibility with new drives. Factor in a maintenance window when you first bring the hardware online.
Which One Should You Actually Buy?
Here’s the honest breakdown:
Pick the R720 if:
- Budget is tight (under $300 all-in)
- You want the easiest RAID-to-IT-mode path (H310 Mini flash)
- You’re running moderately CPU-light workloads (NAS, small VMs, home automation)
- You already have DDR3 ECC RAM laying around
Pick the DL380 G9 if:
- You want DDR4 and better long-term memory pricing
- CPU performance matters (transcoding, inference, heavier VMs)
- You want more drive bays (the 24-bay SFF config is chef’s kiss for storage)
- You can spend an extra $150–$200 upfront for a better platform
Both are fine for:
- Proxmox / KVM / ESXi home lab
- Kubernetes clusters (k3s on bare metal, anyone?)
- Docker / Compose / self-hosted apps
- NAS with ZFS (once you sort the HBA situation)
- Learning enterprise Linux administration
The Bottom Line
Neither server is objectively “better” — they’re answering different questions. The R720 is the “cheap and it works” answer. The DL380 G9 is the “buy once, upgrade later” answer.
If you’re waffling: check eBay for what’s available in your area at a price that doesn’t make you wince, then check whether the listing includes iDRAC Enterprise or iLO Advanced licenses. A G9 with iLO Advanced already activated at $350 is probably a better deal than a bare-bones G9 at $280 where you’ll spend another $30 on the license anyway.
Either way, get that server in a rack or on a shelf in a room with a door you can close, wire up at least a 15A dedicated circuit, and mentally prepare for the POST fans to scare the dog. It’s a rite of passage. You’ll love it.
Your 2 AM self debugging a ZFS scrub on a server that would’ve cost $40,000 in 2013 will appreciate every penny you spent.
