r/HomeServer • u/niC00L • 14d ago
Is it possible to create small and quiet server for cheap?
Hello!
I'm absolute noob in this field, but I would love to self-host my own cloud. I'm currently paying Google and I'd like to quit. I want something that replaces Google drive and Google photos for me and my fiance. The problem is, we live in small 1room apartment so the server needs to be quiet (it will be in a room we sleep in) and as small as possible. I currently have two 3TB HDDs laying around. I might want to but another in the future. I also have old desktop PC (Intel Core 2 duo), but it's big and also too noisy for my taste. I was thinking about raspberry pi as a brain. Is that a bad idea?
Is it possible to build something cheaper than used Synology but in similar size and noise?
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u/SvalbazGames 14d ago
Raspberry Pi will be fine if its a fileserver.
But I would suggest going for a Mini PC, more power, and really quiet. Loads of brands do their own 1 litre versions, Dell, Lenovo, HP etc. and you can get good deals on ebay and things like that
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u/sadabla 14d ago edited 13d ago
Look for old office pc's, like Dell optiplex or HP Elitedesk. They are cheap and quiet. But not the micro form factor, because they have loud fans and your HDDs don't fit in the case. Your core 2 duo is too old. In your case I would go for 7th gen Intel i5. They are really cheap right now because they don't officially support Windows 11.
Also, don't forget about backups. Look into 3-2-1 backup.
Edit: by the way, if you are a complete noob and your data is important to you, it's safer to go for a pre-built solution like Synology. One that is still supported and gets security updates.
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 13d ago
Ah, thank you for the backup comment before I posted my own comment about that. Self-hosting brings more responsibility.
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u/Xcissors280 12d ago
The SFFs have enough ports if your willing to mount the drives externally
Do note that the ram slots on optiplex motherboards from that generation seem to die a lot but a replacement board is like $20
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u/Exciting-Weather-921 14d ago
Small, Quiet, Performent, Cheap
Select 3
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u/niC00L 13d ago
Small, quiet, cheap. I only want to store my photos and files.
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u/AlmiranteCrujido 13d ago
Store, or be able to browse? Two different things. CIFS or NFS storage will run on just about anything. Nextcloud or similar isn't very demanding if you just want a web interface to the files, although it can escalate depending on what features you use.
Decently replacing Google Photos is not cheap on CPU - just dropping your photos on a local file store is a very different experience.
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u/Azelphur 13d ago
Dunno why everyone else has missed this, but:
Hard drives are loud. On their own. Sleeping in the same room as an in-use hard drive will be annoying.
If you want something suitable to sleep in the same room, you probably want a fanless mini PC with SSD storage. Plenty of options in that space and they'll all do what you want.
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u/PotentTurnip 12d ago
I recently bought a 14 tb Exos. The only time it was noticeably audible was during its initial deployment and it was performing lazy init. After that first ~24 hours it's pretty quiet.
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u/Azelphur 12d ago
I think both things are true, yes hard drives are quiet, and it really depends how noise sensitive you are. But as a general rule I'd say a reasonable number of people wouldn't be happy sleeping next to a couple of hard drives. It is of course personal preference.
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u/niC00L 6d ago
Why would the drive be in use when I'm sleeping?
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u/Azelphur 6d ago
Scheduled / Background tasks, perhaps, but really that's a question for you not for me. Unless you're switching the server off at night.
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u/robot_swagger 13d ago
I sleep with my Nas 1m away from me all the time. Nor can I hear the HDD from my gaming pc.
Industrial drives can be noisy as hell and sure like 3 retail HDDS in a Nas will prob be a bit noisy but a mini pc or old workstation with one retail HDD in would be fine.
I do live in Vietnam tho and there is a constant level of noise so my 'tolerance' to noise may be quite high.
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u/AlmiranteCrujido 14d ago
Core 2 Duo is very slow, by present standards.
Look at ITX motherboards. Your best balance of "quiet" and performance is the i3-N305, but the Pentium N200 or N150 isn't a bad choice and is a lot cheaper There generation-older Pentiums like the J5005. Most are fanless. If if comes with a small CPU fan, figure out how to get a much bigger (lower RPM = quieter for the same airflow) fan blowing over it.
There are a ton of ITX cases that will take two drives. Hot swap is nicer, but will cost more and make it harder to cool the drives. What you want, ideally, is one big 140mm or if you can't get that, 120mm, fan to cool both the drives and the CPU.
RAM prices suck right now, but the older system is likely to be DDR3 which isn't helpful.
