The power consumption is one of the reasons when I rebuild pfsense, or Truenas boxes every 5 or 6 years is I always use an Intel T series chip so it maxes out at 35w. Pretty much perfect for a DIY appliance.
@@Lara-tk2wg if you want more power limit control go get Intel gen 6/7/8 they are less locked compared to new platform For Intel IGP video transcode encode , gen 7/8/9/10 are nice but Intel quicksync have big quality and function upgrade in gen 11 or above Others stuff could be nvme slot or SATA drive connector, some model have 1 m2 slot missing. All of above are ages so don't try to looking for high performance build, all Intel are kinda efficient if you limit their speed and voltage with throttlestop or similar software. Best get a model with USB3 , then you can get a 2.5G/5G USB adapter and temporary make them a highspeed node
I have three HP Eiltedesk 800 G4 Mini's, each with a 6-core i5-8600T, 64GB of DDR4 RAM and an M.2 NVMe SSD for the OS. At idle, each draws only 4W according to a Kill-A-Watt meter. Under full CPU load (with stress-ng), they shoot up to 47W. Very impressive, especially the idle power - HP really optimized the power management in the BIOS. Of course, I'm going to add a 2nd internal M.2 drive and a 2.5" SSD, so those numbers are going to go up a few watts. Also, I've been testing a DAS Sabrent 5-bay USB-C (3.2gen2 10Gb/s) enclosure attached to one of the HP's to act as a NAS. I would expect that to add another 50W when all 5 drives are spun up.
I like the creative use cases you come up with for using compute hardware. As someone who has been considering a NAS for the longest but did not care for the "industry standard" Synology (w/ underwhelming hardware), I was considering the UGreen NAS (hesitating due to relatively new OS) before it came out and backed it after watching your video about how to turn off Watchdog timer and install 3rd party OS. Similarly, I have been considering this DAS wondering if I could use one of the many similar mini-PCs I have lying around, install Proxmox and connect it to the DAS along with installing one of the many Coral TPUs and turn it into a Frigate NVR (I think Hardware Haven has done a similar video on it). Basically an OS with ability to containerize apps with decent storage. Keep up the good work. Would love to see a follow-up video once you use this for some time and your findings including pros/cons. Keep up the great work! 👍
I have a couple M93 and they're fantastic little units. I use a Xeon E3-1265Lv3 in my server machine to replace the 2C4T 4570T it came with and its been mostly solid. I had a cap fail in one which expanded enough to stop the fan from spinning. Replaced the cap and had no issues since.
I've used the M73 from Lenovo for work at previous jobs before. They serve their intended purpose as a business PC. They can handle a DAS perfectly fine and if you put 8GB RAM in them and don't overload them. Don't spend too much on one and pair it with a 4 or 8 bay DAS and it will serve well as a storage server or storage RAID server. That said, you can get an M710q that has a i5-7500T for about $70 + shipping on eBay right now. If you want an SSD instead of HDD, it'll cost you more. If you downgrade to a 6500T, it can save a few $$, but you might lose the HDD.
yes, i have one. HTPC (YOLO edition) 100+ terabytes, no redundancy, in a node 804 with qnap tr-004 in DAS mode. ryzen 5 pro 5650ge, 64gb ram, b450 matx, nvidia t400, bunch of drives… not as cheap as an old desktop, but still not too expensive. so, yes. i decided for this solution when i realized id need brand new, or at least emtpy drives in order to use them in a NAS. which would mean buying 10 new drives, or at least one new drive then copying from one, clearing second, copying from third to wiped second, 10 drives ranging from 8 to 16tb. plus the cost of an 8 bay NAS… yeah, i dont think so. thank you for coming to my TED talk.
