Dell PowerEdge T30 Mini Tower Server: Xeon E3-1225, 8GB RAM, 1TB Expired

Not at all...

They do double duty running services for the home/family, and as a lab for myself to tinker in.

I run a virtualized firewall with separate network segments for internal users, guests, IoT junk, and security cameras. It also provides remote access via OpenVPN. The dedicated kids network has a Squid proxy server so we can keep tabs on their activities and proactively limit access to inappropriate content. UniFi controller software runs as a small vm to manage our wireless access points in place of a dedicated Cloud Key.

Then there's a couple of NAS systems; one acts as the NVR for the security cameras, another is the shared family one with photos and to back up laptops, while a third stores my work-related stuff.

Log collection for both internal and external stuff I manage remotely lives on a small Linux vm, and there's a tftp server for doing installs over the internal network. There's a pair of virtual desktops set up so that I have a Linux and Windows workstation always accessible with the tools I need, whether from a tablet with limited capabilities or on the road over the VPN.

The rest are just various vms that come and go as needed. It's great for trying out new versions of an appliance or OS, etc. without needing to procure dedicated hardware.

Hope that helps!

I don't disagree with this statement, particularly as your i7 is currently configured. Please forgive the long post but I wanted to point out a few things for your consideration and so others can evaluate their options as well.

In the "pro" column for your current machine: a higher turbo speed, hyper-threading, double the installed memory, and a solid state drive. In addition, you already have it so the cost is zero.

Having said that, the T30 does offer ECC memory which the i7 you're running does not. You'd have to decide if that's something that matters to you if you're using it for anything important. ECC support is not generally going to matter for most people doing stuff at home but if the data in your database is important, it's worth noting the difference at least. Many will argue that they've never run ECC and never seen the need for it, but it exists for a reason. The Xeon in the T30 also supports twice the maximum amount of memory (though it'd cost a fortune at today's memory prices to max it out).

In the same "how important is what you're running" category, the T30 will come with a basic warranty, including next business day parts replacement. If you're running a mail server and other services that you (and perhaps others) depend on, that may or may not hold value for you. Obviously, the i7-3770 is long out of warranty, but you might have an abundant supply of spare parts on hand making the NBD parts replacement moot.

Next, the T30 with the Xeon cpu can easily be managed without physically being near the machine. AMT isn't quite the same as iDRAC, iLO, or IPMI, but it's pretty handy if you need to access the console remotely. Useful if the system will reside in the garage or a family member's basement. Again, you'd have to decide if this is something that held any value for you.

If your i7-3770 is just a spare box on hand that you're dedicating to lab/development work, then it's certainly more than adequate as is and already has some benefits compared to the T30 as shipped. You should easily be able to run your database, mail server, and a few vms on it without issue. (I'm assuming of course that the database isn't overly large and you aren't planning on having a large number of users accessing it simultaneously.)

If your i7-3770 is your main day-to-day workstation that you're also hoping to run services on, then you should also consider whether having a dedicated machine would be worthwhile. Servers and workstations generally have different uptime requirements; it's not ideal to have your mail server or database server go offline because a windows update went awry for example. Again, if you're the only user for the services in question, this too may be a non-issue.

Just some stuff to consider!

Can you come be my home sys admin?