NAS/Homelab Replacement Advice - HP Ml10 V2 Finially Died

sund00bie on 28/05/2025 - 22:15

After nearly a decade my HP ML10 v2 has finally died.

It started of as a simple Ubuntu server running Plex, Sonarr, etc., and eventually ended up as a TrueNAS Scale box with Jellyfin, Immich, Sonarr, and Nextcloud - all running with 3 x 4TB HDDs. I upgraded the CPU to a Xeon (from a Celeron) and added more RAM over the years, but otherwise didn’t touch the hardware.

Now I’m super stale when it comes to current NAS/homelab hardware — especially what's considered good value by OzBargainers

While looking around, I came across this: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/177060377961 and its $320 delivered (after discount codes).

But before pulling the trigger, I did a some here digging and noticed towers arent the OzBargain-approved way. It seems like mini-PCs are the new trend?

I saw this comment https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/16543383/redir and seems to be the way now

Since I’ve been out of the game for a while, I’d love some advice.

My needs & preferences:

  • Budget: around $500
  • Prefer TrueNAS Scale (but open to CasaOS if it makes more sense, especially if ZFS isn't ideal with less RAM and not ECC)
  • Main apps: Jellyfin, Immich, Sonarr, Nextcloud
  • Need to connect 4 HDDs for storage

Would appreciate any insights or suggestions! What's the current OzBargain-approved homelab setup?

TIA and apologies if its been asked before (and again) but i did have a quick look around here before asking

Computing Home Server NAS

Comments

  • 7ekn00 on 28/05/2025 - 22:24
    +2

    AMD 5600G (~$200) + mobo (~$150) + RAM (~$150) and ya done ;)

  • chillybags on 28/05/2025 - 23:42

    I got a Lenovo m910 tower with i5, 7500 processor on marketplace for $50. Added 2 x16gb ram and 2 x 10TB hdds for NAS and for the truenas software boot a 256gb nmve (plus the existing 500gb hdd as a backup). Also added a 2.5gbe Nic. Was running promox with truenas as a VM but was really struggling getting my head around proxmox and virtualisation and data backup etc. so now just running truenas boot straight onto he machine.

  • Mechz on 28/05/2025 - 23:49

    Mini PCs won't hold any drives. That Lenovo only has 1x 3.5" drive bay.

    I would find a case that holds enough drives ans build your own, or buy a UGREEN NAS and install whatever you want on it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iT9t897kzM

  • bargaino on 29/05/2025 - 00:57

    It seems like mini-PCs are the new trend?

    For home it is certainly nice to have something small, quiet and low power. You don't need a Xeon screaming at you.

    Most of the mini-PCs just take one NVMe and one 2.5" sata internally, which suits many people. External usb3 drive for backups.
    A SFF PC will take NVMe plus 3x SATA, but you can add a low-profile PCIe card for more. Room for a 2.5" RAID if you are an obsessive data hoarder pretending to run a data centre :)

  • GUYANDSON on 29/05/2025 - 08:51

    I would go something like this if you want off the shelf, maybe wait for those monthly coupons to get a bit more off.

    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/898683

    Given one of your use cases will be jellyfin, the N150 will put in work with transcoding when you need it.

  • bazingaa on 29/05/2025 - 08:57

    I use HP SFFs, 600 G1 (I think this has 4 SATA) and 800 G2 as I remember

  • InLaymansTerms on 29/05/2025 - 09:19

    I’ve just gone down this path.
    I purchased the Terramaster F4-212 4 bay for $319 on Amazon last month with 4 x 22TB
    Red drives.

    Upon further understanding of potential “bitrot” using such large drives on RAID 5 I have since returned it.
    I will now be purchasing a Terramaster F4-423 4 bay.
    Can find them around $580. I know that’s above your budget.

    I also had to purchase a m.2 drive + 16GB ram which cost
    Crucial P5 500GB m.2 $116
    Crucial DDR4 16GB $100

    This spec now allows me to install Truenas Scale on the NAS, not keen on TOS.
    I feel more comfortable using ZFS. Allowing me to require only 1 drive for failover. Maintaining a safer larger storage pool.
    I understand it’s still somewhat risky but much better than RAID5 for huge drives.

    Obviously budget is budget. Perhaps you could research that the F4-423 4-bay if it’s compatible with CasaOS (never heard of it before but I’ll look into it myself now, thank you).
    Hope this helps as I just spent the last few days educating myself.

    • sund00bie on 29/05/2025 - 09:45

      Thanks for taking the time to repsond and giving your experience.

      I'll look into it. 500 budget was just a rough amount and if it goes over a bit I'm not to worried.

      Now that I'm older and have kids, as much as I do enjoy tinkering with hardware a turnkey nas does have some appeal as I'm more time poor

      • InLaymansTerms on 29/05/2025 - 09:50

        Totally agree. Same scenario. Many people discuss building one yourself. Personally, I love the form factor. All in one neat box.
        I’ll pay a bit extra for a box I can leave in the corner, throw TrueNAS scale on it.
        Yeah I gotta pop in $200 worth of extra hardware (m.2 & ram) but that buys me simplicity IMO.
        If you need any help I’m happy to answer questions. I’m no expert FYI :)

  • w3dge on 29/05/2025 - 11:37

    Not sure about jellyfin or truenas support for ultra modern hw, but with Plex you are waaaay better off with Intel quick sync, and now that there are core ultra desktop chips with with the integrated av1 encode, that would be the direction I would be looking instead of amd. As stated though, may not apply to Jellyfin.

    • Talaii on 29/05/2025 - 12:25

      They recommend the same for jellyfin - basically intel is best, then nvidia, and AMD is worst. It's more about encoding quality than functionality, though - I'm running jellyfin on an AMD minipc running linux, and it works fine, just output video quality would probably be better if I went intel.

