Mar
11
Home Server: Mini-Build Option
Filed Under Home Server, Storage Server
After putting together some potential build options and discussing them at the LAN, I resparked an old interest in a mini-build. My current storage box is a beast, and a 24U build would be great if I had a better home-rack option. For now though, there is some value in having a more portable storage server.
A few months ago I had come across a chassis called the NSC-800. I had a lot of trouble finding this online, and only a couple of places sold it, mainly Chinese re-sellers with questionable sites at best, with most requiring a minimum purchase of 10 units. I had tried reaching out to these places several times and never received a response.
However, after contacting the manufacturer directly, I finally did receive a response. I was told that the unit should be available “end of month” and they will be “contacting me” again to confirm when it is.
This new information made me rethink my “home” build options.
Mini-Storage:
- Case: NSC-800 $225
- Motherboard: Intel DBS1200KPR $159
- CPU: Intel E3-1220Lv2 / Intel E3-1265Lv2 / Intel i3-2130 – $225 / $320 / $130
- RAM: 16GB (2x 8GB Kingston ECC DDR3) $90
- HBA: 1x IBM m1015 (flashed to LSI 9211-8i IT-mode) FREE (or $75 on ebay)
- OS Disk: 128GB Crucial M4 $110
- SMB/NFS Pool:
- 8x Seagate 4TB 5400 rpm ($179-205 ea) $1435 – 1640
- -or-
- 8x WD RED 3TB 5400 rpm ($169 ea) $1360
Total: $605 – 885 (excluding drives) depending on configuration
This option takes a very different approach focusing solely on being compact and low-power. Having a few of the initial components, I can pretty easily keep this cost down. There are a couple CPU configuration options to choose from as well, so that is an area of consideration, though I like the idea of the low TDP of the two Xeon Low-Power CPUs.
In a ZFS RAIDZ2 option (basically Raid6, or 2 parity drives), this would be 18-24TB of usable space (3TB vs 4TB). This would be a storage box only, though it would be more than powerful enough to run my Linux services.
This would allow me to run a separate VMware box at a later date.
Seen your project and very interested… Looks very hard to source the case.
Please keep us informed about the avail of it…
I’ve seen newegg price the Red 3TB sometimes in the 130′s… off and on… might save you some bucks…
Rick