So, I currently have a Netgear ReadyNAS 314 with 1 SSD, 3 HDDs, Intel Atom D2701 and 4GB RAM, running Debian 12, and since getting it I've been getting more into self hosting. What I have now is primarily too weak in the CPU and RAM department, but it could also use more HDDs. I'm aiming for 5-6 3.5 HDDs, 1 Nvme, 1 2.5" SSD.
What I'm currently running:
Samba and NFS server
OpenVPN
Jellyseerr/Jellyfin/*arr stack
Pangolin
Dawarich
Immich
rsnapshot
Homepage
And it's rather sluggish right now, and is almost filling up its 4GB of swap.
What I'd also like to be able to run/have:
Nextcloud
Transcoding (including ability to decode AV1, but preferably also encode)
Anything else I may want to run (working on degoogling myself)
ECC RAM (to prevent bitrot, I'm already running btrfs raid1 to prevent bitrot from faulty disks)
1x 2.5G ethernet
If possible I'd like to have some room for upgradeability. I'm aiming for a low power build, that should be rather compact, especially not very wide unless I can find a better place in my office for it.
I'm looking at a Jonsbo N1 chassis (17cm wide) , but I'm also following a Readynas 626 (19cm wide) in an online auction. Options:
Intel N100 board
Pros: cheap, low power, quicksync with av1 decode
Cons: boards with 2.5G ethernet have to be ordered from Aliexpress and have no support and uses the JMB585 chip that prevents low power C states, limited pcie lanes, no AV1 encode, not very upgradeable (1 DIMM, soldered CPU) , no ECC, I worry it may be too slow
Cons: relatively expensive, not as low power as the 13100
Readynas 626
Pros: enterprise grade HW, less DIY, ECC, may be relatively cheap
Cons: high power for its performance (roughly that of the N100), wider (19cm) than a Jonsbo N1 (17cm), not upgradeable (no CPU or mobo swap), expensive DDR4 2133 ECC UDIMM, doesn't have M.2 but has a PCIE slot
I'd love to hear what you think about these options and whether you have other concerns that I haven't thought about.
Edit: I just now realized that the 13100 doesn't have AV1 encode in HW, that didn't come until Core Ultra. And wowee, suitable mITX mobos start at 400$ here! I think AMD is the realistic choice if I want to go for AV1 HW encode...
I've been running an n100 box as my main everything box for about 1.5 years. I capture metrics on it and can say the thing is nowhere near capacity. This box is running jellyfin, a dozen or so nfs mounts that are heavily utilized, a dozen or so lightly used samba mounts, grafana, prometheus, jenkins, and a handful of mysql instances. I maxed out the ram (32gb) from the start and it averages 8gb usage, and has never exceeded 10gb. Historically, the CPU usage averages 28% utilization. I think as long as the board has nvme storage you'll not feel constrained by these little hosts for many years.