@@gabrielsimon6149 I have YOLO but not so much YOLO 1x18tb + 9x3tb in a node 804 glued together using mergerfs. So like 45tb Although it is backed up in Blackblaze personal ( The not so much yolo )
@@gabrielsimon6149 razor’s edge! all joking aside. if i win the lottery, or AMC goes to the moon, ill buy 10 drives and a… 16 bay NAS and dabble with redundancy. until then… prayers saul i got. haha.
this is why you install raid when you're setting up debian minimal installation to be used for CasaOS. This way Casa will see all your hdds and ssds as one and treat it as such. This is a way to use raid with casaOS. ZimaOS supports raid directly which means it's OS in every sense while Casa is not OS in true sense so it doesn't support raid directly but it will as i said work if you set up raid during installation because Cassa will see it as single drive.
Just bought a beelink SER mini pc with a ryzen 5800H, installed proxmox, and planning to attach a DAS to it and turn it into a NAS. Been trying to look at disadvantages to it in videos and why not just buy a NAS...
@@RomanKovbasyuk I was able to do this with a terramaster DAS. The terramaster has raid 1 configuration and is attached to my beelink via USB c. I installed openmediavault in a VM and now the terramaster acts as a NAS. I even attached an additional drive I had laying around via USB and added that to openmediavault as well. Been working great the past month now.
i use a minisforum hm80 for proxmox virtualisation. one of my vms is an openmediavault fileserver. i routed a fantec 4x3.5" raid-diskshelf to this vm and i works fine. omv vm has only 2 cores and 4gb ram configured, but it runs fine. for my belongings it is a "near perfect" solution... Greetings from Germany 🙂
I have plans to use hp t628 as my nas server. For the storage, I'm using 2 hardisk 3.5 with capacity 2TB each and connected using docking station to usb 3.0. is it good? It's just for home server, like backup, share, and can be accessed from everywhere using local network, or internet.
I’m running casaos on current Ubuntu os which is running of an SSD. I’ve got all my media stored on a second internal HDD. For some reason I can’t get Jellyfin to access this media . Any suggestions?
I’m confused, you mentioned you got a mini PC with an intel 5 processor and added ram and CPU. Is the intel 5 not the CPU? Did you replace that? Or do you mean you added RAM and a SATA drive?
Heh, I have a few Debian based, CasaOS mini PC's and on 2 of them I was certain that I had broken the systems as they'd run for a short time... then die. I found out that they were timing out and going to sleep. Make sure you don't install a UI. >
Yet another 'stone soup' build: Use an e-waste micro system with some ridiculous $500+ outboard chassis/device to voltron a 'server'. Something like a Dell Precision T3620 with an i7-7700 can be had under $100 and can store 4x 3.5" hard drives internally as well as boot from a M.2, leaving 2x open PCIe slots for things like 10/25/100Gbps network cards. And before you come at me with 'muh power consumption', that Dell has a Platinum power supply, and the cost savings will more than offset the power use over a decade.
Nice config. I'm in the process of using a Raspberry PI 5 attached to a Yottamaster 5 bay USB-3.1 enclosure. The Lenovo ThinkCentre would be a great alternative if I don't get what I looking for out of the PI. Originally I purchased a Synology DS224+ 2 bay for $300. That was more than I wanted to spend. The Yottamaster came in $119. To start out, I am putting 5 - 3TB drives. The plan is to use OpenMediaVault. Though I might take a look at CasaOS. If it runs on PI, I'm in.
I have a m53, i upgraded the ram to 8gb and put in a ssd. Then i just have a 5tb external drive. Plex works great. It would be nice if the cpu was upgradable.
I turned my old q6600 tower into a NAS. I just needed to grab a new sata ssd to put OMV on it and a used 1060 6gb and a 16 tb hard drive and it's working great as a Plex server in my testing. I only needed the 16tb drive because I have about 20tb in my plex library and only a 1060 because no 4K. So really if you don't have a stupid big plex library like I do, if you have even a 17 year old system you can spruce it up for like 200 bucks. Or buy Somebody's uses gaming rig for the same, which I might do soon to get some more PCIe slots...
I set up 2 of these debian based CasaOS servers, thinking I fucked them up somehow because they kept shitting themselves after working fine for a little while. I even pulled one apart and reapplied thermal paste because I thought, maybe it was overheating and the little system was fairly old. I didn't tell Debian not to go to sleep. ffs.
my NAS consumes 3.46W at idle or around 80 watts per day. (pi4 + ugreen usb to sata + samsung evo 870 1tb). Also runs jellyfin, pihole, samba, syncthing, mastodon instance in docker, full wikipedia and dozen of local services.
