I built my NAS using this, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085ZLFSYB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Supports 2 full size HD, 1 SSD and 1 m.2 drive inside. Used the m.2 for the main os drive, running openmediavault and then 2 8tb drives for storage.
Homelab
Rules
- Be Civil.
- Post about your homelab, discussion of your homelab, questions you may have, or general discussion about transition your skill from the homelab to the workplace.
- No memes or potato images.
- We love detailed homelab builds, especially network diagrams!
- Report any posts that you feel should be brought to our attention.
- Please no shitposting or blogspam.
- No Referral Linking.
- Keep piracy discussion off of this community
Instead of 3 small drives, why not go for 2 larger drives. You are sort of fighting 2 constraints. That case isn’t meant for 3 drives.
Also I really think you will regret the usb. You could get a pci to SATA connector and put 1 or 2 drives inside the case.
I've the same but one gen newer. i5-8500T with 16GB of RAM. I am not using RAID since I don’t want to run it over USB. I run OMV on Proxmox with two weakly RSYNC jobs for backup. Also run Plex/PiHole/Website via LXC 24/7.
15W idle: ~41€ annually
For a homeserver alone you won’t need more than one system with Proxmox. You would save quite a bit of power consumption.
Personally, I'd go down the route of getting a NAS, either a commercial off-the-shelf unit or build you own with something like an HP MicroServer. The Gen8 Microserver is getting a bit old now, but for NAS duties it would be perfectly fine you should be able to pick it up for a reasonable price secondhand.
The setup is not ideal, I won't lie to you. It could be better. But honestly, if it works for you, do it. There are so many things you can do to improve it and generally it will serve as a stepping stone to the next upgrade you see yourself making.
I will also note, since you have two of them, you could take the proxmox route and make them redundant. I am sure there is a way with Unraid to make them redundant too. I really wish I had the knowledge to run things in RAM.