Comment by sandreas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sandreas | Hacker News Reader

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Building your own NAS Server by hand may be a nice project, but if you would like to get something up and running quickly, you should consider prebuild servers like Dell T* series or HP Microserver. It is real server hardware, supporting ECC RAM and by far less work to build, often providing (semi-)professional remote management.

If you plan to build a budget NAS and enough room is not a problem, I personally would recommend to get an old and used Dell T20 Xeon E3-1225v3 with min. 16GB ECC DDR3 RAM, 2x10TB Seagate Exos ZFS RAID and a bootable USB Stick with TrueNAS or if you prefer Linux, TrueNAS Scale / OpenMediaVault.

If room IS a problem, you could get a HP Microserver Gen8 or higher with a Xeon the config above.

- Server Cost: 150 Bucks

- Total Cost: 650 Bucks (150 for server, 500 for HDD)

- Power Consumption: 33W Idle, 60W Heavy File Transfer

- Silent enough without modding the fans

- Ethernet-Transfer-Speed: 110MB/s on 30% System Load

I do not own a 10Gbit ethernet card, but I'm pretty sure, transfer speeds with 10Gbit would be acceptable, too.

May I use your help?

Background about my situation: I've only ever used laptops and Raspberry Pis in my life. Currently, my home server is a couple of RPis but I've outgrown them and need to upgrade.

Point being, I've never built a server from scratch or even opened one up. I am planning to go with this for now: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/bzYZcb

What you are suggesting seems a better way for me to go about it. Can you share some links from Ebay or Amazon for the kind of servers I could get? Also, will these servers contain everything I need to get up and running (with the exception of hard drives, of course)?

(I am based in the US.)

Well, the question is, what are your real needs and what part of you is asking for MORE POWER? :-)

I personally think, that the Dell T20 is more than enough for a ONLY NAS Server and even for a small homelab.

You could go for something similar to this (ebay) but I had MUCH more success in looking at "garage sale" websites (I don't know, what sites to use in the US):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175291934211?hash=item28d036a603:g:...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284831417242?hash=item425146839a:g:...

Dell T20 - but I would not invest more than 150$ incl. >= 16GB ECC RAM.

HP Microserver Gen8 is more expensive, but not more than 350$ incl. >= 16GB ECC RAM.

You could also consider FUJITSU PRIMERGY TX1310 M3 and better. More modern Machines include the DELL T40, but it is much more expensive.

> Well, the question is, what are your real needs and what part of you is asking for MORE POWER? :-)

Ha, should have mentioned that before! I want to run a few services at home, so need more than 2 GB RAM. I'll also create a NAS/Nextcloud to store "family" data (documents, pictures etc.) but nothing "data hoarder" level. So, 4 TB would easily last us a decade or more.

Do you still think I should go for such enterprise servers? (Noise, complexity etc.) Or should I just get a used desktop/laptop?

what would you recommend for power efficient hdds (when idle)?

I have recently built a truenas box with 2x4TB ssd's. But I think I will want to expand it. Currently it runs at 14W idle. If I add 2hdd I expect it to increase to 40W(?). How can I optimize this?

To answer your question: You could buy WD Red, to save a little noise and power.

BUT: You should always consider, that optimizing Power Consumption would mean to buy new hardware. I hardly ever do this. Buying new hardware in many cases is vastly more expensive than keeping your old hw, even if it consumes more power.

I'll try to give you an example:

- My Dell T20 consumes 33W Idle

- There is HW out there, that consumes 14W - diff (19W)

- Let's say my Dell costs 150$ vs 600$ (for new hardware) - diff: 450$

- How long can I run my Dell T20 for 450$, without investing in new hardware

Calculation:

- Dell additional power per year: 0,019kW * 24h * 365 = 166kWh

- Estimated cost per year (in germany): 166kWh * 0,30$ = 49,80$

- Means I can run it about 9 years to the break even point

Advice: Buy a newer cheap used server consuming 12W in 5 years, and you save a ton of money. AND buying used hardware is better for the environment...

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