HW setup review for home use

[MichaelMN]

Hello everyone

I'm new here and thinking about setting up a Proxmox server at home.

What would I use the server for to start:
- Home Assistant
- Win 11 client (occasionally)
- Backup from Google/iCloud storage approx. 1 TB
- Time Machine approx. 2 TB
- Frigate for surveillance cameras
- Plex approx. 2 TB
- PiHole or similar
- Another 2-3VM/container will surely come. True to the motto, with food comes hunger

Further requirements:
- Basic reliability for
-- Hard disk failure
- Low acquisition and operating costs

Now the big question: which hardware setup is right? I have put together the following:

1. 1x ASUS PRIME B760-PLUS D4, CHF 112.90
2. 1x Intel i5 14400F 10 cores (6 P-cores and 4 E-cores) up to 4.7 GHz, CHF 136.-
3. 2x Corsair Vengeance LPX, 32GB, 3200 MHz, DDR4-RAM, DIMM, CHF 99.90
4. 1x Crucial P3 Plus 2000 GB, M.2 2280, CHF 116.-
5. 2x Seagate IronWolf 8 TB, 3.5”, CMR, CHF 364.-
6. 1x be quiet! Pure Power 11 CM, 600 W, CHF 62.-
7. 1x case for 19” rack (I'm still looking), approx. 150.-

Total: CHF 1040.80 = € 1'102.49

(I would mirror the hard disks. The power supply could change depending on the case).


What do you think of the setup? I would like to reduce the costs a little. What is oversized?
Which case can you recommend?

Many thanks!

 

[leesteken]

Crucial P3 Plus is a consumer drive but even worse: it uses QLC (please search the forum a bit).
Make sure to update the motherboard BIOS because 13th and 14th gen Intel will develop problems otherwise (as hardware reviews will show you).
6 cores and 32GB might feel a bit minimal once you start enjoying virtualization and want more. Can you upgrade that later? And maybe you want ECC on continuous running systems?

Further requirements:
- Basic reliability for
-- Hard disk failure
- Low acquisition and operating costs

Reliability against (hard/ssd/nme) drive (and/or memory) failures does not go well with low acquisition costs.

 

[dj423]

That may be a good start to just start testing to feel the waters. But the combination of low cost and reliable are a challenge.

I like to go with redundancy overload myself, I run a cluster of 3-5 small - I mean tiny (low watt) x86 machines, that all attach to a beefy storage array, usually running on old surplus enterprise gear - some I dug out of the trash. Cheap yes, reliable? - so far, six years in, a production workload of 38 vm instances running 24/7, everything from our phone system, email servers, to home apps as you listed - pretty rock solid in my use case. So if you go with low end consumer stuff like many, just go ahead a build out a backup system too, either a NAS, or RAID setup, and make sure everything is backed up, and follow the 3-2-1 rule if you can. Remember, RAID is NOT a backup. Best advice I can give.