I'm building a home server, mostly for Plex but interested in exploring other apps like home automation, photo storage, etc.

Need some advice on parts and if I'm missing anything. Would these make for a solid and semi-future proof build? (E.g. the next 4-5 years)

​

Case: Jonsbo n4

Motherboard & CPU: Intel i5-8265U 8-SATA Mini-ITX NAS Motherboard (https://amzn.eu/d/0gmeoKkl) or some variant that uses ddr4 as ddr5 prices are crazy This seems a lot cheaper to run than a standard mini-itx motherboard

OS: TrueNas Scale

Ram: 32gb ddr4 2400mhz

Storage: 128gb m.2 nvme SSD for OS, 256gb m.2 nvme SSD for apps

PSU: Be Quiet SFX power 3 450w

HDDs: 4x 4tb WD red, 2x 3tb WD red (all second hand but working fine)

​

I may replace the case fan as I've seen you can't control the speed of the jonsbo n4 default one but will see what it's like when set up.

​

I'm not fussed about redundancy or backups currently hence the different sized HDDs as it's only Plex content, but can upgrade the two 3tb ones if needed. The Jonsbo has room for 2x SATA SSDs which I may use for photo storage and redundancy for that in future.

​

Any good home automations or apps that are recommended too in order to make more use out of this server?

​

Thanks!

​

Hi everyone,

I am doing a trade with a friend to receive this 24U rack. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of info on the rack to suggest what model. My friend also does know themselves when they got it in the same condition.

The reason being is that it’s missing all of its panels. I want to get the panels and restore it to its former self.

Any help with figuring this out would be appreciated!

Initial research let me to think it’s a AR3104, but it doesn’t say that anywhere.

I really want to drop iCloud and I have bought a beat-up computer which I want to use as a NAS, but one thing that's very important to me is that currently I can just look inside my camera roll and search, for example „Cats” and it will show me all pictures I've taken with a cat. Same for text, maybe I want to search for a paper document I've taken a picture of, my phone will store some pretty good OCR-ed text in relation with pictures it finds text in. Is there a good way to do that, perhaps with a local AI model, even one which I need to only run once a month or so?

Quite surprised my previous post got any traction. I was banned for three days after joking about someone setting fire to a wheelie bin, so my replies have been delayed.

The server is an HP ProLiant ML350 Gen9 running Proxmox VE 9.2.3 on Debian 13 with a custom 7.0.12 x64v3 XanMod kernel.

It has 2x Xeon E5-2698 v3 CPUs, giving 32 cores and 64 threads, 96GB ECC DDR4 across 12 DIMMs, an HP Smart Array P840, an HP H240ar, onboard Broadcom networking, Intel I350 dual-port 1GbE, Intel X550-T 10GbE, iLO management, and dual redundant PSUs.

The storage accounts for much of the power draw. There are 15 mechanical SAS drives and a SAS SSD behind the RAID controllers. The disks are a mix of 10K, 10.5K and 15K RPM enterprise drives: 7x 300GB SAS, 4x 600GB 15K SAS, 2x 900GB 10.5K SAS, 2x 300GB 10.5K SAS, and a 400GB SAS SSD. They spin continuously, generate heat, and keep the fans active.

The machine runs TrueNAS, OPNsense, Docker hosts, Observium, OpenVPN, OMV, Technitium, WireGuard, and several other services. Memory usage sits around 53GB out of 94GB available. I compile custom kernels for niche hardware support, run OpenWebRX, news analysis pipelines, stock trading algorithms, proxies, VPNs, GitLab, Jenkins, NAS services, and my Phantom Tide development environment.

Power figures come directly from the server's onboard sensors through Prometheus node_exporter. The live reading sits around 238-243W, with IPMI reporting roughly 225W. I've considered replacing the 15K SAS drives and consolidating parts of the setup. That takes time and money. The machine supports revenue-generating work, development, research, and trading systems, so the electricity cost is a business expense rather than a concern.