  • impoze on 29/05/2025 - 19:01

    Custom builds in a Jonsbo N3 or N5 would be an option too

    • sund00bie on 30/05/2025 - 20:14

      Thanks I think ive settled on this case + mATX board + 4650GE

  • sund00bie on 01/06/2025 - 17:45

    i prob went way overkill here but since im going to be hosting my family pictures i went an ECC supported mobo and CPU. Wife would kill me if i lost the kids pics

    JONSBO N4 + AMD 4750G + ASRock B550M PG RIPTIDE + 32G ECC UDIM RAM = $660 so far.

    Just need to think about a power supply now

    • Grunntt on 05/06/2025 - 22:26

      JONSBO N4

      Over on Reddit there's a discussion about poor air flow and how to get around it with a couple of extra fans (and a little 3d printing).

  • Chandler on 02/06/2025 - 11:12

    Need someone to talk me into / out of this :)

    I'm not a hardware guy - I know what things are, but what things are best (short of higher/lower number = better) or work best together… 🤷‍♂️

    HP Z240 tower for $175

    • CPU: i7-6700 (Skylake); max 95W
    • RAM: DDR4, both ECC and non-ECC, up to 64 GB
    • Storage: Designed to fit 2x 3.5" + 1x 2.5" HDD. Also has an m.2 slot (PCIe3x4; looks to take most lengths of cards, hanging off the side of the motherboard (see here)
      Also has 2x 5.25" bays, so more expansion options there. 4x SATA ports, so may need to sacrifice a PCIe slot for more SATA ports, but there are options there (x1, x4, x16(x4) and x16).

    Maintenance and service guide here for anyone's interest.

    My take on it - good entry price for a fully functioning machine, just need to add drives (which I have already). Looking to use primarily as a NAS, although will run some services off it as appropriate or processing power allows.

    • OS: Unraid, TrueNAS, Proxmox… whatever suits. I do already have a services server on Proxmox already, so inclined to go that way but then still need to run something on it as a file server
    • Services: file server first and foremost. Keen to add file-related services on top if suitable, i.e. NextCloud, Immich, *arr, etc.
  • gizmomelb on 02/06/2025 - 14:47
    +1

    How many cores do you need? If you don't need more than 4 then go an intel n100 / n150 as it's extremely low power and the intel igpu is superior when it comes to transcoding video (if you need it). Most n100/n150s only support single stick of RAM, max 16GB (though some people have been lucky and have 32GB working).
    I bought an n5095 (industrial version of the Intel n95) cpu / motherboard combination for around $180 AUD from aliexpress and it has 12x SATA connectors - though most common NAS motherboards like it have 6x SATA and 2-4x 2.5GBe NICs. I installed synology DSM on mine, but of course you can go unraid, truenas, whatever you want. I'm running dockers for sonarr, jellyfin, scrutiny, jellyseer etc. and system barely hits 5% of CPU usage. I installed the mATX motherboard into a jonsbo N3 case (8 bays). I've posted more info and parts build etc. on here in other comments and threads.

    My second actual mini PC (kamrui ak2+) n150 based, 12GB RAM system is running proxmox with pihole and home assistant currently.. I'm still configuring opnsense before rolling it into production.

    • knobbs on 05/06/2025 - 08:34

      How do you know how many cores you need?

      • gizmomelb on 05/06/2025 - 17:33
        +1

        what are you going to be using it for? if you want to run multiple virtual machines then you'll need a minimum of 1 core per VM you plan to run. So plan out what you actually want to do with it, as usage will help dictate needed specifications.

        • knobbs on 05/06/2025 - 17:36

          That I am not sure on ATM, I don't know what kind of things I want to run yet. Have an old HP Microserver I am trying to put OMV on. I guess I want an SMB share, and a Jellyfin stack so my parents can watch from their place and add shows to the list. Guess I don't really need more than standard as I don't plan on running any VMs for networking things. I am a bit of a noob and don't really know how to/why I would setup all those other things.

          • gizmomelb on 05/06/2025 - 21:56

            @knobbs: I'm also of the HP n36l microserver lineage, I built a replacement NAS (from the old xpeneology running on the HP n36l) using an intel N5095 micro-ATX motherboard (so 4 cores, pretty similar to an n100 CPU) as it has 12x SATA ports so I could add lots of SATA drives. I have 16GB DDR4 RAM in it and I'm running jellyfin server, sonarr, scrutiny (hdd monitoring app) and jellyseer (trending and handles requests for jellyfin) and it barely breaks a sweat above 5% CPU usage. SMB share is almost default, also running some synology apps like apple time machine.

            • maxsdadda on 18/06/2025 - 11:26
              +1

              @gizmomelb: HA! The old HP Microserver!! I had one too and loved it.

              I've had a heap of devices over the years including the HP Microserver, Acer EasyStore etc.

              I'm currently running a QNAP TVS-471, which runs Plex perfectly locally and remotely even 4k streams. Upgraded the ram to 16gb, 4 x 6tb WD hard drives running in raid 5. Never missed a beat.

              I am in the process of migrating to another QNAP (TVS-1282 with the 64 gig of ram, 10tb WD drives and some M2 drives as well). While I'll offload the TVS-471 when I'm done, I'm a fan of QNAP's, build quality, capability and reliability.

              I just use mine for streaming to TV's, phones etc and the QNAP converts things to the native format of whatever it's streaming to.

              • gizmomelb on 18/06/2025 - 12:59
                -1

                @maxsdadda: haha yeah I still have 4x HP n36L units, need to decommision them all.. maybe sell them off.

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