I’m pretty new to self-hosting, and the NAS I’m using right now has been a pain since the moment I bought it. The Synology DS220+ just doesn’t have enough CPU power for my needs, and I’ve recently used up all the disk space I installed, so I’m looking for a new server.
Unfortunately, all the options I’ve found online prioritize storage space over CPU, and I haven’t had much luck finding anything that fits my needs.
Requirements: CPU: Intel Core i3 or higher, but preferably Core i5 GPU: Not needed RAM: max 64 GB, min 16 GB Storage: max 32 TB, min 10 TB Network: 10 GB SPF+ Price: max 6K CAD, preferred 3K CAD
I’m hoping to run TrueNAS Scale with Plex and Nextcloud installed, and my media library isn’t likely to get larger than 5 TB, so CPU is really the main limiter of my current NAS.
As an example of something almost perfect: The TrueNAS mini X+ and R varieties would work excellently, but don’t meet the CPU requirement. I wanted to look at the other systems on offer from TrueNAS, but they don’t list out CPU specs for anything more advanced than the Mini line.
Of the Lenovo stuff, since it was one of the few websites with a filterable picker, the ThinkSystem SR630 V2 was the closest of fitting my requirements. It comes short on the CPU, though, and is verging on the price limit too. I also don’t need 12 TB of RAM, or 1.2 PB of storage.
What do you use? Can you recommend any websites I can go to find something that fits my needs better?
You say you need an i3 or higher but don’t list anything that necessitates that. What do you need that for? N100 is near-ubiquitous in the space.
What about this guy?
I personally would recommend this n100 to get a real psu which can add many drives, 6 Sata ports and a standard form factor.
Edit: Also a PCIE Slot to add 10 Gbit Networking Card if dual 2.5gbit is too slow. And if you need more power there is also and i3 n305 variant of these mainboards.
That’s why I asked how many drives they needed. The one in question can support up to 4 NVMe drives and 2 SATA drives simultaneously.
This one comes in i3 as well.
Can’t imagine most people actually need 10 gbit, and that’s a large additional expense.
I was wondering if they were doing CPU transcoding in plex instead of using a client that supports direct playback. A few Apple TVs can generally do the trick at a much lower cost and double as YouTube and other streaming services clients.