Can anyone recommend a good server for a homelab to use for a storage purpose like this?

burner420042 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm sure there's better options now but the HP ProLiant MicroServers (used).

They support ECC ram, 4 caddies, one extra PCIe slot, and to my knowledge you're not cpu limited for a zfs file server usecase.

Keep in mind though, all you need is linux* support, iDRAC, ECC if you're a snob, and drive bays ... and that's basically any free server.

In my extremely opinionated opinion I would only get used enterprise server gear, because a zfs file server will just work unless hardware fails. And a UPS.

*ZFS will be a more natural choice on FreeBSD. It's better documented, and will meet Linux 1:1 in hardware compatibility for this.

	▲	itchingsphynx 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Agreed. I have used a HP N40L ProLiant MicroServer since 2013 as home NAS and Time Machine backups via samba. Rock solid hardware, incredibly expandable, and today runs FreeBSD 15.1 with ZFS. Additional hardware modifications include; CD-ROM replaced by two 3.5" HDDs on mounts (now six HDDs of 10TB each in ZRAID1), a SAS card to add two mirrored bootable SSDs underneath CD-ROM drive space, a 2x 2.5G NIC (limited to 4GB/s slot) for dedicated NFS link, while additional internal SATA and external SATA ports unused. Next: replace PSU fan with quieter Noctua fan.
	▲	bpye 14 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I'm still running an old Gen 8 MicroServer. Modern drives can actually saturate the SATA controller, and because it only has a single PCIe slot I can't add both a 10Gb NIC and a storage controller - I went with the 10Gb NIC. It works well enough though and has lasted me over a decade at this point. 16GB DDR3 ECC, an old 4 core/8 thread Xeon, 4x14TB drives and the Mellanox NIC.
	▲	ahepp 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I got a gen10 plus microserver and liked it so much that I got a second one. Throw FreeBSD on it and add a couple lines to /etc/exports and rc.conf and it's a NAS right out of the box

▲

KaiserPro 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Depends on what you are after.

if you are after quietness and "power" then an old workstation is a great bet. They normally have space for at least 4 fullsized HDDs, the more modern ones have lots of PCI space for nvme-ssd cards (for space) and some have lots of lanes for speed

They also tend to come with SAS/whatever remote nvme is called/SATA expnasion options

The down side is they are not as space efficient, they also tend to have 60-120watt CPUs, so expensive to run

▲

simondotau 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not strictly a recommendation, but Terramaster is a good brand to look at if you want Synology-shaped hardware which can run TrueNAS or Proxmox or any flavour of Linux you want.

Along with various other devices (including a large Synology which I wouldn’t buy today), I run Proxmox on a small two bay+two nvme Terramaster. I have a bare bones Ubuntu LXC running Samba configured for Apple Time Machine, an VM running Scrypyed, and PBS for Proxmox backups. Nothing on it is critical so I don’t bother with any storage redundancy.

	▲	Fr0styMatt88 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I have the F8 Plus, great little unit. It did need a BIOS update when I first got it to enable Proxmox/other OSes to work properly. Recently replaced the internal USB boot drive with a small NVMe USB enclosure; using a 90-degree USB connector and using a dremel to sand away an opening for the cable to come out so I could mount the enclosure externally.

▲

bombcar 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a horrible idea likely, but I have an ancient old Dell PowerEdge R510. Probably sucks way too much energy, but it does what it does and the price of SSDs have skyrocketed so I'm not touching it.