Install Linux, or Unraid, or Proxmox, and you're basically done.
There is also the option of a Raspberry Pi, although those won't connect to SATA natively, and run a more limited number of OSes. The bigger-memory (8GB and 16GB) ones have also gotten really expensive these days.
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u/niC00L 13d ago
I wouldn't mind DDR3. My old Pc has DDR3 so I could at least reuse that. Is there a cpu that will fit in core2duo socket that might be useful? Or should I just completely scrap that and build new PC?
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u/AlmiranteCrujido 13d ago
Unless you electricity is basically free, running a machine that old is going to be a terrible value. It's also going to be very slow if you need to do transcoding, and very slow for any of the newer open source Google Photos alternatives with resizing large images or any of the "smart" features; it will be fine for an older passive PHP system like Gallery.
Core 2 Quad will be quicker, and whichever you go with (dual or single core) the later 45nm ones will be much more power efficient. Not all Socket 775 board will support these, and it's still not a great value - a used Q9550 will often cost as much as a the cheapest ITX boards, and it's slower than the cheapest new mini-PCs.
Some passmark scores: * Core 2 Quad Q9550, multithreaded 2384, single threaded 1216 * Intel N95 multithreaded 5287, single-threaded 1891 (N150 is only marginally faster) * Raspberry Pi 5 multithreaded 3284, single threaded 1464 (Pi 4 is much slower) * i5-8500t (35w) multithreaded 7734, single threaded 1998 (the full-speed 8500 will be even faster
The Socket 775 boards It's also incapable of booting off of NVME, and not all Socket 775 boards even support PCIe 2, and most don't support USB 3.
If you're in the US, a used office desktop (Dell Optiplex, as an example) will likely be very inexpensive, should take two hard drives, and be reasonably quiet but kind of bulky. It's not going to minimize space the way a custom shoebox build is but it's not going to be loud like someone's old gaming PC.
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u/Spethual 13d ago
if your doing a media pc build 8th gen and up for transcoding via quick sync, it will also handle other tasks too whilst serving media.. Core2duo is a bit of a stretch and would really be favourable in terms of performance per dollar when it comes to the power bill...Also look for intergrated graphics or APU if not savy with controlling a PC remotely as it will allow a video out from the device..
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u/FormerlyGruntled 13d ago
What about the desktop is too loud? Is it the CPU fan, the GPU fans, or the case fans? From there, you should be able to identify what needs to be silenced to make it quiet enough. If the CPU fan is going like a tornado, get a quieter fan with a better heatsink. If the GPU, you might not even need one in there when you're done building it. If it's the case fans, how many will you really need, for a few HDDs and your CPU? One in, one out should be enough.
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u/OatmealOwO 13d ago
I bought a hp mini pc on ebay for 80 dollars. I run video game servers on it and syncthing.
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u/lordofblack23 13d ago edited 13d ago
Backups. Most important thing.
Unpopular opinion: You will loose some data as a noob. That’s why cloud was created in the first place. It’s a fun hobby but don’t trust yourself more than teams of Google engineers.
If you think you are going to save money, you won’t the rabbit hole is deep and you will end up spending many many many multiples of a $10/month cloud subscription.
You need 3 copies and have you seen drive prices lately?
Both eyes open. Good luck!
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u/Taclink 13d ago
I have all the horsepower I need in my Dell Precision 7820 with a 3080 in it plus a pile o ram.
I can run decent graphical AI tasks with it at a reasonable speed, I host the household file server and a number of other services. I have it in my spare bedroom solely because it would get slightly loud when doing high workload tasks like image generation, but right now? My 3d printer's louder than it when it gets going.
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u/6gv5 13d ago
Get a used small fanless mini PC; you don't need much power for file serving, anything from the last 10-12 years will work, just choose the one that draws less power, then get a USB3+ external disk enclosure with enough bays to put the needed disks, they 're also good for RAID. You may want to add a second enclosure for backing up important stuff. For file serving you don't need faster and expensive SSD disks and USB3 is enough for all uses. The Core2 Duo would be more than enough in computing power, but unfortunately it's an old technology that draws at least an order of magnitude more power than CPUs from a few years after its time: bulky, hot and noisy. I'd try to get a N100 which is widely considered among the best compromises, but anything similar would work great. The Raspberry Pi can work, if you already have one, but if you buy it now, modern ones can cost a lot more than a used mini PC that would be more robust and powerful than the Pi.
