Sander

A friend of mine want to move away from Big Tech and migrate to self-hosted TrueNAS. We were thinking of a setup like this:

- 2x 128 GB SSD (in RAID1) for TrueNAS system
- 2x 1 or 2 TB SSD (in RAID1) for data
- 16 or 32 GB RAM in order to run some apps

Ideally this all should run on a (low energy) mini-PC. I have been trying to find one that fits 4 SSD (normal and/or M.2)., but was not able to find one.

Do such mini-PCs even exist or do we need to start looking a small-factor desktop-PCs instead?

We are very much looking for recommendations. Thx!

(Backups will be done on an old QNAP I have laying around, so that topic is also covered).

#TrueNAS #Selfhosting #Homelab

May 10 at 6:21pmWeb
Show threadgary4d ago
@spiezmaestro used hp kit, get something like 9th gen parts, I'd try tp get something with full mb, more slots but still sff hp 800 g4 or g5. when ram gets cheap again with 9th gen you have 128gb upgrade path for ram, you should over provision ram 32gb min. with mini pc you may use slightly less power but no upgrade path - refurb office pc are value king as far as price/perf goes
Show threadℒӱḏɩę 💾☮∞🎶♲☀🔋4d ago
@spiezmaestro maybe something like this? https://a.co/d/0bniDGYG
Amazon.com: AOOSTAR WTR PRO AMD Ryzen 7 5825u 4 Bay NAS Mini PC, NO RAM NO SSD, 4K HDMI, 2 * M.2 NVMe Slots, 2.5/3.5 SATAx 4 Storage (Up to 4 * 22TB) : Electronics

Amazon.com: AOOSTAR WTR PRO AMD Ryzen 7 5825u 4 Bay NAS Mini PC, NO RAM NO SSD, 4K HDMI, 2 * M.2 NVMe Slots, 2.5/3.5 SATAx 4 Storage (Up to 4 * 22TB) : Electronics

Show threadSander4d ago
@Lydie oh, that looks rather cool. did not know about such a concept. will dig into this one to see the total costs and see if this is an option for him. Bu thanks!! 🙏
Show threadShiv J.M.4d ago
@spiezmaestro Is 2/4 TB (effective) enough? With ZFS you should ideally stay under 90% usage, and with snapshots you need to overprovision it anyway.
Show threadSander4d ago
@shivjm he is currently analyzing his current needs with a sizable buffer. Currently it looks like even 1 TB (effective) data space would be sufficient with the years to come, but I will recommend him to go to at least 2 TB nevertheless.
Show threadShiv J.M.4d ago
@spiezmaestro Ah, sounds good then!
Show threadFishd4d ago

@spiezmaestro I had an old motherboard and RAM spare so I grabbed a second hand i5-7400T processor and 3D printed a case... I have a single 256gb boot volume (only 1NVME slot on this board) but then two 1TB and two 2TB SATA SSDs set up as mirrored pairs, one for docs, the other for general storage. Later I'm hoping to add either two 4TB SATA SSDs or maybe two 8TB SATA HDDs as a media library.

Currently with the five SSDs it draws around 8W at idle, so not too bad.

If you're looking for a second hand motherboard I'd look for something like the Gigabyte H270N if you can find one. Two NICs and six onboard SATA ports on a Mini ITX board is pretty decent and the CPUs for this generation are performant but cheap. Uses slower DDR4 as well, so should be less in demand.

Show threadTeapot Ben4d ago

@spiezmaestro how about the Beelink ME Mini? https://www.bee-link.com/products/beelink-me-mini-n150

Intel N150, up to 16GB (soldered), and 6 NVMe slots. Mine is happily running FreeBSD silently in the corner.

Beelink ME mini 6-slot Home Storage NAS Mini PC

Show threadSander3d ago
@teapot_ben thx! will check that one out. Soldered RAM is however most of the time not my favorite.
Show threadTeapot Ben3d ago
@spiezmaestro yes it's not ideal, but it was a compromise I had to accept to get such a compact solution that was pretty much ideal for me in every other respect. Hope you find something that works for you.
Show threadSander2d ago
@teapot_ben that is true and we still might go for that. It all depends on what his current and possible future requirements are (also with budget in mind). He is currently still a bit clueless in this area, so I'm trying to get a realistic perspective of his setup. 🙂