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Comment by vhodges | Hacker News Reader

I bought one of these https://buy.hpe.com/us/en/servers/tower-servers/hpe-proliant... (on sale from Newegg) w/180w external brick, 4core xeon, 16 Gigs of RAM, 1xSSD (Boot) and 3xHDD (SnapRaid) as a NAS/OwnCloud box (and probably more in the future), threw NixOs on it (my first experience with NixOS) and am reasonably happy with the result.

It's compact and quite quiet. One word of warning. It doesn't like to finish posting every time. I suspect the PS might not like all the startup current that all 3 HDD spinning up at the same time brings.

There are some entry level Dells I was looking at as well (that also frequently go on sale) but this one won out.

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I actually went a very similar route, but with a Thinkserver device. It's been some number of years, but it looks like they still have something similar on offer: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/servers-storage/servers/tower...

These aren't low power in the same way an ARM-based edge-of-network device might be, but it's been great for what I need: some minimal local services, lots of storage, and fair cpu performance for things like transcoding media.

I am curious if HPE is good for a TrueNAS server? And how does it compare with ixsystem mini ZFS NAS boxes?

For a storage NAS, it sounds more powerful than needed. For running hypervisor, VMs and applications, it seems less powerful than needed.

Hey... sorry I need a better way to track these discussions.

So... I looked at the TruNAS mini before and just configured the base model:

TruNAS Celeron & 8GB RAM (with 1x1TB SSD and 3x2TB HD) vs. HPE Xeon & 16GB RAM (with 1x500GB SSD and 3x1TB HD). So accounting for the smaller drives the TruNAS comes in around 1300USD (>1600CAD) vs the 1120 CAD I spent on the HPE (but I got it on sale).

Note the HPE drive bays are NOT hotswap though they are quick change.

As for VMs, it entirely depends on the workloads you need to run of course. It's lots for mine :) but I can see getting a second one at some point if I needed to.

Thanks much for the reply!

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