VMware
Can We Build a Home Server Out of Mini PCs?
Can We Build a Home Server Out of Mini PCs?
#Build #Home #Server #Mini #PCs
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I feel your style and expertise adds allot to this space, mostly what I see are reviews of iterative commodity junk made by hammers and cycles, and what may be familiarity bias covering just one platform.
I've got a HM90 Minisforum node with 1x NVMe, 2x SSD (all 2TB) and 2x 2.5GbE. 2x NVMe would have been ideal but with Proxmox/ZFS on the single NVMe and Ceph on the pair of SSDs, it's been an excellent node (once I got a pair of replacement SSD cables as they're rather fragile). Just missing a decent USB-C to 10GbE connector… let us know when you find one, Tim.
Looking for more JBOD stuff! My super old DiskStation – SATA-II, not -III – is really hitting it's limits, and my NanoPi R6s is doing the best it can but … yeah, 5.10 kernel and the devs are kinda … eh. So I am looking to create a better home network! Also, I am a little worried about shredding my microSD cards in the NanoPi, lol. Best-case scenario, I can build a mini-cluster with two SBCs, one of them linked to such a storage enclosure and acting as the NAS, whilst the other one runs miscelanious services. Would be so much neat-er. ^^
Also, still not sanguine about trusting my critical data storage to a USB connection. SATA is cheap, simple, and has so much more mileage. Granted SATA is not a fit for the mini-pc to external enclosure approach.
RAID5 / RAIDZ1? Noooooo….
If you buy all the drives at the same time and one of them eventually fails, the re-build of the array after replacing the failed drive may result in the failure of ANOTHER drive during the rebuild. RAID rebuilds on 14TB+ drives can take a verrrrrry long time, assuming there are no hiccups. Many storage experts pointed this out more than a decade ago.
Heya Wendell, I spotted that you're using the Elgato 4K60 Pro at 8:13, have you been able to get it working within Linux at all?
Wendell bro you read my mind! I got x4 mini PCs here i picked up ex-office and currently adding them to a PROXMOX cluster 🙂 bundles of fun and disappointment!
I'm waiting for the day when one of these companies realized they can build a solution that allows for 2-3 m.2 SSDs and 2-3 SSDs to provide to people like us to turn into a small NAS that's low power with decent storage. Probably wouldn't be any bigger than the Intel NUC either. Though the only issue with this idea is that SSDs still aren't up to the storage capacity of a mechanical drive yet. This solution would be fantastic if we ever got SSDs to the point where can buy 20 and 22 TB versions for similar prices to what the mechanical drives are now.
I did something like this for years – small form factor PC with all four drives of my storage attached through the same USB 3.2 enclosure. It wasn't ideal, but it definitely worked.
USB-C connectors need a secure latch of some sort so they don't accidentally get unplugged
What about combining the two USB 3.x Type ports to effectively function as a single 10 Gbps port? The Minis Forum SFF computers usually have two USB 3.x ports on the front and as many (or more) on the back.
I hope we will get this comparison on time for Black Friday 🙂
1:33 Yes, I want 5 Drives + 10w compute idle, But make it 30w so I can put it in HA it / cluster it. How can the USB storage be shared so 3 mini pcs can access the storage? Seems like the path might be network 10Gbit based but that get pricey because the storage has to get it's own compute and now we're basically running janky SANs for a darn homelab. Hope to see some progress on the local USB network and using ceph! That path seemed a lot more attractive to me.
My current NAS setup is a mini pc I bought off amazon, an "AWOW AZ51", N5105/8gb/dual-2.5gbe machine. I run Windows 10 LTSC as my "server" os. I have a couple WD Element drives attached via USB 3.0, and Stablebit Drivepool doing all of the mergerfs style heavy lifting. I run most of my network services on other machines, but this one handles all of my file tasks. Backup to Backblaze, runs a VM running Proxmox Backup Server, etc. The only thing on this file server that isn't "file dedicated" is a plex server, only because the N5105 is actually pretty darn good at low power transcoding. The rest of the machines in my homelab are small proxmox nodes. I'm very happy with my entire system
Meh. Cumbersome. Seems a bit pricey.
