Seeking hardware recommendations

[DJNativus]

I was torn between getting a dedicated server and installing Plesk on it or getting a dedicated server and turning it into an ESXi as I want to run several potentially conflicting applications such as NextCloud, rTorrent, Plesk, and maybe CentovaCast (I have many interests). Currently I have a Vultr VPS for Plesk sites and a Kimsufi.com server for rTorrent and CentovaCast.

(I should also note while I've been experienced with websites for many years, server administration is something I'm still a novice at so having one large dedicated server that isn't segmented means I could likely screw things up easily and have to wipe and start over. Obviously VMs would make this easier especially with features like Snapshots).

The part I'm most confused is what dedicated server to go with. I want Proxmox to run approximately four or five VMs so not a whole lot. I'm looking at either SoYouStart.com or ovh.com and both have installation templates for Proxmox VE (yay!) which will make my life a bit easier.

Here are three servers in my budget and curious what you all think would be the best way to go:
E5-SAT-1-64 (SoYouStart)
Intel Xeon E5-1630v3
4c / 8t
3.7GHz
64GB DDR4 ECC 2133 MHz
SoftRAID 4x2TB SATA
250 mbps guaranteed public
$71.99/mo

E3-SAT-1-32 (SoYouStart)
Intel Xeon E3-1245v2
4c / 8t
3.4GHz
32GB DDR3 1333 MHz
SoftRAID 3x2TB SATA
250 mbps guaranteed public
$47.99/mo

Rise-LE-1 (OVH)
Intel Xeon D-1521
4c/ 8t
2.4GHz/ 2.7GHz
32GB DDR4 ECC 2133MHz
2x4TB HDD SATA Soft RAID
500Mbps unmetered traffic public
$58.12/mo

I do live in the US but want a server out of the country due to US privacy laws (or lack of them).

I was about to jump on Rise-LE-1 without a second thought but the CPU scares me... it's crap isn't it?

 

[Tapio Lehtonen]

turning it into an ESXi

ESXi is WMWare, Proxmox is a different product.

You do not write what kind of load you expect to run on those virtual machines. On my Proxmox installations, CPU has not been a problem. If there is enough memory they run plenty fast. Disk system used to be a bottleneck, five VM running on a SATA disk can get to IO bottleneck. I changed to a host with a pair of SSD disks and a pair of large rotating disks, and put ZFS there.
If I chose from those three alternative dedicated hosts, I would choose E5-SAT-1-64, because of the 64 GB memory. Then I would install Proxmox with ZFS and let ZFS use 32 GB as cache memory, divide 30 GB among the virtual hosts and leave 2 GB for Proxmox. This is to hopefully get disk system not be a bottleneck with 5 hosts running a the same time.

 

[LnxBil]

I'm running a lot of services (LXC) on an old 10+ year old Laptop with dual disk ZFS mirroring and 4 GB-RAM and it serves me well. All' the dedicated servers you described are very beefy machines with respect to the services you desire to run.
The main concern about any hosted solution is the claimed bandwidth - I always experience bandwidth limitations in some sort.

 

[DJNativus]

So maybe this setup would be best?
E5-SSD-1-64
Intel Xeon E5-1630v3
4c / 8t
3.7GHz
64GB DDR4 ECC 2133 MHz
SoftRAID 2x480 GB SSD
$71.99
(Is there a way to use storage on a different machine? I'm worried 1 TB wouldn't be enough. On my old server I'm already using 1.6 TB)

I was really looking forward to staying around $50ish/mo. Here is where I'm looking:
https://www.ovh.com/world/dedicated-servers/rise/prices/
https://www.soyoustart.com/us/essential-servers/

But yeah VMs on regular SATA disks may not give the performance I want.

 

[LnxBil]

I'm worried 1 TB wouldn't be enough.

So, you're using RAID0? I have to say, I never used RAID0 in my life.

Is there a way to use storage on a different machine?

I don't know about those server setups, but here in good old Germany, we have Hetzner and they provide an upgrade setup, in which you can add whatever hardware you like to their servers as long as they can offer them. In this setup, you can e.g. add a RAID-Controller, add more Disks, RAM, Network cards etc. Maybe look for such additional extras in your potential servers.