Sorry if it's not allowed, but I initially posted this in pre-sales support and didn't get a reply then realised it should have been posted hardware instead so I have deleted and this is a repost with a few edits after understanding the forum better

First a bit of background; Currently I'm running home assistant off a NUC running HAOS directly, also was looking at getting a separate NAS to host an SMB share so I can record live TV from a couple of TVs in my house but access the recordings off all of them, came to the conclusion best to integrate into one device, was just gonna use the NUC but its really old (4th gen i3) and only has space for 2 drives, 1x m.2 1x SATA, so wanted to upgrade. 

The only issue so far is it needs to fit in a built-in media cabinet in my living room so full size ATX case is a no go, also spinning HDDs or noisy fans are something I really want to avoid too. 

Main question I have is about my planned hardware, and if it will be enough to do what I need.

Managed to pick up a cheap SFF PC (paid £81 delivered) : HP Prodesk 400 G6, 9th Gen i5 9500 with 8GB ram 256gb ssd. 

I chose this specifically for the compact size, its bigger than the NUC by a fair bit but still fits the cabinet easily, it has 3 SATA ports, 1 x m.2 and also a 1x PCI-16 (think maybe in future a pci to dual m.2 adapter) and 2 x PCI Express x1 slots (maybe some more m.2 adapters in future but probably not needed) so could eventually do upto 8 drives in a small chassis though never really plan on needing that many.

I plan initially just to have 2 sata drives not bought yet but will most likely be 2 x 2TB MX500s, maybe leave the m.2 256bg in that comes with the PC but not sure if it's any use? Then gradually add more SSDs if I feel I need to and if storage costs come down maybe add some 4TB version into the mix.  Understand to make sure drives have decent cache so plan was to stick to mx500 for the sata and samsung evo if I ever need to add m.2 storage.

Main hardware question is will the processor (i5-9500) be good enough as a relatively long term solution, running unraid then VM HAOS, SMB share for tv recording and then later add something like immich to replace google photos.  And is it a reasonable solution to just use SSD storage for unraid or do I really need a HDD?  I'm assuming a RAM upgrade will be advisable from the initial 8GB but it's DDR4 so it is cheapish is 16 enough or will I be better off going straight to 32GB.

I'm totally open to other options by the way the PC was cheap and I can easily flip it and get my money back, just bought it because it was such a good deal.  Budget wise it's not fixed but still want to be reasonable cheap, as I can see it the main cost is going to be the MX500s but ideally to get going wanted to keep it under £400 all in, then add more drives later if and when needed.

 

Other things I may want to do on the device at a later point include wireguard type VPN (not done enough research into the actual app) but just some secure way to access my home network when I'm out and possibly stream recorded media or even use it to access geo-blocked stuff when I'm travelling.  I'm also toying with the idea of a plex library stored on there but again would only be the storage as I have a couple of Nvidia Shield TV Pros so could use that as the actual plex server and that's only if I ever do bother to set it up.

I do have a few spare drives floating about but don't really think I want to use any of them, got a load of old laptop 2.5 hdds but want to avoid spinners if possible to keep noise minimal, and have an mx500 500gb but not sure if any point using due to it being small 

It should work in general, but it's very difficult to answer regarding performance details, you can use the Unraid free trial and test.

Came across your question as I Googled i5 9500...

 

Just to say that I run a HP Z230 SFF i7 4790 16GB, with 8 drives (3 HDD, 5 SSD), that runs about 15 Docker containers (Plex, Resilio, Immich etc) and 2 VMs (Ubuntu & Win10), and it performs admirably. I don't run any Wireguard or VPN on it as my firewall handles that (UDM Pro SE). I have a no name SATA expansion card that I really should upgrade, but the server has run without issue now for 8 months+. It has two Intel NIC that I had spare; a dual 10 GbE, and quad 1GbE. File transfers to the striped SSD max out at about 300MB/sec.

 

It runs in my garage in its own cupboard (without its lid on due to the number of drives!), using a USB exhaust fan to keep it cool, so noise is not an issue for me.

 

I started up again with Unraid with V6 (I had a V4 license), and have kind of ended up with it as an experiment that has become my full-time server.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 20251 yr by elootos

On 1/29/2025 at 9:13 AM, elootos said:

Came across your question as I Googled i5 9500...

 

Just to say that I run a HP Z230 SFF i7 4790 16GB,

Thanks for the reply, would sound like the system I'm going to use will be more than sufficient then.  Ended up picking up a couple of 16GB ram sticks for under £35 so will have 32GB in mine when I get round to setting it all up (seems overkill now after seeing your screenshot tbh) so with the newer 9th gen 6 core and more ram I think I'll be pretty well futureproofed.  Just need to sort out some new sata cables as the ones I had lying around don't work for the routing I need in the small case 

 

16GB has worked fine for me on V6, but upgrading to V7 has shown it a little stressed at times, mainly due to the Windows10 VM.

 

I had an Elitedesk 800 and Z230 spare when moving to Unraid, and the Z230 turned out a great option due to it having 5 SATA ports. Coupled with the i7 and it's been a belter of an old PC for Unraid.

 

It was a Hackintosh for me in a previous life, so the £100 I paid for it once upon a time has been paid back several times over.

 

This is my SATA card for extra ports.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0BCKK5D3J