Hello good folks of L1T! Long time, first time and all that.
Perhaps brace for wall of text. Grab a coffe and enjoy. Any productive input is welcome.
I recently procured a HP Proliant N54L Microserver at a steal. And it came with a raid card and 4x2tb drives. (so no ZFS right now, raid card has no IT mode).
Threw Ubuntu server 20.10 and Ansible-NAS on it, running some services, portainer, heimdall, calibre-web, nextcloud so far, planning a lot more. And everything is just fine. Little slow, a few temp-warnings.
Im not planning to run FreeNAS. I know ZFS is better supported on BSD than on linux due to licensing issues, but docker and some other stuff has even worse support on BSD.
The N54L is about 7 years old and i cant say i trust it for everything i want to run on a home server. So i am already planning a new build. I considered the latest version of HPs Microservers, but me being an open source enthusiast and a 20 year linux veteran i feel like i can build something better that would suit my needs more.
So i have spent 2 days looking at hardware. You know how it is, stiff neck, realizing you’ve been sitting totally still for hours just staring at the screen, soar scrolling-finger…
More info on the hardware choices further down.
I found a case i like, well 2 candidates, they are both Mini-ITX. One only has 40 something mm clearence for a cooler, the other 60 something. Hence a big split in compatability. The cramped case i can only go max 60w TDP, pref. a little less. The other i can go 72W or so with a beefier cooler.
So it comes down to a few choices, and id like your input here. Do i try and find (and trust me i’ve been looking) an embedded board from Asrock Rack or Supermicro, or do i go for a either server or regular board with XeonE/Bronze or i3 with ECC support? What offerings from AMD would be suitable for a stable server build? EPYC is to expensive and perhaps overkill. Are their desktop offerings something to consider here?
As for the board, i would need at least 2x1gb ethernet. I can get 10gbit internet at home so 2x10gbit would be a good future proofing investment, but my budget is not massive. Wlan would be a plus, i could make it a AP and ditch my AP, maybe even ditch the router all together and make the server my router, tough i haven’t planned too deeply into that yet.
I would prefer ECC. I know ZFS does not require it and for home use and where the bulk of the files stored would be unencrypted video files a flipped bit would not matter much if at all. Input?
As long as the board has 6 sata ports and 1 m2 i would have one expansion slot left open, and i could put a 1-2 port 1-10gbit networking card in there.
Should i consider a main stream board over a server specific board? Id feel kind of dirty doing that… Shouldn’t be a stability issue there tough right?
That’s about the extent of my questions for you.
Here is what i plan to use the build for:
A small 4 hdd NAS, 2 SSD for caching, 1 Nvme for system.
I will be running nextcloud for me and my family. A backup solution, either Borg or Duplicati, Calibre-web, gonna try out homeassistant.io, something like plex, transmission, pyload and a few more. Glances for monitoring, Heimdall for web-front-end. Nothing very heavy, tough id like my build to be somewhat future proof, and able to handle some transcoding perhaps. And id like it to last for many many years.
Any more services you like running on your home server?
Here is a short list of hardware ideas:
Inter-tech sc-4100 - Nice mini case, would have to go with a <65W TDP CPU. Some Xeons, an i3 perhaps. AMD embedded?
Supermicro SC721TQ-250B2 - comes with a 250w PSU. Id prefer another PSU tough. Little more space, can go ~72W TDP max. So most Xeons.
Almost any lower cost Super micro X11-board would work. The Asrock rack ones iv’e looked at that fit seem too expensive.
Asrock Z390M-ITXac - mainstream and non ecc mode tough. Xeon compatable?
Asus P11C-I - This one looks nice. Does the SAS controller have IT mode, can i get the raw block devices and not run raid?
A notuca low profile cooler that will fit. Noctual fans all around in fact.
Silverstone FX350-G - Gold rated flexatx PSU, 350W is overkill but should hit a good high efficiency spot. Trusted brand. Pretty cheap.
Any compatible ECC memory (again, ECC needed/recommended?) at board/cpu spec.
I hope this wasn’t too much for you to take in. Id appreciate any feedback and if you can answer any questions id be very happy. Thank you!