this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
1 points (100.0% liked)

Self Hosted - Self-hosting your services.

11391 readers
2 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules

Important

Beginning of January 1st 2024 this rule WILL be enforced. Posts that are not tagged will be warned and if not fixed within 24h then removed!

Cross-posting

If you see a rule-breaker please DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hi folks, I'm considering setting up an offsite backup server and am seeking recommendations for a smallish form factor PC. Mainly, are there some suitable popular second hand PCs which meet the following requirements:

  • fits 4x 3.5" HDD
  • Smaller than a regular tower (e.g. mATX or ITX)
  • Equipped with a 6th of 7th gen Intel CPU at least (for power efficiency and transcoding, in case I want it to actually to some transcoding) with video output.
  • Ideally with upgradeable RAM

Do you know of something which meets those specs and is rather common on the second hand market?

Thanks!

Edit: I'm looking for a prebuilt system, such as a dell optiplex or similar.

top 4 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

I have a Silverstone DS380.

ITX form factor, SFX power supply.

Houses 8x3.5 and 4x2.5.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't think you'll find an SFF that'll hold multiple 3.5" drives. Many regular desktops won't hold that many drives.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Thank you for taking the time to answer. Indeed, the title is a simplification, but I was hoping that the body of the text would highlight that it does not have to be a literal SFF but just something on the smaller side.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Sorry, I didn't catch that.

I'm working on something similar. I currently have an SFF that I've shoe-horned three 2.5" drives into. I had to get a power splitting cable for them (it's surprisingly designed for this power splitting, even though there's nowhere to mount all the drives).

Would 2.5" drives meet your cost point? You can fit 4 of them in the space of a single 3.5 with adapters designed just for this.

Another option (that costs more) is a PCIE card that hosts 4 M2 drives. If I could afford it, that would be my approach. But 4TB M2s are still pretty pricey.

I've looked around a lot - it seems like it will cost no matter which way I go. A Mini-ITX case isn't cheap, and that's probably the most compact case that can support multiple drives.