BalkanRig - A budget server


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Previous setup: A punny D-Link DNS-320L with 2x3 TB in RAID1. I didn’t really like the proprietary hardware and software, I’d like to know what happens behind the scenes. It was time anyway to up my backup game and I came across Unraid on Youtube, so here we are.

My plan is deploy the D-Link NAS to my parents’ house, so I’ll have an offsite backup. Possibly replace/upgrade later that as well.

 

Starting goals for Unraid server:

  • Reliable storage with parity
  • Deluge
  • VPN
  • Plex server for 1 user (1080p, mostly direct play), maybe 2 later.
  • Learning as much as possible about networking, Linux and Unraid.
  • Start as cheap as possible and upgrade when needed. Mainly becuase I’m cheap as hell, and also would like to see the limitations.

 

Earlier last year I did a PC build to flip for fun and for some pocket money, and I was left with some parts lying around. So I had the PSU and the CPU + cooler. Built from there.

 

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OS at time of building: 6.9.2

CPU: : i3-2120: $7: Got it with the mobo I flipped.

Motherboard: Acer Q67H2-AM: $39: didn’t really want to go with a brand motherboard, but it has 6 SATA ports (2 of them are SATAIII), 4 RAM slots and was cheap. :D Also has standard ATX connectors, not some janky compatible-with-nothing kind of.

RAM: Kingmax DDR3 2GB: $7: Could get it localy for a fair price, and it looks ridiculous with the rest of the system.

Case: CoolerMaster Elite 370: $20

Power Supply: Cooler Master Elite Power 500W: $20

Fans: 1x 120mm Cooler Master, came with the case.

Parity Drive: 2x Samsung HD204UI 2TB: 2x $38: good enough to start, later will upgrade as needed.

Data Drives: 2x Samsung HD204UI 2TB: 2x $20

Cache Drive: -

Total Drive Capacity: 8TB (4TB usable)

 

Unfortunatelly I don't have power figures due to lack of equipment.

 

Originally I planned to use some banged up old case with 6/7 HDD slots, which I see going around for 7 bucks just to go with the theme. But the seller guy had some other parts very cheap, so I made a good deal overall, I’ll flip those anyway. Have to admit, this case is nice and will serve me for quite some time, as it is spacious, got 7 HDD slots + 3x 5.25” bays, bottom PSU and dust filters. I will replace the 5.25" covers, since one is missing.

After I bought the HDD Chia hit my country as well, so every storage price went up quite substancially. I planned to add a 4-8 TB HDD for Media as a separate pool for files I can afford to lose. But these are going for quite insane prices right now, so I’ll delay this upgrade.
So my starting setup, totalling around $209 + the small bits, cables and such + still need to buy the Unraid key, currently on trial.

 

Planned features to add:

  • Pi-hole
  • Move my music and eBook collection in a meainingful way (Plex? + Calibre).
  • Personal cloud, maybe Nextcould.
  • Sonarr + Radarr + Lidarr
  • Later on a Windows VM for couch gaming, and such.
  • Automatic photo batch conversion, as I’m doing some photography work. Not sure about the software right now.

 

Planned hardware upgrade path:

RAM: I can imagine the 2 gig will run out very quickly.
PSU: As the current one has only 4 SATA ports, and I don’t really like the idea of molex-SATA adapters. Maybe a semi passive one would be nice for noise reduction.
SSDs: for dockers + cache, some cheapo 2.5” will be sufficient for a while.
CPU cooler: Noise reduction again, not that the i3 puts out that much heat.
CPU: as I will run Plex, I anticipate the need for more horsepower.
HBA card: As I've seen motherboards with 6+ SATA ports are quite rare and expensive, so at some point a HBA card will be needed.

Any idea and comment is really appriciated. 😉

Edited by BalkanPete
Fix broken image embed
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/3/2021 at 7:15 AM, BalkanPete said:

RAM: I can imagine the 2 gig will run out very quickly.

You may be able to get it to function as a NAS only with 2GB, but version upgrades will have to be done manually, and I doubt you will be able to get the docker system running. VM's are a flat no.

4GB is a bare minimum for basic functionality, 8GB if you want to play with a VM.

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Thank you for both of you for hte feedbacks! Really appreciated!

 

On 8/22/2021 at 12:57 PM, Michael_P said:

Love a cheap build (my daily driver desktop is still an i7-2600), but that's a lot of ask for that CPU, and note you won't be able to pass any hardware to your VM without VT-d support

I might not have been 100% clear, when originally posted. So I planned the feature addition in a step by step manner, hand in hand with the hardware upgrades. So the missing support is not a problem, as I plan to upgrade the CPU (+RAM) before I fire up a VM. Thankfully I'm not a masochist to run a Windows VM on such CPU. 😄 Luckily the horsepower is enough for now, since the only "realtime" service is media streaming. The rest of the stuff is not timecritical, and I'm not really keen on making everything instantly. So if Radarr scan or something takes couple minutes longer, I'm still perfectly happy with that.

 

On 8/22/2021 at 5:27 PM, JonathanM said:

You may be able to get it to function as a NAS only with 2GB, but version upgrades will have to be done manually, and I doubt you will be able to get the docker system running. VM's are a flat no.

4GB is a bare minimum for basic functionality, 8GB if you want to play with a VM.

Thanks for pointing out the possible problem with version upgrade, I was not considering this earlier!

Since the original post I've already upgraded with +4 GB RAM. And you are absolutely right, 2 GB was enough for the basic operation. But after I added 1-2 Docker containers the system started to struggle, had some lock ups. VM is a long term goal, and RAM is easy to upgrade as my needs are increasing, and right now the 6 GB is enough. Definitely will add more later.

More of a general update after the original post:

I'm very happy with how the whole system turned out. It was very easy to set up the different parts despite my lack of deeper knowledge in networking, Linux and Docker. I used the different parts' documentation, this forum, SpaceInvader's and Ibracorp's videos and some reddit posts. Everything went so quickly and smoothly I'm honestly blown away.

I encountered only 2 bigger issues: Qbittorrent's default gui port was in collison with something else. (Thankfully fixed by setting up some additional parameters based on a forum post here.) The second one is some mysterious system crashes (still under investigation).

 

Already running containers:
- Nextcloud + mariadb

- Pihole + Unbound: This is a great thing to have! Even my browsing is noticeably faster without the lots of ads. And it was so quick to set up, I can't believe it.

- Jellyfin: Instead of Plex. So far I'm happy with it. My reason to choose it over Plex is the free hardware transoding and free usage on Android device.

- Radarr + Sonarr + Lidarr + Jackett + Bazarr + Ombi + Qbittorrent.

- Calibre + Readarr: Not the most user friendly and intuitive things, but they do what they need.

- DuckDNS + NginxProxyManager

- Krusader, Grafana-Unraid-Stack, Calibreweb: only occasional use, not running 24/7.

 

Running plugins:

- Dynamix: File integrity, System information, System statistics, System temperature.

- CA: Auto updater, Backup / Restore Appdata.

- Nerd Tools, Open files, Tips and tweaks, unBalance, User scripts, Preclear.

Edited by BalkanPete
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