I'm totally new to homelabs and I want to get in on the fun, but the problem is that I don't know where to start.Originally, I was thinking of building one big powerful PC with a GeForce 5090 and 256GB of RAM that will be used for everything from VMs to 8K video editing to AI to gaming. I'm reading that it's best to dedicate machines to different tasks to maximize uptime.

I understand that this is the Unraid forum and comments will be biased, but I want to learn how to best approach this and build the best setup that I can.

Power is an issue, especially if I run it 24/7/365. I'm thinking of building or buying two NAS. One will be used for very critically important data that can't be lost. Another will be used for things like movies and music, where data can be easily replaced. UGREEN has a DXP4800+ with a G8505 processor. I'm thinking of getting this, installing 96GB/128GB of RAM, Proxmox, TrueNAS/Unraid, Docker, and OPNsense. Proxmox will virtualize these OS. Or should I consider the DXP6800 Pro with an Intel i5-1215U CPU? It also has dual 10GbE. The use case will be what I had described above. I want to also connect this to the TV and stream movies to it, so the HDMI port will be handy.Or I can use a VM for Windows and use it to browse the web. OPNsense for the router OS and paired with a 5G cellular modem. The price is very attractive, and I don't know if I can build something that is as capable at this price range. I also prefer to buy new.

For the second NAS, I'm reading that I should use ZFS and ECC RAM. I'll ask in another thread on how to configure unRAID for that. How much RAM would I need if it's to store critically important files and I'll be editing photos and videos off this from a more powerful PC? I don't know which is the better approach. I can get an Intel Core 235, which I believe is the cheapest CPU that supports ECC, and pair that with an Asus W880 motherboard. An AMD EPYC is interesting as well. I'm looking at the cheapest CPUs at the moment.

What would you do?

Thank you!

I tested the DXP4800 Plus and while it is great for a basic NAS the CPU Ressources are a bit underwhelming imho. Especially if you plan to run VMs, and maybe nested virtualization stuff. I had a Win 11 up but performance was not so good. Smaller Linux Distro might run fine.... Docker should be no problem at all. I ended up selling it and building now an i7-12700 powered NAS. Also note by the time I was playing around with this DXP4800 the HDMI port could not be as an output for the iGPU under Unraid. However I was able to use the iGPU as a virtual function device for Jellyfin.

3 hours ago, unrateable said:

I tested the DXP4800 Plus and while it is great for a basic NAS the CPU Ressources are a bit underwhelming imho. Especially if you plan to run VMs, and maybe nested virtualization stuff. I had a Win 11 up but performance was not so good. Smaller Linux Distro might run fine.... Docker should be no problem at all. I ended up selling it and building now an i7-12700 powered NAS. Also note by the time I was playing around with this DXP4800 the HDMI port could not be as an output for the iGPU under Unraid. However I was able to use the iGPU as a virtual function device for Jellyfin.

I'm really surprised! You don't think the 4800+ can VM the OS that I specified above? Why didn't you go with a 6800?

Did you get the Thunderbolt 4 ports to work with any other OS?

I did their kickstarter and was not really looking for to spend that much. Yeah 6800 CPU should perform better for VM workloads. But you want to virtualize Unraid on top of Proxmox and host VMs on Unraid. That sounds demanding.....

I didnt check out the TB4 ports. Ethernet was all I needed :)

From what I've been learning about Proxmox, core count seems to be very important. I wouldn't count on the G8505 being sufficient to run everything you've mentioned virtually, but that's just IMO.