Small Refub PC Ideas for Homelab UNRAID Setup, Home Assistant etc

Lhen dawg on 09/11/2023 - 17:46

Hi, I'm running Home Assistant on a RPi 4, and also have an old QNAP TS231P NAS for backups and video storage, plus a Pi Zero running PiHole.
I keep seeing these PC refurb deals and learning about the world of options with cool software like UNRAID and all it can do with 1 machine. UNRAID seems to suit as seems easy and user friendly, and flexible with HDDs, I don’t want to tinker/troubleshoot more than necessary!

Definitely want a SFF option, not a full size.

Can you recommend a unit to do below, budget: enough to get the job done fairly well with some overhead to cope with more in the future and a machine that’s not too many years old already. Hoping in the $300 range excluding HDDs and UNRAID licence.

  • Basic NAS setup: 3 HDDs, option for 4th.and 5th later.
  • Run HA
  • Serve video over local network to a Kodi machine (Odroid N2), not too bothered about Plex/Jellyfin transcoding but nice to have.
  • Run couple of other services like torrents, VPN, PiHole etc, nothing super taxing
  • Maybe future option to run security cameras via HA (nice to have)
  • Relatively low power use and quiet

Thank you

Computing Home Server

Comments

  • Sprayoz on 09/11/2023 - 18:19

    HP microserver is the only one I know which is SFF and has 5 HDD slots.

    • hen dawg on 09/11/2023 - 21:58

      Interesting, cheers

  • rumblytangara on 09/11/2023 - 18:49

    Are you talking about the tiny PCs that keep getting promoted? Trying to turn one of those things into a NAS sounds like a massively ugly kludge of USB cables.

    Otherwise, as a VM host, they should be fine.

    • hen dawg on 09/11/2023 - 21:10

      Nah, not the mini PC's. They can't handle the storage in any way. Max 2TB etc
      More like these types that pop up a lot. Issue could still be storage options, even if some external
      https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/810361

      • mitt on 09/11/2023 - 22:40

        You wont fit anything more than a single NVME & one 2.5 sata in one of those. Everything else will be external. If you want any kind of spinning storage you need to up up to the next form factor. I have an old HP system set up as a NAS like this. The case only had two hdd mounting points but 4 sata ports, with the 4th being taken from the existing optical disk drive. Had to put a 5 1/4 to 3.5 adapter for the third drive & double sided tape mount the fourth to the lid to make it all fit. Works great though.

        • t0by on 09/11/2023 - 23:07

          HP Elitedesk/Prodesk G3 or G4 Mini can fit internally:

          (1x) M.2 PCIe x1 2230 (for WLAN)
          (2x) M.2 PCIe x4 2280/2230 combo (for storage)
          (1x) SATA storage connector (data and power)

          https://support.hp.com/au-en/document/c06045012#AbT10

          • hen dawg on 10/11/2023 - 10:55

            @t0by: Thanks, so this Elitedesk could have 1 or 2 SSD's for storge/cache and a 3.5in SATA internally. Then only option for another 3.5in drive would be external via USB?

      • rumblytangara on 09/11/2023 - 22:49

        That's exactly what I meant by a tiny PC. Ultra-SFF. I have a bunch of these things.

        Terrible idea for building out storage. External storage via a bunch of USB cables- blergh.

        The HP Microserver is the only off the shelf box that I can think of that is small and does loads of drive bays (easy access too)- that's what I am using. CPU options are meh though. Otherwise you'd DIY out of a proper sized case.

      • USER DC on 10/11/2023 - 00:48

        i think that is good enough ?? you can just chuck a bigger m.2 NVME ssd.

        but your demands are little extra, "NAS setup: 3 HDDs, option for 4th.and 5th later. and so on.. " which that one might not be able to fulfill

  • ihfree on 09/11/2023 - 20:53

    There's nothing that really fits what you want unless you're prepared for a bit of jank.

    See this users build with a USFF system - https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/13190621/redir

    • hen dawg on 09/11/2023 - 21:58

      Ok thanks, maybe I'll have to rethink my size restrictions. Can't I run 1 or 2 drives via external housing from a SFF?
      I could probably live with 3 drives

      • Chandler on 10/11/2023 - 14:42

        USFF like the Dell unit you linked above = no, typically one SATA and maybe one NVME.

        SFF units = potentially, like the one I breakdown in my comment below.

        The research process I've been using is see what's available and go to the manufacturer's support pages to get a hardware reference or maintenance manual - these usually have quite a bit of detail on the internals and what can be done with them.