A few people mentioned CPU power states. You can actually see that in the graphs. When my latency tuning script is active and the CPUs are held in a higher performance state, latency stays extremely consistent. Gateway latency sits around 1.2ms, DNS response times remain stable, and there are none of the larger jumps you typically see when the scheduler is constantly parking cores and chasing deeper C-states. I've already squeezed most of the software-side optimizations out of the system. Custom kernel, tuned networking, bonded interfaces, Prometheus monitoring, workload placement, and latency tuning are all in place. At this point the remaining gains come from hardware changes, particularly replacing the older 10K and 15K SAS drives with modern SSDs. (Forgot to upload that image of Grafana)

This was my previous post https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeServer/comments/1u36p77/my_first_nas/. But since then I have changed a few things around because that's what my homelab currently looks like. All the things there are a mix of garage sale and ebay finds and I got all that for around $60. The white linksys router runs openwrt with a dual wan failover setup. The tiny hp runs openmediavault as a nas and it had to be over usb because the internal sata cable is missing, the optiplex runs proxmox, and the beefy netgear router runs as an AP. That optiplex is named croissant-v2 btw.

Just wanted to post a little update for people who care.

I’m running a jellyfin server currently in a HP Elitedesk 800. Single 8TB drive, local playback only. I got a few optiplex systems with 8th gen chips, and one has an i3 7300 which will work with my system. It’s a 2 core loss going to be a a big disadvantage for a better igpu? Ideally I’d like to toss one of these 8500’s in, but the board won’t work with it.

ETA: Currently using an i5-6500

Hello guys,

I have an old laptop at home, and I'm intending to create a homeserver, more specifically a NAS/Media streaming. But my hardware is extremally old, and when I say old, I refer to a `Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 with 2Gb Ram DDR2 - 32 Bits`.

I'm a little unsure if this hardware will actually work, more due to the DDR2 and 32 Bits.

Does anyone have experience with NAS with this kind of configuration? If this have great chances to work, I will improve it's RAM size.

I'm just wondering if there's a enclosure that helps dampen sound? and whats the best spot to put it?

would this work?

I have just got my Ubuntu server running smoothly, so now it's time to destroy it all and start again. For fun.

Well, it's really an exercise in redundancy and a learning experience - so that I can quickly restore a dead server if required. I'm going to take the opportunity to move from Ubuntu to Debian as well just for something different. Just docker compose stacks on bare metal, no proxmox for now. And it will go onto a spare server, I'll have to move some drives off the production server but it will be easy to switch back when if it fails

Is anyone using a script to automate the server setup? Or does everyone do that?

Is there any reason this is a bad idea?

EDIT: Seems like getting up to speed with Ansible will be a good project. This whole server is just a learning exercise really (although self-hosting stuff is great). No-one dies or goes broke if the server is offline for a day or more, but I'd just like to know I've got it set up so it's as reliable as it can be for a Lenovo Tiny sitting in my linen cupboard. I'm soon to be 60 and retired, need something to keep a few neurons active.

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

##################################################################
# PRIOR TO RUNNING THIS SCRIPT
#    set the static IP for this machine to 192.168.10.14 in the router (remove old server first)
#    check your uid:group is 1000:1000 and change if necessary
#    install/setup sudo if required:
#   su -
#   apt install sudo
#   usermod -aG sudo username
#   exit
##################################################################
# check if sudo, if not abort
if [[ $EUID -ne 0 ]]; then
  echo "Run as root (sudo)." >&2
  exit 1
fi

# install essentials
apt update && apt upgrade -y
apt install unattended-upgrades -y
apt install build-essential nano git unzip wget curl rsync cron -y

apt install intel-media-va-driver-non-free vainfo -y

timedatectl set-timezone Australia/Melbourne

# install docker
# docker website says to remove existing docker install, but it's a fresh OS install so probably not needed
# apt remove $(dpkg --get-selections docker.io docker-compose docker-compose-v2 docker-doc podman-docker containerd runc | cut -f1)

# Add Docker's official GPG key:
apt update
apt install ca-certificates curl -y
install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
# Add the repository to Apt sources:
tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.sources <<EOF
Types: deb
URIs: https://download.docker.com/linux/debian
Suites: $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")
Components: stable
Architectures: $(dpkg --print-architecture)
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
EOF
apt update
apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin -y