This is where I struggle. I have a mini form factor pc that is great. However I need more storage. Its cheaper for me to upgrade to something like a p520 then buy a terra master usb das.
my server only uses under 60 watts but im about to retire my old 4590 i got second hand for a newer board but my server doesnt look like a server it looks like like a gaming pc with sata cables and onboard video
Good video! I just put together a similar system using Debian and Casaos in a Dell Optiplex 990! Sadly I may have to just start over bc I can’t seem to get the system to have proper access to the second “media storage” drive. I see the drive and can manage files in it, but apps like Jellyfin can’t use the drive. Maybe I’ll try Ubuntu server w CasaOS. Sad bc Debian uses almost no RAM. 🤷♂️
I'm using a lenovo M93p with a Xeon CPU E3-1265L v3 @ 2.50GHz × 4 the only thing is using linux you have to use software rendering as xeon does not like hardware rendering.
thats WAY to much effort to save a few bucks. Im dumping my old 4th gen "refresh" dell because its become so sluggish that its getting to the point that modern browser based stuff wont right smooth. And its an i7. 4c/8t. Spend more cash on a 6th gen or better. But really, spend it on an 8th gen or more. I got an 11th gen dell brand new late last summer for under $280 shipped. Its only weakness was a single 8GB sodimm. I was able to get a 32x2 for $86 (they were much cheaper then) so I'm all in just over $360 and can open 1000 tabs now lol. It also come with USB 4/thunderbolt 3 too. Oh, and full Win 10 pro with a free upgrade to 11 pro. It is a VPRO chipset in mine, but I'm not using virtualization.
Okay I want a legitimate answer in the United states is it illegal to rip blu rays. If you have an answer site it. I'm sick of being told its ethical. I WANT TO KNOW IF ITS ACTUALLY LEGAL
As long as you aren’t distributing it around then it’s fine. When you put it up to torrent or give it away to others is when it’s really considered piracy
If you own the physical copy of the Blu-ray disc and you want to make a digital file copy to play on a media server then that is okay. However if you choose to distribute then that would be considered piracy
Any good lawyer worth their salt will just say "It depends." Technically, ripping your stuff is circumventing copy protection (illegal), but it's very highly unlikely that you'll get sued just because you wanted to watch a Blu-Ray that's on the other side of the house without getting up to load it into the player. Just remember, not likely != 100% legal
Depends on the use case. For me I only need to occasionally backup and can be months between, much better having files spread across hard drives with some redundancy if one drive fails.
The power consumption is one of the reasons when I rebuild pfsense, or Truenas boxes every 5 or 6 years is I always use an Intel T series chip so it maxes out at 35w. Pretty much perfect for a DIY appliance.
How much extra do you spend to get that T series CPU, and how many -weeks- -months- years of use would it take to pay back the price delta?
Get regular version and set tdp limit .....
@@BandanazX Maybe there's another reason. For example, using a UPS with it plus making it silent.
@@frankwong9486do you have a tip for a specific model to look at?
@@Lara-tk2wg if you want more power limit control go get Intel gen 6/7/8 they are less locked compared to new platform
For Intel IGP video transcode encode , gen 7/8/9/10 are nice but Intel quicksync have big quality and function upgrade in gen 11 or above
Others stuff could be nvme slot or SATA drive connector, some model have 1 m2 slot missing.
All of above are ages so don't try to looking for high performance build, all Intel are kinda efficient if you limit their speed and voltage with throttlestop or similar software.