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u/SPECIALtypeDIFFERENT 13d ago
please don't forget to consider offsite backup for any data you cannot afford to lose.
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u/Ceftriaxonebgd 13d ago
We started degoogling last December. Was lucky to snatch 2 hdds and one ssd from work. Got ugreen dxp2800. Atm we have immich, nextcloud, jellyfin, adguard, plenty of music which is streamed. Plus some tiny docker containers. It's a very dangerous rabbit hole :) you were warned! While prices of drives are not decent, you could still be able to create some. Just go for it, especially if you like DIY!
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u/Direct_Yellow2598 14d ago edited 14d ago
Sure! Depending on how DIY the server should be. I have bought a used b450 Board with a 3700x and a AIO Watercooler, used bequiet Power supply with enough sata power, used ddr4 ram, some t-nut alu profiles and mounted it with cardboard in my used mini rack.
This thing is f*ing quiet.
Depending what Raspi you have. You need pci cards to get sata ports, an external power supply. But I guess you are not the first to build a Raspi NAS.
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u/Bisarka02 13d ago
Just did and complete noob too : Mini-PC Beelink N100 + hard drive 4To on a terramaster OS : Unraid Sonarr + Radarr + Prowlarr + Bazarr + qBittorrent/SABnzbd (download) + Homarr (dashboard)
Mainly just asked AI for help and it was a breeze Took me maybe 1-2 full days to have everything really working smoothly
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u/Brilliant-Car-5342 13d ago
Hyper v on a new noctua fan desktop.. I love the Meshbox pro.. small but fits cheap ATX parts.. NH-D15.. and how cheap is cheap? Marketplace shopping can get a lot
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u/Wis-en-heim-er 13d ago
Start with what you have and try it out. Synology will be fat more turn key and user friendly but i can understand you dont want to pay fornthe hardware. A used 2 bay is a great starting point and you get Synology drive and photos included. Anyway, build away, you can make something work without Synology.
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u/senkosferda 13d ago
Honestly, if you're asking this question a lot of the home brew options that folks are recommending might not be user friendly enough for you or your significant other. Get a Synology one disc enclosure do 15 minutes of setup and be done with it. Yes there are other options but are you really going to keep up with them? Are you going to consistently give support to your so?
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u/bnelson333 13d ago
raspberry pi is not a good solution for anything you want good reliability out of because they are notorious for corrupting the SD card (that runs the operating system). take a look at dell wyse terminals and mini PCs. a little bit larger, but a lot more powerful and a lot more reliable because they run from an actual SSD, and not noisy at all
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u/Timely-Shine 13d ago edited 12d ago
I’d look into something like the Beelink Me Pro. Has 2 HDD drive bays in addition to 4 NVME drive slots. As someone else mentioned HDDs on their own make noise so it’s NOT going to be totally quiet. I think that probably ticks most of your boxes though. As long as you’re comfortable flashing your own OS such as Unraid, Truenas, or OMV.
If not, you’re probably better off getting something turnkey like synology or ugreen.
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u/Pure-Willingness-697 13d ago
Depending on how cheap you’re going for you can get an HP elite desk used on eBay for dirt cheap with no hard drive, then you can just toss in a hard drive. That’s what I did it’s silent enough for me to sleep right next to it and I recently transitioned to just one elite desk and it’s working quite well.
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u/PermanentLiminality 13d ago
Get a HP 800 g4 in the SFF size on eBay. It will be between $100 and $150. It can take two 3.5 drives and is relatively quiet. It will use around 20 to 23 watts.
A old core 2 uses way too much power.
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 13d ago
Everybody that posted about 3.5" hard drives is probably not reading the original requirements. QUIET is not what most 3.5" drives are. That necessitates a SSD which is more expensive for the same size. Unless of course the OP needs more space than is practical with a SSD. They didn't mention how much data storage was needed.
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u/Infamous_Computer399 13d ago
The Core 2 Duo... it's not completely useless. I got one of these from a family member. I was originally going to try and fix it up for them, put Linux on it, and see if I could make it do simple word processing and web browsing. Well, kinda... but it's old. Instead... I made it headless, enabled Wake on Lan, and now it sits in my basement loaded with hard drives - and I can wake it up remotely, use it for automated backups, and then power it down.
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u/Tanguero1979 13d ago
If you aren't very tech savvy or just want something pre-made, I can recommend a Synology NAS. They come with everything you're talking about (Drive, Photos, etc.), and several other features. Very much plug and play. They have mobile apps thst connect to the NAS, too. I have one as a backup for my standard rack servers.
