Migrating to another server (HP ML110 Gen9)

My main server is the Dell Poweredge R720 rack server, which I use to run a few VMs, mainly TrueNAS, Jellyfin, and other services such as PiHole. I used to run a Linux VM and a Windows VM (for work) on it too, but I have since moved to my desktop (running as a Proxmox workstation) for these. Still, the R720 consumes a lot of power, even though I have tried to reduce that by hibernating the VMs when not in use. The average consumption is around 190W when running 3 VMs, which is really a lot.

Even when powered down, the R720 continues to consume about 15W of electricity as it needs to keep the iDRAC alive. For the R430, this is around 9W of electricity, which is still unnecessary and so I usually leave the R430 switched off from the mains and turn it on only when necessary.

I thus decided to go for a less power-hungry setup. I got myself a HP ML110 Gen9 tower server, which comes with 4 x 3.5" HDD bays. Using some of the R430's RAM, I gave the ML110 a total of 84 GB of RAM. It was also given a Intel Xeon E5-2630L v3 processor, which has a lower TDP while still giving 8 cores and 16 threads. When not powered, it consumes only 3W for the iLO (which is HP's IPMI).

First, I had to migrate my VMs. I decided to create a VM running Proxmox Backup Server on the R720, and backed up my three VMs for migration to that backup server. (Note: Proxmox Backup Server should be installed on bare metal usually, but for this migration, I decided to go with a VM since I am only using it for this particular instance.)

Then, on the ML110, I installed Proxmox, and added the backup server as a storage. From there, I restored the three VMs I wanted to migrate. After they were "restored" on the ML110, I tweaked the hardware settings to make sure the amount of RAM and CPU cores were allocated properly for the VMs. Then, I shut down the R720 and ML110, shifted the GPU to be used by the Jellyfin VM to the ML110, and also the harddisks to be used by TrueNAS.

Next was the moment of truth. I turned on the ML110, did the GPU passthrough for the Jellyfin server, passed through the harddisks to the TrueNAS VM, and started the VMs.

And voila!

Everything worked! Hurray!

I also measured the power consumption using a power meter. The ML110 consumes around 85W when all three VMs are running. This is like 100W less than the R720. Wow!

So now, the R720 has joined the ranks of the R430, becoming "ondemand" servers that I will power up only when needed.

Next is to get a low power NAS to run Proxmox Backup Server full-time so that I can backup the VMs on the ML110 as well as the desktop workstation.

(Oh, and another thing of note is that, while the Dell R720 used to take about 10 minutes from reboot to launching the three default VMs, the ML110 took about 6.5 minutes because its boot process is much shorter. This makes it a lot easier when upgrading the kernel or other things that require a reboot.)