Best get a model with USB3 , then you can get a 2.5G/5G USB adapter and temporary make them a highspeed node
I have three HP Eiltedesk 800 G4 Mini's, each with a 6-core i5-8600T, 64GB of DDR4 RAM and an M.2 NVMe SSD for the OS. At idle, each draws only 4W according to a Kill-A-Watt meter. Under full CPU load (with stress-ng), they shoot up to 47W. Very impressive, especially the idle power - HP really optimized the power management in the BIOS. Of course, I'm going to add a 2nd internal M.2 drive and a 2.5" SSD, so those numbers are going to go up a few watts. Also, I've been testing a DAS Sabrent 5-bay USB-C (3.2gen2 10Gb/s) enclosure attached to one of the HP's to act as a NAS. I would expect that to add another 50W when all 5 drives are spun up.
I like the creative use cases you come up with for using compute hardware. As someone who has been considering a NAS for the longest but did not care for the "industry standard" Synology (w/ underwhelming hardware), I was considering the UGreen NAS (hesitating due to relatively new OS) before it came out and backed it after watching your video about how to turn off Watchdog timer and install 3rd party OS. Similarly, I have been considering this DAS wondering if I could use one of the many similar mini-PCs I have lying around, install Proxmox and connect it to the DAS along with installing one of the many Coral TPUs and turn it into a Frigate NVR (I think Hardware Haven has done a similar video on it). Basically an OS with ability to containerize apps with decent storage. Keep up the good work. Would love to see a follow-up video once you use this for some time and your findings including pros/cons. Keep up the great work! 👍
I have a couple M93 and they're fantastic little units. I use a Xeon E3-1265Lv3 in my server machine to replace the 2C4T 4570T it came with and its been mostly solid. I had a cap fail in one which expanded enough to stop the fan from spinning. Replaced the cap and had no issues since.
I'm running 4 of those Lenovos with i5 8500, they use 6-7w idle with a single m.2 in, so they are a great starting point.
I've used the M73 from Lenovo for work at previous jobs before. They serve their intended purpose as a business PC. They can handle a DAS perfectly fine and if you put 8GB RAM in them and don't overload them. Don't spend too much on one and pair it with a 4 or 8 bay DAS and it will serve well as a storage server or storage RAID server. That said, you can get an M710q that has a i5-7500T for about $70 + shipping on eBay right now. If you want an SSD instead of HDD, it'll cost you more. If you downgrade to a 6500T, it can save a few $$, but you might lose the HDD.
yes, i have one. HTPC (YOLO edition) 100+ terabytes, no redundancy, in a node 804 with qnap tr-004 in DAS mode. ryzen 5 pro 5650ge, 64gb ram, b450 matx, nvidia t400, bunch of drives… not as cheap as an old desktop, but still not too expensive. so, yes. i decided for this solution when i realized id need brand new, or at least emtpy drives in order to use them in a NAS. which would mean buying 10 new drives, or at least one new drive then copying from one, clearing second, copying from third to wiped second, 10 drives ranging from 8 to 16tb. plus the cost of an 8 bay NAS… yeah, i dont think so. thank you for coming to my TED talk.
100 TB and no RAID?!?! living on the edge
@@gabrielsimon6149 I have YOLO but not so much YOLO
1x18tb + 9x3tb in a node 804 glued together using mergerfs. So like 45tb
Although it is backed up in Blackblaze personal ( The not so much yolo )
@@gabrielsimon6149 razor’s edge! all joking aside. if i win the lottery, or AMC goes to the moon, ill buy 10 drives and a… 16 bay NAS and dabble with redundancy. until then… prayers saul i got. haha.
@@cordlesswire you really have 50+ TBs of data?
@@NomadA1 yes. i have cca 50tb of mspaint memes.
this is why you install raid when you're setting up debian minimal installation to be used for CasaOS. This way Casa will see all your hdds and ssds as one and treat it as such. This is a way to use raid with casaOS. ZimaOS supports raid directly which means it's OS in every sense while Casa is not OS in true sense so it doesn't support raid directly but it will as i said work if you set up raid during installation because Cassa will see it as single drive.
phenomenal video, I really appreciate the effort and wisdom included.
Just bought a beelink SER mini pc with a ryzen 5800H, installed proxmox, and planning to attach a DAS to it and turn it into a NAS. Been trying to look at disadvantages to it in videos and why not just buy a NAS...
Doing RAID over USB is problematic. And without RAID, having redundancy is a lot of configuration work with uncertain results.
