Advice on a budget, small and silent home Unraid server

Hardware Build a PC
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Hello!

I’m planning to build my first Unraid server. I’ve had a QNAP TS-251+ for about four years, but now is the time to make the switch to something custom that I can have full control over. I’ve bene looking around for about two weeks researching parts and planning my set up. I initially had planned to use an old i5 4670k but I really want to use the Fractal Design Node 304, and finding a mini ITX board with the LGA1150 turned out hard, and quite expensive when I actually could find something. So I think I’m all set on buying new hardware instead.

Budget is around $500-600 without hard drives. Preferably as little as possible.

Use case:
I’m going to use this mainly as a NAS and to run Nextcloud plus a couple of other small web applications with me as the single user. At the moment I’m not using Plex, but there’s a possibility I will want to do that in the future to stream/transcode to my TV. My TV right now is only 1080p, but it’s got a few years on it’s neck and I will probably get a new one in a year or two so if I can stream 4k that would be sweet. I would like the ability to spin up a temporary VM or two. For example, if I find some kind of software I’m interested in I usually make a VM with Ubuntu server on it to try it out. Most likely I won’t ever need a VM with a GUI for the OS. There’s quite a big possibility that I will find more services to host in the future, so a little overhead in terms of power would be preferable.

List of services/applications that I know right now I want to run :

(i’m guessing this will grow as I get used to and explore the capabilities of Unraid)

  • Nextcloud
    My current NC instance is running in a VM on my Qnap. I probably want to continue having NC in a separate VM.
  • Wallabag
  • Snapdrop
  • Maria DB server
  • Organizr
  • Quassel Core

The parts that I’ve come up with thus far

  • Case: Fractal Design Node 304
    I chose this cause of it size and price, while still being seemingly able to move air through it quite nice
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3200G
    I’m unsure whether this CPU is enough for me, but I chose it cause the price and saw it being used in a couple of other builds when researching.
  • M/B: ASRock Fatal1ity B450 Gaming-ITX/ac
    The cheapest mini-ITX board I could find with AM4 socket, 4 sata ports, Intel NIC
  • RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX Black DDR4 3200MHz 2x8GB (CMK16GX4M2B3200C16)
    I think 16GB might be a bit overkill for me but the price difference between 2x4GB and 2x8GB was only about $15
  • PSU: Undecided. I currently have an old “be quiet! KRAFT 600W BQ K-600W” that has been lying around I think I’m gonna start with. Though I’m thinking I might wanna get a new fresh one if I’m gonna run a server 24/7. I’d happily take advice on this and/or any suggestions for a stable, silent and budget friendly PSU.
  • Cache storage: Kingston A2000 M.2 250GB
    Cheapest M.2 drive I could find.
  • Array storage: I currently have 2x2TB WD Red that has been used in a RAID 1 array in my QNAP. One of them has power on hours for 4 years, the other one for 2,5 years. I plan on starting with these and getting one or two new 4TB drives in the coming months. Need advice on the most stable and quiet drives.

Couple of points I thought I’d mention:

  • Please note that I’m from Sweden so any deals probably won’t apply.
  • I’m not sure yet what kind of “add ons”/“plugins” I would like to run
  • It’s unlikely I would need more than 6 drives in the near future (at least 4 years)
  • For any VM use, it’s highly unlikely I would ever need to run an OS with a GUI. But if possible, always nice to have the opportunity.
  • The server will be located in my bedroom, so I need it to be as close to silent as it can get on idle.
  • I won’t be running or storing anything critical for the first month or two. I plan on messing around with Unraid and learning as much as I can. In the mean time I will keep all important data on my desktop computer and on an external drive.

Questions:

  1. Is there any parts you would swap out for something different?
  2. Would a Ryzen 5 3400G make any difference for my use case? I’m uncertain on the “power” of the Ryzen 3 3200G. The price is 150% (~$100 vs ~$150) for the Ryzen 5 in Sweden compared to the Ryzen 3. Would I be good to go with the Ryzen 3 and make the upgrade when the 5xxx APU’s are available (if needed). As far as I understand, they will be compatible with the B450 boards?
  3. Is there anywhere I can shell out a few more bucks to make it quieter?
  4. Is there anywhere I can shave off a few bucks without making it noisier?
  5. I need advice on the most budget friendly 4TB hard drives which are stable and quiet. If there’s 8TB where I can find a sweet spot for most bang for the buck, I’ll consider that.
  6. How important is ECC ram? I went with normal ram for now cause of budget, but the M/B supports it if I want to go ECC in the future.
  7. If I feel the CPU and case fans are too loud, I might consider swapping them out and would gladly take suggestions on what to replace them with

I think I’ve got everything covered, might have missed something, will make a reply to this thread if I come up with anything more.