How you get unraid for 20$? I’m about to have to purchase a license. Would be awesome to save 30$!
Where are the links to the products featured in this video??????????
That Mediasonic PROBOX unit has really poor thermal management. The circuit board blocks the fan in the back. All HDDs are running really hot, even at max fan speed. Also, annoyingly loud.
[Title] Can We Build a Home Server Out of Mini PCs?
Can we build a home server from a PC disposed in the trash?
Any suggestions for a similar low power (maybe even lower horsepower) equivalent that is rack mounted? I'm currently using an HP DL380P Gen8 as my backup server. It works great and I have only one complaint–power usage. I've since resorted to powering it down and running my backups just once a month. But since I can't get WakeOnLAN to work correctly it has been a manual process and I've been doing it far less often than once a month. The server is only going to be running backups for my main server, PCs, and Macbook.
With Arch Linux being a rolling release, it should work great with such device. I use RichARCH btw. With it I was able to get Arch Linux up and running simply and quickly.
Any suggestions for home security cameras and software for locally hosted video storage? I have a TrueNAS box sitting here that I'm looking for more uses for.
VERY interested in a review of various USB-C devices. I have a minisforum computer and am liking it and might like another for NVR use! BTW, there's a container for Wyze named Wyze-Bridge you might like 🙂
Next time on level1techs, Can we build a computer using only computer parts?
I just got a Ryzen mini PC by some no name company (Aoostar) that has 3 NVMe m.2 slots and two full sized 3.5” sata slots for hard drives. I never thought I would use a NAS regularly, but once my wife and kid started using Plex, It’s now a part of my home computing.
One question I have with USB enclosures is how do they handle sleep mode? For example, can the operating system put the drives to sleep when they are not needed and wake them up when they are? Also, I'd love to know which models you don't recommend because unfortuntely the Mediasonic 4 HF7-SU31C that you show here is not available in the UK yet. Which enclosures should I be trying to avoid according to L1T?
Anyone tried running an m.2 ribbon out to an external drive array? Like it wouldn’t be the fastest but it would avoid the issues with independent power states.
Also you gotta wonder why Beelink etc aren’t making a Nas version of their stuff
Where's the links to these different hardware options.
I run only Micro PC for the low power consumtion as well as beause there are small ideal for small apartment
blah blah blah boring fact heavy speil that became background noise as I zoned out.
This is dumb. Just buy an old Dell or HP or Lenovo workstation. Idles at 30W. Drop in 10/25/40gig network card. Drop in nvme boot expansion cards. Install 4 sata or sas drives. Done. Cheaper and more reliable. 8core, 16thread, 128GB ECC ram. But I guess that isn't as sexy as saying I bought some cheap mini pc and used some random cheap drive enclosure with a finicky 10gig usb connection that might lose all my data if the cheap power supply fluctuates.
You should check out Minisforum BD770i an AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX SBC ITX motherboard. I'll say it's a pretty powerful low wattage motherboard for 1U Server if you use M.2 SATA Controller.
This works well. I wish I went with this originally. I have a N5105 NAS board. I think imma make it a TrueNAS server, to exclusively manage my HDDs and SSD clusters. I have 1 NAB6, but I plan to get a 2nd one, this way I have 2 Proxmox servers, and the shared storage in a cluster. Then eventually get a 3rd 1 if I really want for HA. Or just focus kubernetes.
Either way, it's really efficient. I'd likely have a external backup drive to back everything up.
Lost a lot of weight, great work!
Bring the USB type C enclosure reviews!
links?
had a friend use a 3d printer to make a new case to turn his beelink ser6 pro into a nas, used a M.2 NVME SATA 3.0 Cards to add 6 sata port and the os on ssd connector i still dont know how he powered the 6 disk but apparently it runned fine
shame that old 16x PCIe expander of Wendels is not available any more ..
When I retire my i9 10900 / 64gb ddr4 3600 / Intel Arc A380 ( in a Rosewill Thor V2 EATX case) based home server I'll definitely consider the future versions of this. Thanks for the information as always.
What are the good controllers for USB sata and nvme adapters? would love a video diving into that