@@RomanKovbasyuk I was able to do this with a terramaster DAS. The terramaster has raid 1 configuration and is attached to my beelink via USB c. I installed openmediavault in a VM and now the terramaster acts as a NAS. I even attached an additional drive I had laying around via USB and added that to openmediavault as well. Been working great the past month now.
i use a minisforum hm80 for proxmox virtualisation. one of my vms is an openmediavault fileserver. i routed a fantec 4x3.5" raid-diskshelf to this vm and i works fine. omv vm has only 2 cores and 4gb ram configured, but it runs fine. for my belongings it is a "near perfect" solution... Greetings from Germany 🙂
July 16 2023 Can you recommend a good 4 bay DAS available right now? Thanks!
I have plans to use hp t628 as my nas server. For the storage, I'm using 2 hardisk 3.5 with capacity 2TB each and connected using docking station to usb 3.0. is it good? It's just for home server, like backup, share, and can be accessed from everywhere using local network, or internet.
I bought this exact mini PC strictly for WinXP gaming, though I had to get the one originally designed for 7
I'm looking for a newer DDR5 based mini PC for a new home server / NAS - that uses 25W or less!
New intel n100 mini pc's sip power and are often on sale under 100
those are crappy ones with noisy fan
I recommend the m90q because it has a PCIe slot for a network card upgrade.
I’m running casaos on current Ubuntu os which is running of an SSD. I’ve got all my media stored on a second internal HDD. For some reason I can’t get Jellyfin to access this media . Any suggestions?
I’m confused, you mentioned you got a mini PC with an intel 5 processor and added ram and CPU. Is the intel 5 not the CPU? Did you replace that? Or do you mean you added RAM and a SATA drive?
Barebones does not have ram, processor or a drive.
The i5 4560 was my gaming cpu back in the day since you vould get a version that had an unlocked multiplier hehe so weird to see it now in a server
Heh, I have a few Debian based, CasaOS mini PC's and on 2 of them I was certain that I had broken the systems as they'd run for a short time... then die. I found out that they were timing out and going to sleep. Make sure you don't install a UI. >
That's a good thing to point out! Thanks for sharing.
I'm running an i5-2500k on a Define R5. Still works!
Yet another 'stone soup' build: Use an e-waste micro system with some ridiculous $500+ outboard chassis/device to voltron a 'server'.
Something like a Dell Precision T3620 with an i7-7700 can be had under $100 and can store 4x 3.5" hard drives internally as well as boot from a M.2, leaving 2x open PCIe slots for things like 10/25/100Gbps network cards. And before you come at me with 'muh power consumption', that Dell has a Platinum power supply, and the cost savings will more than offset the power use over a decade.
yeah that DAS is hair cheaper than a NAS, or you can get two usb to double sata docks for 50 bucks. 4 drives total
Nice config. I'm in the process of using a Raspberry PI 5 attached to a Yottamaster 5 bay USB-3.1 enclosure. The Lenovo ThinkCentre would be a great alternative if I don't get what I looking for out of the PI. Originally I purchased a Synology DS224+ 2 bay for $300. That was more than I wanted to spend. The Yottamaster came in $119. To start out, I am putting 5 - 3TB drives. The plan is to use OpenMediaVault. Though I might take a look at CasaOS. If it runs on PI, I'm in.
cheapest is 25 usd for dual bay usb sata dock. get two and hook to raspberry or whatever you have
What kind of transfer speeds you are getting on the HDDs via USB?
I have a m53, i upgraded the ram to 8gb and put in a ssd. Then i just have a 5tb external drive. Plex works great. It would be nice if the cpu was upgradable.
I turned my old q6600 tower into a NAS. I just needed to grab a new sata ssd to put OMV on it and a used 1060 6gb and a 16 tb hard drive and it's working great as a Plex server in my testing. I only needed the 16tb drive because I have about 20tb in my plex library and only a 1060 because no 4K. So really if you don't have a stupid big plex library like I do, if you have even a 17 year old system you can spruce it up for like 200 bucks. Or buy Somebody's uses gaming rig for the same, which I might do soon to get some more PCIe slots...