If you read up to this point, thank you for reading and thank you in advance for any advice!

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I have a similar setup. Node 304, Ryzen 5 2400G, 4x4TB Ironwolf drives. I’m running Fedora Server 32 and not Unraid. I love the case and in general am really happy with the setup.

  1. You may want to consider a different CPU cooler than the one included with the Ryzen 3200G. Start with it and see how loud it is but you may want to go with something else. I’m still using the stock one and think it’s ok but I’m not sleeping next to it.

  2. My Ryzen 5 2400G is very under utilized in my setup so I have tons of headroom. I’m running most of my services as containers in podman. Unless you start running a lot of VMs or trying to do transcoding on the CPU I think you’ll be fine with the 3200 so save the money there. You can easily upgrade the CPU in the future if you need more power if your needs change.

  3. What’s going to create the most noise is gonna be fans. The CPU cooler, case fans, and the PSU. From time to time you’ll hear the heads on the drives move. If you know the PSU you’ve got is quiet then I’d start with that. It is a bit overpowered for what you need and you could surely get away with a 400 or 450 fanless PSU but that’ll cost more.

  4. If you think you’ll want to run more VMs on a regular basis or keep them running constantly you might consider more RAM but otherwise I think the 16GB is plenty.

  5. No idea on budget friendly mechanical drives. Depending on the data you want to store and what your backup strategy is going to be, this is one area you may want to focus less on budget and more on performance, reliability, and warranty. Others may have some good suggestions in this category but I usually buy good drives and find other ways to save.

  6. I do have ECC ram in my comparable system and it’s a nice perk but depending on how much writing you’re doing to this thing it may not matter too much. It’s probably not a place you need to spend the extra money but if you find a good deal go for it. It won’t hurt your setup and it might help when it matters.

  7. I love Fractal Design cases but I hate their case fans. Get a Noctua or some other very quiet fan. There are lots of YouTube videos doing roundups of fans and I know there are some cheaper options than Noctua but I’m not sure there are any that are quieter.

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Hi @zxmth,

Thank you very much for that extensive reply. Sorry for late reply, I thought I would get e-mail notifications on replies to this thread but apparently I didnt.

I went ahead and purchased the parts on the list above, except I opted for The Ryzen 5 3400G instead because the Ryzen 3 3200G were sold out everywhere in Sweden. It’s a bit overkill for what I’m using now, on idle I’m using about 3-4% CPU and 15% RAM but I got some room to grow into.

I built the machine and it’s been running for about 4 days, and yeah the fans are the loudest part. They’re not “loud” by any means imo but as you suggested I’m gonna look to replace the case fans and the CPU cooler.

I was looking at the 4TB Ironwolfs and I’m gonna buy 2 of those I think. From reviews I’ve seen from users on various Swedish retailers, they seem to be reasonably quiet.

Thanks again for your help!

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Have you heard of drive shucking? That’s what people call it when you buy external drives and disassemble them to get the hard drive. Its cheaper then buying internal drives, especially since its easier to find external drives on sale.

I’m sure there are others here that could give you some more up to date information then me but my understanding is that the WD Elements external drives are generally Red’s or Red equivalents. Im also situated in Europe and i’m hoping to get my hands on some on black Friday for around 120e each.

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Hi @maetthew

I’m now at the same stage as you were a while ago i.e. building my unRaid server which is also my first NAS. I was looking for what parts to use, namely the CPU and motherboard when I stumbled at your post. Would you mind sharing your experiences so far? Much obliged.

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You can get a 6 drive ssd bay that works like a server caddy for the cd drive bay.

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Lenovo P330 Tiny w/ a quadro P620. Buy a few external USB drives, plug them in and install distro of choice. Its a 35w cpu so it runs nearly silent. Supports upto 64gb, has a quadro nvidia card for nvanc. Using low cost external USB drives keeps things quiet and compact.

Should be around $500-600 without drives.

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