Will this be overkill or otherwise not recommended for someone who is new and just starting to learn?
My goal is to have something I can grow into, but initially I'd like to host a few VMs, game servers, and a have place to store content. I'd also like to host a PLEX server in the future as well but might buy a separate piece of hardware for it specifically down the road. Thanks in advance for taking the time to help a newbie!
I can tell you from direct experience if owning an R720XD, this bitch is loud, and hot. During the summer, AC stays on 90% of the time near max cooling, during the winter, I have no use for a heater because I already have one lmao. Power consumption is about the 250-400w constantly with HDDs with SSDs it would probably be a bit lower, but I'm sure I'm paying about 100 to 150 dollars more a year, but luckily I'm not worried about power consumption or price. If you don't care about heat, noise, and power consumption, so far, I really enjoy it! Check out my latest post where I detailed my whole current setup.
As others have said, there are way better options out there than the 720. In terms of literally everything lol. You could probably spend a couple extra 200 bucks and get something way newer, efficient, quieter, and more or equally as powerful. Let me know if you have any questions, I live with one in my bedroom lol
I'm happy to spend that much extra for better performance, especially if it helps avoid the long run annoyance of the heat and noise.
What would you recommend I keep my eye out for as an alternative?
Well first I think it'd be better to ask you first, what do you plan on using it for? Do you already know what you want to do with it? If not, I would do as others have suggested. Hold back on a rack mounted server for a while, grab a desktop, load it with ram HDDs (or SSDs) put proxmox on it, and tinker with it there. Once you've got that itch to buy more, then now at least you'll know what you need.
My use case is, running some core VMs and LXCs that will run 24/7 along with later down the line some VMs that I'll use for learning Active Directory and performing red and blue team activities on them.
I agree with people on here talking about buying a NUC type box and using that. It's likely to be as powerful or more powerful than the 720, low power usage, basically non existent noise, but you'll be missing out in storage and RAM. The cool part is, let's say you do get a NUC, play with it for a year and then you want to buy more, you can always repurpose the old NUC for some other use. There's also NUCs with dual gigabit/ 2.5 gigabit NICs in them, if you plan ahead for it's repurposing, you could convert it into a very nice router for your network. One WAN and one LAN for your home, then use a switch of some sort to give the rest of your devices connectivity.
But back to what I asked, what do you want to do with the hardware? If you don't have a clue, look at YouTube and search for other people's home lab setups, there's a variety, from purely entertainment like Plex and jellyfin to stream movies across their network, to a security lab for learning AD. Find what you want first, then build what you need for what you want.
I won't be doing anything too crazy with them, just hosting some Valheim, a PLEX server, and a couple VMs for now