    • rumblytangara on 09/11/2023 - 22:52

      OMG that's hideous and hilarious at the same time.

  • USER DC on 10/11/2023 - 00:46

    you need a universal zigbee hub OP ? pm me I might have a deal of your liking for universal hub

  • OMGJL on 10/11/2023 - 02:00
    +1

    I run basically everything you mentioned on a XPE Synology box, some service via native Syno apps, some with Docker, it plays really nice.

    parts are i3 4130 + Z97 + 16G DDR3 + bunch of Amazon WD Element HDD shucked + 3.3v taped/ molex to sata power. + Realtek 8125 PCIe 2.5Gb network card.

    Case: I picked up an old Deepcool Tesseract when a flatmate moved away. enough to fit 6 HDD (4 HDD slot + 3 ODD slot) no hot swap though ( you can make 2-3 hot swap by buying expensive ODD to HDD hot swap bays, but I don't see myself taking drives out very often, CBF)

    • hen dawg on 10/11/2023 - 10:12

      Nice, that reminds me about shucked drives as option if I want an extra

  • Chandler on 10/11/2023 - 14:37

    I've started down this rabbit hole myself - currently running Proxmox on a refurb HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Micro (USFF) which serves a few different services via LXCs and Home Assistant on a VM (running HA OS). And I am myself looking for something to serve as a file server, and am the same looking at refurb units. The ones I've been looking at are SFF and have four PCIE slots (one x16, one x16→x4, two x1), two M.2 slots (one SSD and one WiFi) and four SATA ports. You can get PCIE to NVME adapters, so this should give me the option of putting a GPU in there and plenty of storage capability (at least two NVME and four SATA - obviously could ditch the GPU and add four more NVMe, or opt for some PCIe to SATA adapters, but I digress…)

    Personally looking at using the SFF as a storage device (likely running TrueNAS Scale) and keeping services running on the USFF unit until I run out of performance capacity (or want hardware redundancy) at which point I'll just getting more USFFs and have them as a Proxmox cluster.

    I'm a follower of the church of Kretzschmar and PerfectMediaServer, as well as occasionally touching on content from ServeTheHome's TinyMiniMicro project. May be wrong or not be the way many people do it, but it's been working pretty good so far for me…

    • hen dawg on 10/11/2023 - 17:01

      Thanks for your detailed reply, The HP Elitedesk series seem to take 2 x 3.5in drives in the SFF format but not the mini / USFF.
      However, they don't see to include the much more efficient 't' CPUs like the i5 8500T which caught my interest.

      • Chandler on 10/11/2023 - 17:24

        The EliteDesk SFFs I've been looking at (like this one) can take up to 4 drives (if you replace the ODD with a HDD) as per this snip from the maintenance guide. On top of that, there's capacity for NVMEs as per my above comment.

        Good point of the 'T' CPU - hadn't considered that. Thank you.

    • hen dawg on 17/11/2023 - 14:53

      Hello again, I've now got my HP Elitedesk 800 G4 i5 8600. It's got 3 SATA ports and officially room for only 2 x 3.5in drives, which was expected. hopefully there will be a way to get 3rd in by messing/cutting some the 2.5in mount if I later want a 3rd drive full size drive.
      It also only has one 6 pin power to 3 SATA power connections (plus smaller disk drive power) off the one line which is fine for now. But for future reference, I would expect to split that one more way to power 4 SATA drives? Won't have at GPU or anything sucking too much power elsewhere.
      Or maybe there is other way to get power off motherboard with adaptors or other cables?

      • Chandler on 17/11/2023 - 15:16

        Assuming you got the SFF, according to the Maintenance and Service Guide, obtained via the support page here it has:

        • 1x PCIE x16, 1 x PCIE x16→x4, 2 x PCIE x1
        • 1 x M2 WLAN 2230
        • 2 x M2 SSD 2280
        • 3 x SATA 3.0

        (refer to pg 22) Nice.

        In terms of drive positions, there are:

        • 2 x 3.5"
        • 1 x 2.5"
        • 1 x 9.5mm ODD

        (refer to pg 30).

        Assuming that the Guide is applicable to your specific device… just the issue of the power now, which the guide isn't really clear on and neither am I knowledgeable with, sorry.

