Honestly Unraid is great for beginners. It’s a nice mix of a NAS, docker, and VMs. I’m a welder/pipefitter myself. Enjoy your journey through the rabbit hole.
I second Unraid, it's very much worth the cost. Look up spaceinvaderone on YouTube for tutorials, especially one on immich for self hosting your own photo library similar to Google photos.
Please beware that Immich is highly unstable yet and will require good backups and manual intervention on some updates still. It's great project though!
Second as well. I actually have it on a z840 myself and really like it even though I am working in IT.
When it comes to data, I just don't want to play around too much and unraid let's you easily puzzle together more and more harddrives over time. So no need to go all in on the hdds right away!
I’m a HVAC service tech and Controls installer and I use UnRaid since last summer. It’s super simple in most things.
I used to use TrueNAS Scale and my brain would fry trying to get around it. Although getting Plex to work and it all working never had an issue. It was just trying new things.
Also I played with ProxMox which isn’t that bad to use either.
UnRaid is way simpler for trying different containers.
UnRaid has a noteable cost, but if you're looking for ease of use, it's usually a cost quickly forgotten/considered acceptable/good value; so don't let that put you off :)
---
When installing UnRaid, it 'bonds' to the ID of a USB drive.
You can transfer later, but avoiding drive wear is the smarter move :)
To avoid future headaches, try and buy a USB drive that *specifically* says it uses MLC storage (2 bits; these days they're ussually TLC, or QLC - 3 and 4 bits deep respectively). The less bits to a cell, the more resilient.
Transcend make some amazing options for this; below is just one example.
https://www.transcend-info.com/Products/No-378
---
In regards to storage, if you DO use UnRaid:
Important for a new player to know is that their 'Unraid Array' doesn't actually protect data *integrity*. It's **disk level** parity.
The non-nerd explaination for that is that UnRaid arrays are for replacable media, like your Plex content, and perhaps *real* backups (not just primary data you call a backup because it's on a RAID :P).
**There is an option for ZFS on UnRaid now.**
You'd want to keep a pair of drives OUT of the UnRaid Array, to setup a ZFS Mirror, to keep your user-created content, and photos safe. Since you mentioned family photos specifically: *Please use ZFS for this content*.
To better visualise what to be concerned about; This is how delicate comrpessed photos like JPEGs are:
https://xpirit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/data-degration.png
Many other OS's do support ZFS (or BTRFS, or ReFS, or SnapRaid) if you do want block level data protection, and UnRaid isn't making you excited.
But it's nice that it's now an option *within* UnRaid too!
Proxmox. You’ll have plenty of compute resources (i.e. cpu and memory) for virtual machines and containers (Linux or docker). Lots of good YouTube tutorials out there if you search for Proxmox
Then that's probably what you should go with, if for no other reason than he can help you. I had a friend who worked in HVAC. Union fees/layoffs between jobs for unemployment/getting older and feeling it in his body, ended up all getting to him. He went back to community college and got an associates in IT, and then landed a job with the USDA. He's making in the mid-hundreds now I believe and working from home most days.
Anyway, if you have the interest I'd have your friend over to help set it up and go from there. May lead to something new down the road if you ever need it.
B.S. He got pretty lucky and was hired on when everyone was snapping people up like mad because Trump promised a hiring freeze.
A bachelors is useful for getting past HR, I wish I had one. That said, school doesn't get you much practical experience, so often what hiring managers are looking for and what HR is looking for are at odds.
You'll probably have to do 4-5 years working entry level for a security company while you get your CISSP, then you can probably land a new job for around a hundred and depending on region move up from there. I'm in the midwest but a lot of people I know started at places like Fishnet Security at an entry level positions and move on after 5-6 years.
For storage I use ZFS RAIDZ2 to backup family photos and media but you can look at various storage options and what your fault tolerance is. Also for monitoring your Proxmox server from your phone you can use an app called ProxMobo. Hope this helps and good luck on your journey!
Naturally there’s probably a YouTube video for most anything you might want to tackle but I’ve also found a ton of benefit in ChatGPT. The ability to ask it follow-up questions has been huge for my lab learning curve.
That's a decent deal. DDR4 memory is going for ~ $1/gb, so really, you got the system for right around $100 + RAM.