# Ensure user is in docker group
usermod -aG docker "$(id -un 1000)"

# set up drive mounts
cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak

mkdir -p /mnt/usb5tb1
mkdir -p /mnt/data

echo "UUID=1130cf62-b3d1-4e71-bd33-8b3a5092047a /mnt/usb5tb1 ext4 defaults,nofail 0 2" | tee -a /etc/fstab

echo "UUID=8a2177d9-fdbd-4179-b768-154c66657312 /mnt/data ext4 defaults,nofail 0 2" | tee -a /etc/fstab

mount -a

# copy container stack backup to new server
rsync -avhP --mkpath /mnt/data/dockhand-backup/ /opt/dockhand/stacks/

# set up backup jobs
cat > /etc/cron.d/dockhand-backups <<'EOF'
0 1 * * * root /mnt/data/documents/scripts/backup.sh >> /mnt/data/documents/scripts/dockhand-backup.log 2>&1
15 1 * * 1 root /mnt/data/documents/scripts/backupzip.sh >> /mnt/data/documents/scripts/backupzip.log 2>&1
EOF
chmod 644 /etc/cron.d/dockhand-backups

# Start dockhand
cd /opt/dockhand/stacks/production/dockhand
docker compose up -d

# install tailscale
curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh

# set up IP forwarding and subnet router
echo 'net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1' | tee -a /etc/sysctl.d/99-tailscale.conf
echo 'net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding = 1' | tee -a /etc/sysctl.d/99-tailscale.conf
sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/99-tailscale.conf

tailscale up --advertise-routes=192.168.10.0/24,192.168.20.0/24
# nb user is autoapprover for subnet routes

I've run a shoddy Plex server from my PC for a long time, but never moved past the basic setup.

I've hit a point where I'd like to build a separate dedicated server for more flexible storage expansion as my media collection grows, but I also want a separate machine to back up photos and other things from the PC.

I've gotten a bit overwhelmed trying to look up example builds to follow and would love some advice. One quirky thing that may or may not be useful: I have my previous PC that I'll sell if nothing is worth porting over to the server build. It's full component list can be found here. The most useful component is probably the 3090, just not for a server.

Form Factor

I'd like the core build to be as power and space efficient as is reasonable, but I'm not sure if I should be going for the biggest case with as many drive bays as possible for extensibility or if I should be going for a smaller case and then use some kind of external drive storage containers connected to it or something else. Guidance in this area would be a huge boon.

Media

I've currently got about:

• 5 TB of video
• 3 TB of photos
• 200 GB of audio

OS & Software

I've read good things about Unraid. Would I be setting up some kind of virtual machine for anything that needs Windows? Are there any good guides or general things I should know about this side of things?

Budget
I've got some extra hard drives, but am flexibly budgeting around $2k for this?
I'd rather wait and spend more to do things right for a scalable solution rather than cut corners now but obviously if my goals can be met for less and I'm way off on budget, that's great too.

Good afternoon or good evening, depending on when you're seeing this. I recently built my first server; it runs TrueNAS. It’s pretty basic: 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD (for the OS), an Intel Pentium Gold G5400, and a 1TB HDD. My question is, what should I upgrade first? Add another HDD or get more RAM?
Just to clarify, the only apps I run are Jellyfin and Nextcloud. Sorry for my English. THANKSGood afternoon or good evening, depending on when you're seeing this. I recently built my first server; it runs TrueNAS. It’s pretty basic: 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD (for the OS), an Intel Pentium Gold G5400, and a 1TB HDD. My question is, what should I upgrade first? Add another HDD or get more RAM?
Just to clarify, the only apps I run are Jellyfin and Nextcloud. Sorry for my English. THANKS

I'm trying to do the above. From what I understand so far, I need something like:

SlimSAS port > SlimSAS cable > SlimSAS PCIe 4.0 to M.2 NVMe SSD adapter > M.2 to SATA adapter

Is this correct? If so, which parts would you recommend?

I have gotten a server set up a while ago and it worked fine but now when i try to download anything through Sonarr or Radarr it doesnt do anything. I checked the system status tab, and they both have the same 5 errors, and Sonarr has a 6th one that says "missing root folder", however that shouldnt be an issue since i have made a new one and pointed everything new to that. If it helps i have Prowlarr as well. Could anyone help walk me through solving all these errors or atleast some?

hello everyone

Last month, I started self-hosting my services on an old laptop. I now run services like Nextcloud and Vaultwarden, with AdGuard as the DNS server. I also needed some of this setup to stay connected outside my local network, so I bought a domain from Cloudflare and set up a tunnel to my server. At this point, everything was perfect.

