Thinking of getting the Zimablade 7700 NAS kit for setting up a small footprint home server and was looking for anyone’s thoughts on the subject or opinions for alternatives. I do like how it is small and seems to have a low power consumption as I would like to try to keep my fixed costs down (light bill). I do not mind spending a few hundred bucks for a setup but most of the stuff I see on the market is too large for me to put anywhere feasible. I did also think about mini PCs and Wendell’s video put the thought to my head to look into a solution more actively.
Use case: (preface) I currently do not have a NAS or any type of server set up at home. I really do not use a lot of tech that would require something more powerful I believe. In terms of devices I only use my PC for gaming and light media consumption, mainly YT, Twitch and very occasionally I might watch something hosted on a friend’s Plex server but most of the stuff I would watch is downloaded on my phone for consumption while traveling. I think a two disk NAS so I can run raid1 would be more than enough.
I currently have a separate HDD in my tower and an external usb HDD that I plug in to back up not even 1TB of things I would like to keep i.e. photos and documents (copies of lease agreements, insurance policies etc). I do admit I am a bit lazy with backing up to my external HDD since I have to plug in but most of the things I want to keep are also backed up in some way to a cloud service either through gmail or iCloud.
When I do leave my home, I plug in a wifi camera (eufy) to a powerbank that has passthrough charging and I will disconnect it upon return. I haven’t had a need to save any security videos but I can download if needed through the app to my phone.
No real need to serve files to devices other than my phone, PC and maybe my girlfriend’s phone. No plans to add any other PC to my network.
I currently have limited space where I live so I was thinking of something small that I can mount under my desk or mount inside a small closet under a staircase. I do not have any useable horizontal space in there so for the closet I would most likely use plywood to mount in the wall space under the stairs.
Future use: I don’t think my need for a lot of storage will change anytime soon. I will get more photos, videos and documents just by living life but overall, nothing that should take up lots of data IMO. I would like to eventually set up a security camera over POE to watch my entrance full time but that isn’t something I will do in the near future. No current plans for home automation as the only IoT device at home is the wifi cam when plugged in but there is a big maybe on upgrading the thermostat to something smart. I don’t think I will have the need in the future to run any other services on a server but a nice to have would be VPN, home assistant (if I do start adding devices to my network) and Bitwarden.
I have access to a makerspace so mounting solutions could be designed and prototyped without much issue and should be a fun project.
Zima blades are a bit expensive imo for what they are. SFF computers are plentiful on eBay and are a small form factor x86. For your needs here I would go that route rather than the Zima imo.
I can see where you are coming from but unless it is a micro SFF I think being able to mount it horizontally under my desk or flat against a wall might be a challenge with space. I currently have access to old dell SFF PCs at my job (i5 6700t I believe, maybe 6600) so it could be a free option for me. I also did see some ready to use mounting options that can go horizontal on amazon which is a nice convince factor.
If I do go SFF, it should be able to contain 3 drives (one for OS, services etc) then the other two for raid1. unfortunately, the free ones at my job appear to only have two sata ports and space for only one drive. I could use the PCI slot for more SATA but would need to mount the drives externally taking up more space. I think my most limiting factor is the physical space I have available unless I can come up with a more creative solution. Some research online shows HP elitedesks have capability for three drives internally though.
I might just grab a SFF from work to see how it would fit under my desk or wall since I’ve never done that but when I did entertain the idea before, just imagining its size and what I have available didn’t seem to work. might be different if I can just physically move it around, testing out options.
If I were to list out my top three priorities of needs and wants for a server, then it would be small footprint, power consumption and noise (if under my desk)
Yeah, you could invest in a Zimaboard and 2xSATA drives. The cost of this would be around $200, materials and all. This does come with quite a few downsides though:
Only a 2 bay NAS → low capacity
Low speed and throughput
Only 1 GbE
45W power is probably not enough for 2 disks so need an extra power supply
No hot swap or easy swapping of drives
Solution is pretty jank in general
If we assume this is acceptable, let’s talk costs. The Zimablade is $144 for the NAS kit. Then, I will assume 2x4TB HDDs. Those go for roughly $70 a piece, so let us assume a total budget of about ~$300 for the actual hardware, plus whatever you use to mount it. We can probably go cheaper if we try but better to leave some headroom for extra cables.
Are there better alternatives available? Maybe. A 2-bay Synology or QNAP would set you back ~$400 (drives included!) but save you a ton of time, effort, and money and eliminate quite a few of the tradeoffs. You would need to make some room for it though, but could be worth it.
And of course, there is no cheaper nor more power efficient 6 bay NAS at the moment than the Asustor Flashstor 6 bay for $449, which is about the size of a Playstation 2 and allows for up to 6 SSDs. The biggest disadvantage is that m.2 storage is like double or triple the price of HDDs at the moment, but within three years this will change. A 2TB drive costs $80 at the moment, so we’re looking at a total price budget of ~$625 or so with that setup.
The Flashstor would be an investment for the future, and you would not need to think about upgrades for several years, but it is a large payment up front and you would need to build or set up a small shelf here. Up to you to decide what is best
I think I will go for the Asustor Flashstor 6. I might wait till black friday or treat myself to an early christmas gift. It is small enough to maybe mount under my desk but if not it should fit in mounted to the wall in my storage room easily. I totally forgot about this option and should fit my needs perfectly. Thanks for the recommendation!
DIY I’d suggest the AsRock N100DC. Prebuilt the Asustor Flashstor 6 is as good as it gets.
I would’ve bought one but I didn’t want to have to deal with NVMEs I cannot plug into a system all at once to recover the array or getting locked into the Asustor system. I don’t know if these considerations may apply to you aswell. Though I didn’t buy the DC version but the mATX one.