How is the performace on the das box with USB3?
What’s the price on the DAS?
I basically did the same thing with an Optiplex with the same CPU and I have it connected to an OLD QNAP NAS
I set up 2 of these debian based CasaOS servers, thinking I fucked them up somehow because they kept shitting themselves after working fine for a little while. I even pulled one apart and reapplied thermal paste because I thought, maybe it was overheating and the little system was fairly old.
I didn't tell Debian not to go to sleep. ffs.
my NAS consumes 3.46W at idle or around 80 watts per day. (pi4 + ugreen usb to sata + samsung evo 870 1tb). Also runs jellyfin, pihole, samba, syncthing, mastodon instance in docker, full wikipedia and dozen of local services.
This is where I struggle. I have a mini form factor pc that is great. However I need more storage. Its cheaper for me to upgrade to something like a p520 then buy a terra master usb das.
I'm not sure how much you need, but there are sizable external drives. I have a 5tb with usb3 connected. Plex works good
my server only uses under 60 watts but im about to retire my old 4590 i got second hand for a newer board but my server doesnt look like a server it looks like like a gaming pc with sata cables and onboard video
I might 3D print my next nas case and run proxmox
can you link me those
Good video! I just put together a similar system using Debian and Casaos in a Dell Optiplex 990! Sadly I may have to just start over bc I can’t seem to get the system to have proper access to the second “media storage” drive. I see the drive and can manage files in it, but apps like Jellyfin can’t use the drive. Maybe I’ll try Ubuntu server w CasaOS. Sad bc Debian uses almost no RAM. 🤷♂️
What if I want to make a tiny box with movies on it for my kid
If you aren't playing anything higher than Blu-Ray (no 4k), a Le Potato running CoreElec with all of your movies on a USB drive will get the job done.
I'm using a lenovo M93p with a Xeon CPU E3-1265L v3 @ 2.50GHz × 4 the only thing is using linux you have to use software rendering as xeon does not like hardware rendering.
Better off getting a mini PC with an NVME slot under SSD.
thats WAY to much effort to save a few bucks. Im dumping my old 4th gen "refresh" dell because its become so sluggish that its getting to the point that modern browser based stuff wont right smooth. And its an i7. 4c/8t. Spend more cash on a 6th gen or better. But really, spend it on an 8th gen or more. I got an 11th gen dell brand new late last summer for under $280 shipped. Its only weakness was a single 8GB sodimm. I was able to get a 32x2 for $86 (they were much cheaper then) so I'm all in just over $360 and can open 1000 tabs now lol. It also come with USB 4/thunderbolt 3 too. Oh, and full Win 10 pro with a free upgrade to 11 pro. It is a VPRO chipset in mine, but I'm not using virtualization.
Yes more of these budget NAS videos please!
Love your 128TB NAS setup, but who can afford these with this Bidenflation??
CasaOS is very buggy not worth it
more like CacaOS
Works flawless what issues do you guys have?
Okay I want a legitimate answer in the United states is it illegal to rip blu rays. If you have an answer site it.
I'm sick of being told its ethical.
I WANT TO KNOW IF ITS ACTUALLY LEGAL
As long as you aren’t distributing it around then it’s fine. When you put it up to torrent or give it away to others is when it’s really considered piracy
If you own the physical copy of the Blu-ray disc and you want to make a digital file copy to play on a media server then that is okay. However if you choose to distribute then that would be considered piracy
Any good lawyer worth their salt will just say "It depends."
Technically, ripping your stuff is circumventing copy protection (illegal), but it's very highly unlikely that you'll get sued just because you wanted to watch a Blu-Ray that's on the other side of the house without getting up to load it into the player.
Just remember, not likely != 100% legal
'realistically'
nah. try $200+ here in aus.
Why is everything so fucked here...
Same for pricing in Canada
Don’t use a cpu this old. Its absurd.
Depends on the use case. For me I only need to occasionally backup and can be months between, much better having files spread across hard drives with some redundancy if one drive fails.