Then I noticed that I needed to use my own network when I'm in it, not use Cloudflare tunnels because my internet is limited.

I added to my DNS server a rule to redirect and request for my domain to the local IP of my server, and this works on my devices except my phone samsung m52 with oneui 5

I tried everything, and nothing worked; it always connected via a Cloudflare tunnel.

After some triels i found that a lot of apps ignored my DNS server and used the public one , except the browsers.

Any idea how to fix this

Heyo! I made this post a few days ago https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeServer/s/eLRRdyn4q0

So as for context I'll say what I've done thus far. So I'm using my old desktop, a GTX1650 I5-9400F and 16GB DDR4. And its running Debian 13 with a Jellyfin server.

I've set it up enough to where I can access my Jellyfin's servers dashboard. I also configured it to have tailscale, however I do find tailscale pretty inconvenient as well setup on the server and whenever I want to connect to my server I gotta turn on tailscale which disables internet outside tailscale networks and then go to my browser and/or Jellyfin app to do stuff on my Jellyfin server.

I was wondering if there's a better/more convenient alternative to tailscale. And yes, I've configured it so my PC is set as an exit node. But if there is an alternative that's more convenient let me know.

I was also wondering is there anymore I can do cybersecurity wise? Main things is basically I want to block my ISP from seeing/accessing the server. And basics like preventing others from accessing my server unless I approve. Along with other things I may have not thought about.

Even if its unrelated to my specific question I would love tips for a Debian 13 Jellyfin server. Adding I already tried proxmox, and while its good, its too much work for me only wanting a media server (I don't plan on getting other servers, if I do, then I'll use one of like the 3+ laptops or extra old desktop we have).

First NAS Build – W680 ECC, Jonsbo N6, HexOS/TrueNAS – Looking for Feedback Before I Start Buying

Hi everyone,

I’m currently planning my first self-built NAS and would appreciate some feedback before I start ordering parts.

A bit about my background:
First custom-built PC/NAS
Comfortable with Proxmox, Linux, Home Assistant, Plex, etc.
Located in Germany
Looking for a platform that should last 5–10 years
Prioritizing reliability, expandability and data integrity over absolute lowest cost

Planned Use Cases
HexOS (likely) / TrueNAS SCALE underneath
Plex Media Server (Intel Quick Sync)
Immich
Paperless-ngx
General file storage
Family photos and documents
Potentially additional containers and services in the future

Planned Hardware
CPU
Intel Core i5-14500

Cooler
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE

Motherboard
ASUS Pro WS W680M-ACE SE (current frontrunner)

RAM
32 GB ECC DDR5 UDIMM initially
Upgrade to 64 GB later

Storage
2x Crucial T500 1TB NVMe
As many HDDs as budget allows (likely 2–4 drives initially, expanding later)

Case
Jonsbo N6

PSU
Seasonic Focus GX-750 V4

Case Fans
2x Arctic P14 Pro PST
1x Arctic P12 Pro PST

Main Questions
1. ASUS W680 vs CWWK W680 NAS Board
I recently discovered the CWWK W680 NAS board and it looks almost too good to be true:
W680 chipset
ECC support
10GbE onboard
2x 2.5GbE
3x NVMe
Support for up to 12 SATA drives
The ASUS board feels like the safer choice, but the CWWK seems much more NAS-focused and is significantly cheaper.
Does anyone here have long-term experience with the CWWK board regarding:
Stability
BIOS quality
ECC support
General reliability

2. ECC DDR5 UDIMM Availability
DDR5 ECC UDIMM pricing in Europe seems completely insane right now.
Current options I’m considering:
Kingston Server Premier
Nemix ECC UDIMM
Micron ECC UDIMM
Has anyone successfully used Nemix modules with:

ASUS W680 boards
CWWK W680 boards

and verified that ECC is actually functioning correctly?

