theorangeninjaJun 11, 2024

Help for getting started with hardware

https://lemmy.today/post/11910872

Help for getting started with hardware - Lemmy Today

I dived into the selfhosting rabbit hole once again and again I am stuck at the hardware part. I’d like to start small-ish to make it realisable. I thought about a NAS (Openmediavault probably). First I wanted to do it on a Raspberry Pi with an external hard-drive but then I read USB connected drives are unreliable and so on. Mini PCs are too small to house internal drives so should I go with a (refurbished) business PC from ebay and add some drives to it?But they usually come with Windows 10, which I wouldn’t need but makes them more expensive. I also have at least one old PC case laying around but no mainboard or CPU for it, if that info might be important. Thank you in advance for helping a noob out!

Show threadgravitas_deficiencyJun 11, 2024

Some foundational questions:

  • budget?
  • rough desired capacity?
  • desired level of resiliency?
Show threadtheorangeninjaJun 11, 2024

Alright, I would like a NAS and (separated) a server with some small services (pi-hole or adguard, syncthing, jellyfin (getting the data from the NAS), and so on). I thought about running the small services with docker on a RPi 4 and the NAS on a refurbished business PC with SATA drives in the case (I checked ebay and there are mainboards with 4 SATA III connectors and PCI so I could even add more SATA connectors). In a second moment a backup server (maybe with borg) would be a good idea but I could also do manual backups with an external USB HDD for the time being. And I have a tight budget.

This describes what I’d like to do. Budget is low and I don’t have a lot of hardware laying around. For the capacity I don’t know yet but for sure 6tb to start with. I’d like to try RAID (heard a lot, never tried it yet) and another backup (maybe something for the future).

Show threadgravitas_deficiencyJun 11, 2024

I would recommend:

  • go on eBay and find some sort of cheap Lenovo/dell/hp thin client for your secondary node. You can find workable 1L-class boxes for around $100. You can get away with some of the older m700/710/900/910 tiny models, but the extensibility of the m720/920 tiny models is going to be much better.
  • for your primary, I think you’d probably be best off finding an old server tower with 8 3.5” bays - if you’re lucky and on-the-ball, you may be able to snipe something like this, but shipping is of course going to be a bitch. An alternative is to pick up another one of those thin clients (making sure it’s a model with USB3, but preferably 3.1 or 3.2 whatever the gen is (side note: fuck anyone involved with the USB versioning scheme, because it’s absolutely indecipherable) that can actually support meaningful data transfer, and then just find a cheap DAS and connect it to that node.
Dell PowerEdge T610 Dual Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz 96GB DDR3 PERC 6/i No HDDs No OS | eBay

RAM Total: 96GB. PowerEdge T610. No Drives Included. No Caddies/Fillers included. No exceptions. Video Card We have a limited knowledge of their prior use. Server has been tested and is in good condition.

eBay
Show threadtheorangeninja
Hello, sorry to bother again but I have a question. Do you think adding a M.2 card with six SATA3 connectors to a Lenovo ThinkCentre M910q would work? I found a M910q for 50 bucks, quite cheap I’d say and the expansion card is around 30 bucks.
Jul 3, 2024 at 7:57amWeb
Show threadgravitas_deficiencyJul 3, 2024

No, for 2 reasons:

  • You will have better luck with a full-fledged PCIE HBA from ebay
  • that won’t fit with how the chassis is designed (at least on the “tiny” model - I’ve no experience with the larger SFF model). It’s on the underside too, so just leaving part of the cover off is not an option.
Show threadtheorangeninjaJul 3, 2024
Thank you very much, you saved me money and hassle!
Show threadgravitas_deficiencyJul 3, 2024
No worries. Cheers, and good luck finding a system to suit your needs!