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I’d definitely skip this in favor of something consumer-grade. You can find used Dell Optiplexes all over the place cheap and stick a large drive inside/outside of it and use it for a couple of years.

A big old server is just going to drain your wallet on both power and parts with equal or worse performance and a lot more complexity for what 99% of home users will use it for.

It sounds like your main goal is probably a media server and an Optiplex will give you an i5 or i7 with QuickSync which works excellent for processing video. RAID isnt really necessary here because you can just download more Linux ISOs if these one are lost, though it can be great later if you buy a bunch more drives and expand into other areas where data is less replaceable.

Can’t say on access behind CG-NAT, as I haven’t ever dealt with it, but Tailscale might work as a free third-party option though that’s just a guess.

Yeah, same.

I don’t know which version this 2620 is (they’ve been around since 2012), but any modern consumer CPU can outpace it by an order of magnitude - tho with fewer PCIe lanes (& possibly memory throughput, but not sure, maybe not), but it doesn’t sound like you need them.

Also idling makes quite a lot of difference even with cheap electricity bcs it’s ²⁴⁄₇ (eg 10 monies more a month in a rig that costs 200 monies either way is perhaps worth considering). Those “old” servers didn’t really power down much (CPU voltage + other parts, like server mobos, generally consume more power).

Additionally to consider whatever the pro admin (closed sauce) tools the server has.

And this is just me, but I also don’t need RAID for my use case (and drive prices), for the same price as one HDD (a few years back that is) I would rather add that drive in an additional separate server/PC & have a backup system instead of just a backup drive (and it can be in a remote location in case of other emergencies/damages, like fire or whatever).

You have to think about the extra costs, like power use , loudness etc. I have no idea what your server would be like, but it’s something to think about.

loudness etc

What fan noise? A benefit of being clinically deaf.

How expensive is your kWh? What about noise? What about cooling in summer? Your SAS drives will fail, so make sure you have spares.

I personally would look into suitable used Lenovo TinyPCs and a passively cooled switch to cluster them. Consider your nodes expendable. Cluster storage at node scale rather than RAID.

I wouldn’t get something that old. Get a workstation or small form factor machine that is 3-10 years old.

Old desktop pc would be ideal, for exactly the problems you pointed out. The only thing that is making me consider this is the already included drives, which is where i’d end up spending most of my money (especially now, thanks ai)

I mean, the same capacity would cost WAY too much more. For a similar capacity + the system i’d have to spend at least double :(

The rule of thumb with servers is * Performance * Reliability * Power usage * Noise * Size

The trick is to remember you don’t actually need much performance. A home server isn’t generally a powerful machine. What matters is that it is always there.

A raspberry pi would actually make a wonderful server. It’s power efficient, small and quiet, with enough grunt to do most jobs. Unfortunately, it falls down on reliability. Arm servers seem more prone to issues than x64 servers. Pis also seems particularly crash prone. Crashing every 3-6 months isn’t an issue for most pi usages. When it’s running your smart home, it’s a pain in the arse.

I eventually settled on a intel NUC system. It’s a proper computer (no HDD on usb etc), with a very low power draw. It also seems particularly stable. Mine has done several years at this point, without a crash.

Bigger servers are only needed when you have too much demand for a low powered option, or need specialist capabilities ²⁴⁄₇. Very few home labbers will need one, in practice.

It’s also worth noting that you can slave a powerful, but power hungry system, to a smaller, efficient one. Only power it on when a highly demanding task requires sorting.

Are 22TB Exos derives around 400+ monies (double the price from a year ago). 6TB are only half that? Idk even where to look for prices bcs stock is weird.

Yeah, these are dark times, evey gen things get worse instead of advancements ppl can use.

Still, keep in mind that those “nice” SAS drives are still slow & might have been in operation for 12 years.