I’m moderately tech savvy, a little experience with most OS and comfortable with hardware. I’ve got some basic things working in Docker. I want to start self hosting my photo backup, Bitwarden, Jellyfish, Sonarr and Radarr, Pi hole, Home Assistant and replace Dropbox. But the more I dive into the hardware and setup the more muddled I’m finding myself.

I’m very concerned about power draw so the lower the consumption the better. I do want some parity, though I’m willing to I introduce that once it’s set up. I’m not particularly concerned with transcoding but I guess it’d be a nice bonus.

Is a QNAP alone valid? Or perhaps I’m better off with a Pi and my huge GDrive while I learn? Or a NUC with better transcoding capability? I want to access my data internally, stream content to a Chromecast with Google TV.

My instinct is both a NUC and a separate NAS but I’e love it if anyone has some insight.

Thanks!

  • appelEnglish
    4•1 year ago

    If you can find a second hand PC with a Celeron, they’re pretty low draw, and it will mean you can open it up and add as many drives as it has SATA ports. We did the same, got an old PC for £30 and added drives and more RAM.

    • rentar42
      2•1 year ago

      as it has SATA ports

      More. PCIe SATA controllers are cheap (even though you’ll often hear “get a HBA and flash it”, it’s not absolutely necessary).

      • CazRaXEnglish
        1•1 year ago

        I currently have an HBA that breaks it into 8 DATA connections and was wondering if an 8 port SATA controller would be lower power usage and work as well. My HBA is a server one and rather old, it’s a Dell H310 flashed. Then again I am thinking of replacing the MB and upgrade to a newer CPU that is more energy efficient than my current Xeon E3-1270 just can’t seem to find the right one.

        • rentar42
          1•1 year ago

          I’m far from an expert in HBAs and never used one myself. but it is my understanding that the major advantage is that you’re extremely unlikely to get a janky one whereas Sata controllers could be bad (they are often cheaply made non brand products). if they work either one is fine in a hone lab setting.