Would a Used ProLiant DL380 Server Make Sense for a Student Lab/Media Setup?

College Life
1

I’m a CS major looking to build a budget-friendly home lab for:

  • Hosting coding projects (web servers, databases, small-scale VMs)
  • Running Plex/Jellyfin for movie nights (4K transcoding)
  • Maybe even a Minecraft server for dormmates

Found a used HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 with a Xeon Silver 4210 (10-core 2.4GHz, 128GB RAM) for ~$500. Seems like a steal, but I’m hesitant because:

  1. Noise/Power: Will this sound like a jet engine in a dorm room? (It’s got dual 800W PSUs…)
  2. Real-World Use: Could a Raspberry Pi 5 or mini-PC (e.g., Beelink SER7) handle this better?
  3. Future-Proofing: Xeon’s 10 cores seem overkill now, but will they help with AI/ML projects later?
2

I’m considering getting a HP ProLiant DL380 server with a 10-Core 2.4GHz Xeon processor for various tasks