      • Chandler on 17/04/2024 - 10:48

        FYI, @knk has put a 6-bay 2.5" hotswap drive bay into an SFF - see this comment chain. You may wish to consider that :)

        • knk on 17/04/2024 - 11:02

          Yeh I still haven't got around to taking out that ridiculous second PSU setup…..but it's working really well. I added a terminal server to it the other day and it runs like a dreammmmmm.

          Let's me get all my work done from one of those 2021 xiaopin lenovo tablets if I'm on the road.

    • rinzlertaken on 16/04/2024 - 21:17

      @chandler Hey mate had few questions on running plex plus torrent on proxmox

      • Chandler on 17/04/2024 - 11:06

        Whatcha need to know?

        I use tteckster's Proxmox Helper Scripts to create VMs/CTs on Proxmox.

        They have one for Plex, which includes hardware acceleration, as well as a few different torrent options (Transmission, Deluge) and the various *arr services.

        • rinzlertaken on 17/04/2024 - 11:19

          Thanks I am using these. Noob question what are *arr services and wanted connect an external HDD as host for the plex and torrent any idea how to do that ?

          • Chandler on 17/04/2024 - 12:09
            +1

            @rinzlertaken: *arr = Radarr, Sonarr, etc. Maybe this Reddit post and this Wiki page will explain better (and, tbh, easier) than I would.

            For the external HDD, assuming you have it connected and functioning with Proxmox itself it should just be a matter of passing through the storage to the VM/CT. Now (I believe) you could do this a few different ways - which is best is beyond my knowledge at present (as I haven't tried to do it myself) - but some ideas:

            • pass through the USB device. the VM/CT would have full control and access over it
            • setup a logical volume in proxmox and pass that through. The VM/CT would have similar level of access/control as it does to your primary storage on the PC
            • setup another VM/CT that gets one of the two above options, and then have that VM/CT share access to the storage via protocols like SMB or NFS. Increased overhead but more granular control (can share individual folders/files rather than the entire storage)
            • rinzlertaken on 17/04/2024 - 12:34

              @Chandler: Thank you very much mate. Will
              Have a look and get back to you if I have any doubts.

            • rinzlertaken on 17/04/2024 - 13:14

              @Chandler: Noob question do I need to have VPN for the *arr services or only for torrent downloaders such as qbit. If yes then I need to setup an open vpn ?

              • Chandler on 17/04/2024 - 14:33
                +1

                @rinzlertaken: Well I mean you don't need to worry about a VPN at all if you're just downloading Linux ISOs…

                Tbh I don't know, I haven't gotten on board the *arr train myself, but I presume that the *arr services will be getting data through Usenet, torrent sites and/or trackers, so VPN usage could be desirable.

                Should just be a matter of setting up the VM/CT with the *arr services (I don't see the point in segregating each of them into their own containers - maybe someone else here can suggest why this might be a good idea…?) and install & setup the VPN in the same VM/CT.

                I did find this reddit post but at a glance it seems to require a bit of host modifications i.e. creating groups, chmod, chown, which is a no from me, in my non-sysadmin opinion… shouldn't need to make host modifications for a VM/CT, especially those sorts of changes. Seems to me to defeat the purpose of the container not being privileged.

  • riff.79 on 14/11/2023 - 21:06

    If you going to be wanting to run Unraid, remember that USBs storage is not usable in the array. Have you thought about how much storage your require and how many 3.5 drives you need to achieve that?

    • hen dawg on 15/11/2023 - 11:08

      Thanks, good to know about USB storage.
      I'm going to be happy with 1 parity, 2 data drives (and maybe add SSD cache via NVME). Starting with 12Gb parity drive and work from there with another drive I have and will need to buy another.
      Figured, I can increase the other drives later if need be but my requirements are not huge as don't stockepile movies/TV etc. Mostly just adding my drone videos and other family phone media.
      Plus I just want the ease of Unraid for their apps.

      • knk on 17/04/2024 - 11:06
        +1

        You could always consider not storing your media locally if you have adequate bandwidth. I pay for a 10TB plan with idrive, but you could get away with much smaller depending on your needs.

        I mount this with rclone and point plex / radarr / sonarr to it.

        This works really well with a generous cache (I give 500GB of SSD storage).

        Family media / personal footage might lend pretty well to this too, if you set adequate read ahead on all your footage you should be able to stream 4K on most connections with perhaps a slight delay in starting playback at worst.

        I've recently moved to doing this as the cost of local storage, with sufficient redundancy just didn't make sense to me.

        • hen dawg on 17/04/2024 - 13:48

          Thanks, I'm all setup with my Unraid now but can see how your option is good for some

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