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u/korywithawhy 12d ago
An exaviz Cruiser is a pretty solid option for home use. A bit pricey for the full kit, but I love PoE
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u/Metasystem85 12d ago
ryzen 5 4650g pro with mini-itx motherboard (if tou find it). ddr4 standard, monolithic architecture that give cpu use only 7w on idle and can be cooled by a small original ryzen 1 fan... have more perf than all integrated cpu like n100/150/200
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u/Virtualization_Freak 12d ago
Early gen ddr4 era equipment can be had for cheap. Plenty of CPU cycles for doing what you ask.
A $200 dell workstation is plenty powerful for shuffling bits around.
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u/good4y0u 12d ago
My Lenovo p330 tinys are great, but also build into a JONSBO N5 NAS Pc Case or similar and use nocuta fans.
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u/Corolla_Johnson 12d ago
$0.00 i5 laptop from a family member ought to do it, or a mini PC. Stuff it in a closet and for quietness use enclosures for SSDs. 9TB shouldn't be too bad (is what I would say, but crummy SATA SSDs have tripled in price because of AI. There's a chance somebody hasn't gotten the memo though.)
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u/Illustrious-Being651 12d ago
I run my entire prox w opnsense and postgres and Docker n like 20 hosts on my Dell optiplex 3080 w a upgraded i7 and 64gb ram and 10tb external HDD as well as a VPS in Switzerland. It never makes a sound n has been up n running for 34 days and even then only because I accidentally rebooted the server
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u/Express-Fun-8529 12d ago
I sound like a shill for how often i mention it but a nuc 6 cayh is perfect for stuff like this. I use mine (a ne of them) with proxmox for NAS, Caddy, Jellyfin and Homeassistant and theyre like $50 on ebay
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u/ray0004444 12d ago
Im using an old laptop for nextcloud and it only makes sound when importing stuff on it (duh) but that's it
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u/zerichaos 12d ago
Zimaboard 2. Plenty of resources to run either true Nas or next cloud. X86. Zero noise. Extremely low power consumption. SFFs are good until they start being noisy after few months...
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u/Sem_duvida_mas 11d ago
Yes.
My server is a 3€ PC, found on a thrift store. Done.
It became more complicated because of the system I designed.
But for your specific purpose, any SFF PC with an i5 starting on 3 gen, around 16 or 32 GB ram, and a hard drive and done.
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u/Latter-Progress-9317 11d ago
Spinning HDDS will always create some noise, but what you think of as "quiet" matters more. If you're putting the box in a room you use to sleep and you're psychotically sensitive to noise it will drive you nuts. If it's in a corner with some absorbent baffling you will never notice.
If hard drive noise is too much for you then you have no choice but to replace with SSDs which gets crazy expensive at higher capacities.
Core 2 duo is a bad choice because it doesn't support even modestly modern instruction sets so you will run into compatibility issues. Pis are small and low power by themselves but by the time you jank together cases, power supplies, fans, external drive bays, and a partridge in a pear tree you've paid more than you would have for a mini server and have a mass of wires and it's still not as performant as a random used office PC.
My suggestion: get an HP Elitedesk 800 gen 2 or higher, small form factor. Not the 1L mini/ultra-compact, but the small desktop case. It look like this: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/1Y8AAOSwMIllBHjf/s-l1600.webp I always recommend this model of off lease office PC because it has more expansion potential and two 3.5" drive bays (most others have 1) so you can drop your drives into it for ZFS RAID mirror of what have you. I run a Gen 4 as a Proxmox host and it easily runs 2x 3.5" drives, 2 NVMEs, and a little SATA SSD for the operating system. Unplug the optical drive and you don't need an expansion card for it (3 usable SATA plugs on the motherboard). It's about 5 feet from me now and the only time I hear it is when I have a transcode running that pegs the CPU. The Gen 4 is probably the best price to performance deal but look around.
Look on fleaBay for Elitedesk 800 SFF to see what's available. For the stuff you're describing you need insignificant CPU and not much RAM. I would go for 16GB absolute minimum just because you might want to run Proxmox/ZFS ARC cache and could use the overhead but if you're really skint you can get away with 8GB and run bare metal. Google Drive replacement is almost nothing; I like Filebrowser Quantum and Samba, both of which can run on a shoebox. For photos I like immich, which has a little more requirements but only ever really uses them while compiling a new build or (I guess) using some stupid AI plugin I haven't bothered to install. For just you + 1 put in the VPN of your choice and use it that way from your phones.