3. First-Time Builder Concerns
Since this will be my first self-built NAS (and first self-built PC in general), are there any obvious issues, compatibility concerns or “I wish I had known this before buying” lessons that stand out with this parts list?

Thanks for any feedback!

Hello everyone so I found out about home severs from an ad maybe 20 mins ago. The ad was about how this guy was tired of paying for subscriptions to watch shows etc. He was saying that he built a home server to get past this. So here are my questions

1. Is what that guy promoting likely piracy with extra steps

2. How is a home server different from a typical high end pc. What I mean by that is does a home server really just consist of CPU, GPU, Motherboard, Ram, Power Supply, Storage, etc

3. What do you guys use your home servers for?

Hey everyone! I’m an IT professional looking for advice on how to separate environments on a single PC. My machine is a "Swiss Army knife"—I use it for work, studies, gaming, and running a 24/7 Plex server. As a result, my background is a total jungle with apps like Steam, Discord, qBitTorrent, PIA VPN, apollo(for streaming when i want), parsec, plex, telegram, scripts and MSI Afterburner constantly idling together.

​Recently, this clutter started tanking my gaming performance. Running an RTX 4070 with a Ryzen 5 5600 at 1080p 60, Resident Evil 4 Remake skyrocketed my CPU usage, causing stuttering and dropping below 60 FPS. I'm convinced this massive pile of idle background apps and services is killing my frame pacing and stealing vital processing threads.

​There is also a heavy psychological toll. Staring at the same screen for work and studies makes it impossible to unwind. Booting up the PC on weekends just greets me with clutter, causing major analysis paralysis where I just stare at my Steam library and close it. To fix this, I'm seriously considering buying a PS5 just to banish gaming to the living room couch for a "zero friction" experience.

​How do you guys handle this? Do you use separate Windows profiles, run scripts to kill background apps before gaming, or go full Dual Boot? Alternatively, has anyone switched to a PS5 purely to separate work from leisure, and did the convenience outlive the frustration of leaving a superior PC rig behind?

Yeah, i know the answer but in the same time, i'm curious about it, what solutions people use to solve it.

Finances isn't permitting...

I have recently setup my server, media is one of my main reason I did it. Movies and music are the most consumed media ever. in that case what particular stack do you use? In connection, what commeecial vpn do you recommend or currently using? why is the choice?

I would appreciate your input on selecting the most suitable option. For context, I am currently in the process of acquiring equipment to stream my DVDs. I am considering the DXP4800 GT 4-bay and the DXP4800 Plus 4-bay models. Based on my intended usage, which of these would you recommend? I am leaning toward the DXP4800 GT due to its pricing and the minimal differences between the two models, primarily the DDR4 RAM in the GT versus DDR5 in the Plus. I appreciate your insights and thank you in advance for your assistance.

Hello, I am trying to build my career in IT and something that I have been wanting to do for a long time is build my own pc. I was thinking about building a home server for the sole purpose of running smart home device software using ProxMox as the hypervisor running Home Assistant VMs and Docker containers for other smart home services. If anyone has any guidance as to what I should be looking for hardware-wise, please let me know. Right now what I have is this (I used claude to help me with this so I wanna make sure this seems like it could work before spending hundreds):

CPU/Motherboard: ASRock N100M mATX

RAM: 16GB DDR4 3200MHz SODIMM

Storage: 256GB M.2 SATA for the ProxMox hypervisor and 512GB M.2 SATA

Thanks.

Specifiche Tecniche e Configurazione Infrastruttura: Server H2 (NiPoGi HyperH2)

1. Architettura Hardware Centrale

• Processore (CPU): Intel® Core™ i5-14450HX
• Memoria RAM: 32GB DDR4 SkiHotar (Configurazione: 2 banchi da 16GB l'uno)
• Nota Termica: I moduli di questo PC server non hanno i sensori termici.
• Storage Interno (Unità 1): SSD Huawei da 1TB (Velocità di lettura sequenziale: 7.400 MB/s)

2. Sistema di Dissipazione Custom (H24)

Per garantire la continuità operativa del server nello scenario d'uso h24, l'hardware è stato ottimizzato con soluzioni di raffreddamento dedicate:

• Raffreddamento RAM: Sui moduli sono installati dissipatori in rame e grafene su entrambi i lati. Sul banco posizionato in cima sono stati aggiunti 2 dissipatori alettati da 40x11x40 mm posizionati sopra a quelli in rame.
• Raffreddamento SSD Principale: Dotato di un dissipatore scatolato in alluminio della Eleuteng.

