I still run an aging R210ii, and it's been great. Mostly....
If you're going to use the server for storage (or I/O heavy tasks), you might be better to get the Optiplex since it has SATA-III (6 Gbps) and the R210ii only has SATA-II (3 Gbps). The R210ii also only has one PCI-E slot which limits expansion options.
I planned on attached some direct storage and using a truenas VM, for what I do I don't think sataii will be that much of a downgrade
I would stick with the 7020's or get something smaller like a Beelink unit that seems to be all over tech YouTube right now.
The r210 is loud due to it being a 1U server. The upgrade path on the r210ii is very limited. Look up the Dell Technical Guide for the r210ii to get a list of what you can upgrade them to as far as CPU and RAM requirements. It only takes up to 32gb of ECC UDIMM which I always found more expensive than ECC RDIMM. For CPU, the best CPU it can take is only a 4 core, with no hyperthreading.
Experience: I have run two r210ii's before moving to three r230's before finally going big to a r730xd. In the past month, I have migrated away from the r730xd to a Dell 5820T and 3x Dell 3070 SFF PC's to combat the noise and heat generation in my home office.
SFF/Mini PCs are great
Intel Xeon Processor E3-1240 running in my R210 II. That's a CPU with four cores and eight threads. Source : https://imgur.com/a/AMmFbnn
I stand corrected. It has been a few years since I had a working r210ii in my homelab & my remembering of the technical guide was rusty.
For future people, section 6.3 has the list of supported CPU's.
https://i.dell.com/sites/content/shared-content/data-sheets/en/Documents/r-210-2-technical-guide.pdf
Thanks for the insight. I'll probably stick with the 7020s. They can do everything and more the r220ii can besides fit in a nice 1U space.
Do you already have a rack? Rack servers are an inconvenient size and shape except in a rack.
I have an R210ii running opnsense for like 6 years now. It has never given me a single problem and easily my favorite little machine. And the oldest in my rack.