this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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Homelab

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For reasons unexplained, you have no homelab hardware, but $1,000 in cash earmarked for the purpose.

What are you buying, what are you installing on it, and how is it different from what you've done previously (i.e. lessons learned)?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (3 children)

For 1k i would start with a Unifi UDM-Pro, a Intel NUC and a Synology NAS.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I regret getting a UDM-Pro and recently swapped it for an n5105 OPNsense box. Luckily they keep their value, so I didn't lose any money on the UDMP.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Honest question... Why people with knoedge on how to do one, buy a Nas like synology? Are you not just paying double or triple for the same result you could have if making the NAS from scratch?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I bought a qnap a long time ago, never again...it was like 3k with disk for 6 x 6TB drives like 10 years ago. They constantly get hacked, a bunch of their NAS's were getting crypto lockered because some Dev hard coded an admin password iirc. their software does a bunch of shit I dont need and it runs like shit now with just me using it. I'm gonna reset it soon once I get my data off.

My NAS now is a r730xd with 12 x 12tb drives in it running true nas. Granted my electric bill is a car payment with all my stuff, it only cost me like 1,500 for disk and the server was super cheap and has a 10 gig connection.

Granted some of it is cool if you are still learning like 1 click and you can have a mysql php server on there ect. I thought about getting a synology but all the bells and whistles it can do with apps and that I can just run on a real server.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Reliability and lower power consumtion than most Frankenstein-DIY cheap stuff recommended here ;)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No, you are not paying anywhere near double or triple.

My Synology came in at ~$750 for the chassis and 2 8TB IronWolf drives.

A custom build with TrueNas was coming in at over $1k.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Hm, yeah maybe I just don't know the pricing/cost of a Synology then.

In my country just the price of a 8Tb IronWolf drive costs almost 1 entire month of the minimum wage here.

The cheapest Synology NAS available here is the DS223J, and it comes with no drives included and costs 80% of two months of minimum wage.

It's way cheaper to repurpose old hardware or buy from AliExpress and make a DIY build, there is no comparison and also I have no idea of what "custom build" are you mentioning, as most NAS builds I've seen are pretty cheap as you don't need much horsepower and DDR4 memory has low prices nowadays.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

We use Synology at work to avoid paying CALs on a WS VM

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

After my past Ubiquiti experiences I can't agree on the UDM...