this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
17 points (90.5% liked)

Selfhosted

39167 readers
386 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

top 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

SFF, and "a buncha disks" don't really go together. It really depends on how much space yodu need, and whether the space saving or more important, or the disk redundancy.

That being said, have a look at some of the Fractal Design cases (they make beautiful stuff), or Lian Li.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yea, 3 discs isn't much, especially since the space is cramped you'll likely have to use 2.5" drives. I know - I've stuffed 3 drives in my SFF, no way to mount them so one is glued to the underside of the plastic rack. (Dell)

Then there's power to consider - an SFF doesn't have much of a power supply (mine maxes out at 120 watts, not sure how much of that is available on the 12v wires for sata, as it's routed through the motherboard!). I had to buy a sata power splitter to have 3 drives.

But... My idle power is trivial (12 watts), and when it's converting videos it peaks at 80 watts. Fan only runs when converting.

[–] witx@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

That's the info I'm looking for. I wasn't considering I would need 2.5'' instead of 3'', besides glueing is not great That idle power is awesome though and why I was looking into SFF

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's not perfect, but Goop is some magical stuff - only takes a couple blobs and it will never come loose on its own. Great thing is you can easily remove it, it's like thick rubber cement. Just swapped out drives yesterday.

I wouldn't do this in a business environment, but it's my box - no one else needs to work on it.

This SFF can support two 2.5" drives, since it has a cdrom. There may be a proper drive mount if I took out the CD.

An option could be an add-on card for M2 drives. The card is cheap, but M2 drives aren't.

There's also add-on cards for SATA drives. I'm using one in another box, but originally bought it for the SFF.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Have you considered just getting a NAS instead?

[–] witx@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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?

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] witx@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't need much redundancy, as I have off-site backups and in case something goes wrong I don't need to restore the files quickly

[–] ad_on_is@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'd recommend the following, which is what I did

  • Get one of these N100 or N305 firewall mini PCs with two NICs for your opnsense box. they're like 15x15 cm in size
  • A managed switch (at least 8-port)
  • A cheapo small PC case, that can house enough drives, or can add some 3dprinted drive tray or whatever for your NAS.

I'd highly suggest, not to put everything in one box. Been there, nothing but struggles.

[–] zer0squar3d@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago
[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 4 points 1 month ago

Best I can do is an old school horizontal desktop with two 3.5 and one 2.5 plus a boot NVMe.

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Im supposing you want some prebuilt, right?

[–] witx@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I mean I could go the DIY route but I'm guessing it's going to be more expensive?

[–] WhyFlip@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago

Small Form Factor I guess.

[–] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
NAS Network-Attached Storage
NVMe Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage

3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.

[Thread #898 for this sub, first seen 30th Jul 2024, 20:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago

There are some nice mini-itx nas cases that would do it.