If all you’re using it for is a NAS, the all in one solutions are good options.
If you want to put together a media server, you might need a little more. For a low-cost option, I’ve seen accounts of success with mini PCs with USB HDD enclosures, and also recommendations against USB due to reliability.
There’s a lot of factors to consider, but if you don’t have anything now, Synology or QNAP I think are probably fine to start with.
First I’ve heard of those, that’s a lot of power in a tiny form factor. How much space do you have for the media server portion? Really impressive you’ve packed so much functionality into that.
Meanwhile I’m looking at this 6u case to migrate my build to:
The MS-01 has a slots for 3 - m.2drives. I’m only rocking 8TB though.
Tailscale is a mesh VPN, streamlines connecting devices and services securely across different networks.
so if I’m in the US. My server is in Spain, and my wife is on a business trip in Germany, it simplifies everything and acts like all those devices are on the same local network.
I have Nginx on my homeserver and I bought the domain, www.nothing.ltd .
If any app on the mesh hits that URL they’ll hit my server. and then I have subdomains on that URL that are just apps that I self host. for example.
ollama.nothing.ltd
plex.nothing.ltd
etc.
Each web app is a Podman container managed by systemd. the nixified docker file exposes the IP to nginx, etx.
All of this is inside a 1 Lliter machine. if I need to add more storage I’ll consider external drives via USB or something.
That’s really slick, thanks for sharing the details. I’m only familiar with Nix by name, but might have to try it out on my micro Dell. I was planning on testing out Proxmox as well, primarily because it seems so common in this space.
Heh, yeah - you probably have very little need for a chonker like this, but I’ve got 60TB over 11 drives (I’m bit of a data hoarder). My current build is a mITX, so this case would give me some extra room to upgrade as I see fit.
I’ve got a fair amount of experience administrating Linux and BSD systems, including a couple of FreeNAS/TrueNAS systems in the past.
For home use, I’ve always avoided rack mount systems because fan noise seems to be a major issue. But it’s been awhile since I’ve looked into the latest generation of rack mount enclosures, CPUs, and cooling systems.
Is it now possible to build a silent or near silent rack mount NAS at a reasonable price? If so, which manufacturers or models should I be looking at?
I’d be interested to hear from any others with first-hand accounts, as I don’t currently have a rackmount case for my server.
That said, mine is pretty quiet, I rarely notice it at all (my gaming PC is louder), though if I do, it’s when there is high activity on the drives or something pushing the CPU hard. I keep it in my office/hobby room though, so noise isn’t really an issue in here.
I believe a lot of it has to do with the quality of your fans and how effective the cooling is in general. I think a lot of the cheaper rackmount cases come with low-quality fans that people often swap out with Noctua fans.
My gaming PC is louder, tbh. the way the 1 liter case is laid out it pretty quite. the GPU does ramp up when im using LLMs but other than that its fairly quiet, so quiet I actually keep it in my studio.
Also, the smaller (1U) cases are usually optimised for density and cooling (i.e. datacenter use) but you can get some, especially bigger ones that are quieter.
Meshtgastic is a great idea - i wish more people would put up nodes for it - i found the solar powering of a node quiete difficult - and the placement in a city enviroment is also challenging - i thought about drones to place the mesh through the city. You quickly run into issues setting up the towers - might be less of an issue in a more rural enviroment though.
I moved into a new place and set up ethernet runs from each room to terminate under the stairs. I built a stepped rack to fit neatly and it currently houses my Unifi AP/camera setup and my micropc portainer deployment for jellyfin and some HA. I plan to scale up ‘slightly’ to include a 10Gbe NAS loop for my rendering and audio machines.