Looking to build/buy a headless Linux PC to #selfhost a few things including #pihole, #Nextcloud, media server, etc. Nothing that needs amazing compute power. Ideally small form factor like a NUC. This is replacing a Raspberry Pi 4 which I feel is underpowered and cumbersome with the 2.5" external drives separate or externally powered 3.5 inch drives. Ideally I’d be able to use the cheaper 3.5" drives on this setup without needing external power that requires.
I looked on local resale options and can’t seem to find anything available.
Thanks
Whatever you are buying: If you have some device in mind, check the idle power consumption. Your server is running 24/7/365. If you buy something with a high consumption, that will be hard on your power bill.
10W = 87,6 kWh a year @ 0,25 Cents = 21,90 per year 50W = 438 kWh a year @ 0,25 Cents = 109,50 per year
That really does matter
My spinning rust is expensive. Man.
I have 40 containers running on a 12 years old NUC with 8 GB of DDR3. Most NUCs should be more than enough. I did really enjoy switching to a fanless case, though! 2.5" drives only, sorry.
I like the Deskmate series from AsRock. I have X300 model, which is AMD AM4 with DDR4, pretty cute an useful device. They have a couple of options for form factor and CPU vendor if you prefer Intel.
Consider a new-ish ex-lease SFF business PC. You’ll be spending a tiny fraction of the cost of a new machine (or of it’s RAM). You’ll also get PCIe slots.
It’s what I did for my OpnSense fire wall router.
Most PC’s will idle at (relatively) very low power.
Are there any recommended sites that these are sold on?
That’s likely very specific to the country you’re in.
This is what I’d do, but youre going to be limited to 2.5" + m.2 in the ultra small form factors (USFF, more NUC sized), while the SFF size you can get one (sometimes two) 3.5". So make sure to check the form factor of the machine!
Tons more computing power in either case, and the most reasonable price point IMO.
If you’ve got an old laptop lying around that might work for free, or get a cheap old ThinkPad (you can squash 3 drives into a T440p for example).
If you’ve got some old PC stuff lying around and maybe a case, an AM4 5600G or Intel 12000 or so system can be pretty cheap to fill out the missing bits, boom, NAS (just doing this myself, only needed a mobo, sweet, check the bios supports undervolting for power savings). Get some extra PCIe slots for a HBA card as you grow, maybe an old video card for transcode. Even 8G RAM should get you going.
ETA: It Lives! Gonna call it Athena (I have a greek god naming convention, and Athena of wisdom makes sense for the storage of data).Otherwise, second the second hand SFF.
Work out if you need transcode for the media server, that will limit your options to specific later CPUs.
I’ll be honest, with the prices of RAM and storage nowadays, it’s not an ideal moment to start self-hosting. Given that you already have 3.5’’ drives, I suggest going for a NAS form if you can afford it. Also, a multiple app server with Nextcloud won’t work well unless the system has 8 GB RAM at the minimum, preferably 16. Try getting a more modern processor, as those come with support to encode more recent video formats and you mentioned having a media server.
Even with the inflated prices, buying storage is much cheaper than renting it from cloud services.
The target lifetimes for a NAS hard drive is 5 years. A 16TB NAS drive will cost less over that 5 years than Apple’s 2TB cloud storage plan. And that’s assuming Apple won’t raise over those 5 years (they will).
For instance, a server will probably work just right with an Intel N150 processor - decent power, low consumption, and support to encode up to VP9/HEVC (no AV1 though)
odroid or minisforum. Good luck though, prices are horrid right now thanks to unhinged AI tech bros.
Better to take up a new hobby like woodworking
Check out minisforum.
Check out beelink
I have a good experience with Aoostar mini PCs, you can get them barebone by $300 with pretty powerfull CPU and GPU for the price.
