I got a r310 and I don’t power it on often much. I use it for personal databases but I plan to do something else with it.

I use a 250GB Samsung SDD and an external 1TB WD drive.

Honestly, it’s too old at this point. I recommend saving money for a better server that is more power efficient and has better performance.

Never heard of it but I’m using Debian/Ubuntu for some machines I have atm.

Haven’t seen much IBM servers used. And nice setup too.