The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/ChuckMauriceFacts on 2024-04-29 12:45:52.

Hi guys. I don’t know if this is the proper place to ask, so don’t hesitate to redirect me if it’s not. I’ve been researching and saving for a NAS/server for a few months, with the goal of having it quite compact, silent and with a very low power usage. My software needs are pretty basic: Nextcloud, photo backups, a few selfhosted apps, more a small self-hosting server than a NAS really. No Plex or other power-hungry software for multimedia, aside from occasional FLAC music streaming maybe.

For storage, for now 2x1TB SSDs in RAID1 is enough, but expandability for more SSDs in RAID 5 would be nice. I would prefer M.2 NVMe SSDs. I know NVMe speeds are wasted on a NAS, but since SATA SSDs haven’t seen any innovation/new models for years, they are quite bad value and I’m unsure about future availability. Also SSD sticks + no cables allow for a way smaller build.

What I’ve thought about for now:

• QNAP or Synology NAS + SATA SSDs: meh, prices go through the roof for NAS with more than 2 HDD slots, and I don’t see the point as I can build my own.
• Repurposing a nano-PC (Dell, Lenovo…) or NUC: compact, but hard to do RAID as I couldn’t find any with 2+ SSD slots.
• N100 board + Jonsbo case + SATA SSDs: low power usage, a bit too large but that’s ok. Might have to get creative for multiple SSDs and I don’t really know what PSU to get
• FriendlyELEC CM3588 (saw a video on it recently). Very small footprint, low power usage, low price, 4x M.2 SSDs. But it’s an ARM board with presumably bad long term support.

For now I’m leaning towards the CM3588 because of the price (~$150 without disks), but maybe there’s similar x86 boards I haven’t heard about? What would you recommend?