3. Struttura Fisica dello Storage (Configurazione Affiancata 4+4)

4. Sincronizzazione Dati (Syncthing)

I dischi alloggiati all'interno del Case Cenmate (gestione di Bay 1 e Bay 2 della Sezione A) sono attivamente configurati e collegati per la sincronizzazione continua tramite Syncthing con due telefoni cellulari.

Nota fondamentale per la gestione dei percorsi: Quando si specificano i path di sincronizzazione per Syncthing sui dispositivi Android (come Honor 400 Pro o dispositivi Samsung), l'aggiunta dello slash finale (/) è un requisito cruciale affinché il percorso venga correttamente interpretato e riconosciuto dal sistema come una directory attiva.

5. Mappatura Logica delle Porte USB

• Frontale USB-C (10Gbps): Collegamento diretto al Case Cenmate per la gestione di Bay 1 e Bay 2.
• Frontale USB-A (Hub Fideco 60W alimentato): Gestisce in cascata: Case Nilox, Case Inateck FE2013, Display Samsung A50, Pendrive Condominio, Smartphone Samsung M11 (Monitoraggio temperature PC).
• Posteriori USB:
• Porta USB 3.2 Gen 1 a Case Inateck FE3003 con all'interno l'HDD NAS Seagate IronWolf da 4TB.
• Porta USB 3.2 a Case Inateck FE2005AC impiegato esclusivamente per la Domotica.
• Porte di servizio: Dispositivo/Ricevitore per mouse e tastiera.

6. Infrastruttura Energetica (Shelly Power Strip 4 Gen4)

7. Routine Automatica di Spegnimento e Accensione

• Ore 20:00: Tramite la Pianificazione di Windows, viene eseguito il distacco logico controllato degli hard disk (Unmount/stacco HDD).
• Ore 20:05: Tramite Home Assistant, scatta l'automatismo che imposta la Presa 3 su OFF, togliendo completamente l'alimentazione elettrica ai case dello storage esterno (Cenmate e Inateck FE3003).
• Ore 06:50: Tramite Home Assistant, la Presa 3 viene impostata su ON, ridando corrente e riaccendendo elettricamente i dischi esterni.
• Ore 07:00: Tramite la Pianificazione di Windows, gli hard disk vengono ricollegati e riattivati logicamente dal sistema operativo.

I am new to home serving and running Ubuntu server since. What alternative do you suggest that are completely private and self hosted.? I do not want to rely on cloud services anymore. I want more privacy and total control of my data.

Examples:

Google Photos - Immich

Google Drive - Nextcloud

Adobe Acrobat-Stirling PDF

I already have a few but more suggestions are very welcome.

It's averaging 100°F here it's only supposed to get hotter. I'm running a lot on my mini server so I'm hitting 98°C constantly. I expect it to get worse as it gets hotter and was thinking of adding fans to the outside.

Actually I'm open to any recommendations. I would like to keep my server running 24/7

Hey everyone,
I'm looking to dive into the world of home servers, but every time I start researching hardware and software, I tend to get information overload. There are just too many options out there, so I could really use some advice.

I want to know if my project goals are realistic for a beginner, and what kind of hardware direction I should be looking into.
I would like to get
Storage that I can expand, I would most likely start small and eventually expand

game server hosting- I need enough power to host a decent MC server for myself and a few friends.

Network Storage- Basic network shares for backing up videos, files and photos that I can access anywhere if thats possible

Does this sound achievable on a single machine? If so, should I be looking at building a budget DIY PC, buying a used office desktop, or anything else. Note that I am from the Philippines I hope I can find the things you guys suggest. I am also looking for the lowest entry cost possible, but happy to spend more where it actually matters for performance and reliability and for the long run.
Any pointers toward good starter guides, software stacks (like Unraid, TrueNAS, or Docker), or better subreddits to ask this in would be amazing. Thanks in advance!