HiTekRedneck

I guess I was looking at it as a good starting platform, comes barebones in a case with plenty of room for expansion, more power efficient than the old 32nm chip you originally looked at being a more modern 14nm chip. They can be had barebones for $150 on ebay with a W-2135 CPU or you could step up and spend more to get more cores. I am still hashing out if I want to go this route or stick with a consumer i5/i7 system. Lots to learn.

Currently I am leaning towards a Lenovo Thinkstation P520 with a W-2135. In between this and a 10700 Intel system. Do you have any insight on what the better route might be? I am starting out using it as a NAS for Plex and Photo backup to try and stop paying for other services. Then I would eventually like to run a HomeAssistant instance as well as Video solution to stop paying for Ring. I know the Workstation chip is a bit older but I figure the system gives me plenty of expansion for PCI cards as well as having native mounts for 6 3.5" drives. Seems like ECC ram is also a good thing to have with HexOS.from what I am reading. Ill also have to grab some type of GPU with the Workstation setup as well. Sorry for the newbie questions, just trying to have a good starting point for a home system.

Ive given up on trying to find an elegant solution to make this work. Would end up being a mess of power supplies, wires, and adapters to make this work. Now I am going down the road of budget systems and my head is spinning. I assume this is what happened to everyone here when they started down their Homelab adventure? 😆

I am looking at setting up a new system like you are. That is a pretty old and inefficient system at this point IMO. I am currently looking into the Lenovo P520 which you can get with a more modern Skylake Xeon Workstation CPUs. Not sure if you are looking specifically for a server rack setup but this could be an option to look into. My head is still spinning looking at hardware on a budget.

Hi all, new to this side of things but after seeing the LTT episode it sparked my interest. Seems to be (or could be) the solution I have been looking for. I have a HP Elitedesk 800 G4 mini with an Intel 8700 cpu. Got it free from work in the recycling bin and works fine. The PC has 2 internal M.2 slots. I am trying to figure out what the best solution is for this setup. Looking to run 4 4TB HDDs as a family photo backup, plex, whatever else server. Installing a 500gb nvme drive into one slot and I was hoping there was some type of enclosure/box setup that could be tied into the other slot. I can keep the lid off and throw the PC plus drives into a separate enclosure if needed. My initial plan was just to run a USB enclosure but after reading more and seeing other comments, that seems to not be the most reliable. Next thought was an m.2 to sata adapter and possibly using some sort of USB adapter to power the drives. Not sure if someone has recommendations or if this even exists. My head gets stuck on one solution so I am testing waters if that is a possibility or if there is a better solution. Just trying to make due with what I already have vs spending on more hardware. Thanks everyone!