Hi there,
What SFF machines do you recommend for a server to basically run opnsense (with a 4 port expansion NIC) and a bunch of extra disks to serve as a NAS? I was looking through Thinkcentre m720, m800 et al. I believe these allow for up to 3 disks
I know usually you’d run opnsense on a dedicated machine, but I’m a bit constrained on space so am trying to fit all in one. I don’t want to stream Linux ISOs on this NAS just to store my own files.
I don’t know enough about them but how much vendor lock-in is there usually? Could I use a distribution of my choosing, or even add an extra NIC?
If you’re talking about the Synology and Qnap branded systems, there isn’t any vendor lock-in in the traditional sense, since at its core it’s just a low-power disk host. They have their own OS setups and such, but are all Linux based. You could also just build a low-power box with a bunch of disks and install something like TrueNAS or Unraid if you are so inclined.