Finally took the plunge and purchased one of the NK4.1 combos, and merging those components with that of my old gaming PC that’s just been sitting around for the past year. I’m starting out small: just a 500GB SSD and 1TB HDD from my old PC.
| Type | Part | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Combo 4 | Motherboard/CPU/RAM/Cables | $186 |
| Case | Thermaltake (Can’t Remember Model) | Recycled |
| Motherboard | Tyan S5512 | Included |
| CPU | Intel Xeon E3-1230v2 | Included |
| RAM | 16GB DDR3 ECC UDIMM | Included |
| SAS Controller | LSI SAS2008 Onboard | Included |
| CPU Cooler | Arctic Freezer 34 | $41 |
| Power Supply | Corsair CX450 | $44 |
| SSD | Crucial MX500 | Recycled |
| HDD | Samsung 1TB 7200RPM | Recycled |
| Cables | SATA/SATA Power split | Recycled/Included |
| $271 |
OS will be unRAID. Initially wanting to set up NextCloud to move away from Google Drive, and maybe a photo manager (Piwigo? Photoprism?) to organize and backup our photos if we want features that NextCloud lacks.
Case has plenty of room for expansion: 6 3.5" trays (one hot-swappable) plus two open 5.25" bays (the third has a DVD drive). Long-term I’d like to move my Plex library over to this machine and get a dedicated transcoder box, but I’d need a lot more space. Haven’t decided whether to go with used SAS drives or wait for shuckables to go on sale.
The beginning:
Transplanted into the case. Don’t worry, it’s a bit cleaner now:
Free cables!
Had some minor hiccups getting unRAID set up, but now I have it up and running and the Community Apps plugin installed. Off to rewatch some SpaceinvaderOne videos to get Nextcloud and a reverse proxy set up.