Q The Misanthrope

My server is exactly as I need. Basically 1 year old now. This year I really want to do vlans to control the network more than an off the shelf router. I work in tech and still am struggling because all I know is meraki bullshit and that’s not priced for the typical home user.

I’ll need a few AP’s and a switch and firewall. I don’t know what to get or what to buy and each research session ends with more options than I started with. Anyway that’s my goal. I’ll get there eventually.

DON’T DATE ROBOTS!

As a child, the house we grew up in had a very large tree in our back yard. I had a memory of burying some skeleton keys near it but couldn’t remember where. The house was old enough that we’d find skeleton keys occasionally and also as a kid they are special.

I searched for days, weeks, months… Digging holes all over the yard and under the tree. I recruited neighborhood kids and friends.

For two summers we searched for buried treasure. Never found them. Might have been a dream I had of burying the keys. I still think about it occasionally and wonder. The tree is long gone and the truth is I’ll never know for sure.

Oh, you’ll know.

They are sata drives.

Seagate Exos X16. 6 of them refurb is still $800.

The case is hot swap with just an hba connection so I can let zfs do it’s thing.

I don’t see “screwed the pooch” used much but it always is funny to me.

I was limited by the processor and some existing ram which basically dictated my purchases to save money.

You’re completely right though, a more modern system would be similar in price and more capable.

I blew my budget on drives and a hot swap case. The rest is easy to upgrade when the time comes.

I purchased a case, SilverStone Technology CS382 8-Bay. Around $200-225.

Bought used parts off eBay:

Asus P8Z77-M LGA 1155 DDR3 SDRAM Desktop Motherboard $75

32GB DDR3 1333 $35

LSI 6Gbps SAS HBA 9200-81 IT Mode P20 $35

Nvidia Quadro P620 2GB GDDR5 4x mini DisplayPort $70

I have six 12tb drives (seagate exos), purchased refurb from serverpartdeals.com and had great luck with them and their support. I found that on Reddit data hoarder sub.

I run Truenas. 4 drives for primary. 2 drives for backup of the first 4. And I have a qnap 4 bay dumb raid box for a third backup with old drives I had. My paranoia but not related really to the nas.

Anyway it’s possible and I enjoy what I built. Also that case is loud, get a fan controller too.