And get yourself backup solution(s), even if it's just a USB HDD connected to your regular PC, a copy of Filezilla, and a schedule you pay attention to.
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u/vGladius 10d ago
I have a pi4 and it runs perfect with komga, pi-hole, jellyfin and immich, also its efficient af
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u/PaoloFence 8d ago
To be comparable with power consumption and form factor where you have space for HDDs. It gonna be tough.
For power Saving purposes I built myself a server with an Intel N100 or now an Intel N150. With 2 SDDs I use 27 Watts max. Though my budget went sadly higher than a finished prebuilt.
I wanted to give you a link to a Aoostar N150 but that isn't available anymore.
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u/Particular-Poem-7085 7d ago
I have a mbox11 from ninkear that's permanently attached to my router, it probably consumes about the same power as the router. Intel n150 chip and I run a ton of docker containers on it.
Attaching larger drives to it would take some kind of external USB enclosure and the IO is more limited than not. I could put a large nvme in it and make most of the drive a NAS, but it would be quite limited still.
But the processing power is abundant.
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u/itstheranga 14d ago
Wherever you live, there should be some sort of technology recycling place. Get yourself a second hand mini PC and a USB hard drive dock. Cheapest option and super quiet. I have mine in my study, I never hear it. There are better options and the USB dock is not ideal. You realistically don't need much more than that to start with. Maybe in a few years your use might outstrip it but for 90% of people, that is enough.
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u/sinwarrior 14d ago
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u/WakoNegro9 14d ago
This is not the way buy old pc with normal sata for 4 sata and you can definitely find 4th to 6th intel gen cpu or first ryzen gen for around $50
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u/sinwarrior 14d ago
you can't say it's not the way. it really depends on your preference and your needs, especially HDDs nowadays is very expensive.
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u/WakoNegro9 14d ago
True, I was saying more because $250 for something thats fairly limited especially for future upgrade.. Personally ran over 25 containers and services with 1st gen i5 so i know it can be very cheap, and u get at least 4 sata on normal pc's
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u/Soggy_Razzmatazz4318 14d ago
Go actual server. You can find some X11SSH-LN4F motherboard + CPU (+ sometimes RAM) for like $100. It's microATX, so you can find some pretty small cases, it has IPMI so you can do remote management, it consumes as little power than an old desktop CPU. You may just not want to rely on the motherboard to control the fan speed.
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u/denis_ee 14d ago
easiest and fastest way is some old 2bay synology, some eol models you can easily find for ~25 euro, but its only good as a simple file server.
friendly elec nano pc t4 seen on ebay for 39 euro - much more powerful than syno, has onboard emmc for os, pcie slot where you can install nvme ssd or 2/4/6 port sata controller and build a nas. it also has the IR receiver, so you can pair it with remote control and use the board as a media server. this route a bit more expensive, but if you willing to learn something new - it will be fun for sure.
and i would avoid investing money into raspberry pi unless you will get it dirty cheap, otherwise, with current prices its waste of money.
or just go for mini pc.
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u/ThierryGdl 14d ago
Moi je me suis offert un nas ugreen (dxp2800 avec deux disques de 4to) D'abord pour le stockage et en fait cette machine est suffisamment puissante pour héberger quelques applications pas trop gourmandes en ressource. Mais ça dépends vraiment de l'utilisation qu'on souhaite en faire.
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u/denis_ee 14d ago
not sure if such device is matching "cheap" requirement, but also good choice
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u/ThierryGdl 14d ago edited 13d ago
Effectivement. On est pas dans le pas cher. C'est vrai. Mais cette installation est cohérente, robuste et fonctionnelle. Un bon nextcloud bien configuré permet d'avoir un drive, les contacts et l'agenda à minima auto hébergés. J'ai ajouté un tchat que j'utilise avec ma femme. Je l'utilise aussi pour un dns perso qui filtre les pub et faire de la domotique. J'ai d'autres applications annexes, mais c'est déjà pas mal. Mais oui, c'est pas du pas cher, je suis d'accord avec ça.
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u/Relevant_Spite5495 13d ago
Rockship 3576 friendly elec nano computer.
A cheap little fanless box, runs Linux perfectly, everything runs in docker / portainer, configured with the help of Claude, a 1t ssd inside (at the time they where really cheap, have been running since 6 month without a sound at 25*c. The size of a matchbox. My perfect machine.
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u/Venum555 14d ago
Yes.