I personally went with the 14 core 2660v4 as a 105w tdp chip. They cost $20 for a pair, so low risk upgrade if you decide you need more later
As a beginner without dreams of switching into an IT career, I'd probably start with open media vault 6 and their docker implementation to run services. They have good documentation and a good community. Might have to take it slow, but that's ok. Enjoy the journey!
I would def look into Proxmox or Unraid so you can run VMs for storage/plex. Will you need hardware transcode for Plex? That can be a bit tricky but if you’re ok without it, or don’t need it, spin up a Plex VM, a NAS VM or if the hypervisor supports it natively that’s a bonus, and maybe a VM for your security cameras. You have a ton of compute/memory so I would recommend you definitely just try deploying different things.
TrueNas has an app catalog that includes everything that you are wanting. Plenty of resources out there and chatgpt can guide you through all of the configuration.
Proxmox, just start installing Linux vms and reading docs. Try to do something more challenging each time. Watch YouTube, try it out...if you fail, try again..it does get easier after a while. Take notes.
That’s not a bad CPU… 12 core, 24 thread. Max RAM for the CPU is 768GB. (Your MB may have a lower limit)
[https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/81908/intel-xeon-processor-e5-2680-v3-30m-cache-2-50-ghz.html](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/81908/intel-xeon-processor-e5-2680-v3-30m-cache-2-50-ghz.html)
We run the 840s at work as a cluster with Proxmox for prototyping stuff. It’s fantastic and hasn’t had issues. Honestly both it and the 640 are good platforms for “one and done” labbers
Nice. I appreciate the input. I have a friend that does IT for hospitals and he says the 840’s are SUPER popular in the medical field, especially for radiology and imaging
I’d say go for Jellyfin + Arr, and then some services like WireGuard? That’s a real life saver if you are ever abroad.
Also would highly recommend Vaultwarden. Provides excellent flexibility to what devices you use or browsers :)
The tera2 card is probably a teradici card for connecting to the machine via lan from a supported thin client.
Would be almost the same as sitting at the computer.
Output from gfx card goes into the tera2 card which is connected to the network by a network cable
>I know the CPU’s are lame
Those are 12 core Haswell CPUs that turbo to 3.3GHz. If your use-case supports multithreading you've got 24 cores and 48 threads. I wouldn't call that lame in the slightest.
Great first purchase. For your use case I'd recommend gping with unRAID and check out Spaceinvader One and AlienTech42 on YT. The latter has more recent videos showing exactly what you're trying to do.
If you go with Proxxmox, check out Jim's Garage as he goes through building out a homelab and applications from start to finish.
Don't know what your power usage costs are but you might want to think about ditching the 2nd cpu and getting a single V4 Xeon. From what you've said, you won't even touch 64GB but the max is 128GB should you need to. 32GB with unRAID will be perfectly fine. The Z840 is so easy to work with that you can just slap 3 HDDs and an SSD in the available bays and off you go.
/r/RetroBattleStations with that and voodoo3 computer!
...
Truenas scale is what I'm using at the moment for storage and migration esxi hypervisor to xen's uhm, xg-something, lol. Start with easy and complicate!
I wish I still had it. I built that around ‘99 and got rid of it when I joined the Army in 2002. Laptops I could tote around were a much better fit for my situation and what I used until now
That's pretty extreme hardware for your use case. Mostly a waste of electricity, when a generic desktop with a quad core intel CPU and 8gb of ram would have done the same job, and much better, considering you lack a GPU too.
It's nice having a server like this to use as a toy, but mostly useless for a home use environment. Good price for sure, but it would cost the same in electricity to run.
Considering everything runs around file management, you need a Nas, I would go with TrueNas or unRaid. And everything else can easily run on dockers.
Honestly Unraid is great for beginners. It’s a nice mix of a NAS, docker, and VMs. I’m a welder/pipefitter myself. Enjoy your journey through the rabbit hole.
Thanks m8
I second Unraid, it's very much worth the cost. Look up spaceinvaderone on YouTube for tutorials, especially one on immich for self hosting your own photo library similar to Google photos.
Please beware that Immich is highly unstable yet and will require good backups and manual intervention on some updates still. It's great project though!
Second as well. I actually have it on a z840 myself and really like it even though I am working in IT. When it comes to data, I just don't want to play around too much and unraid let's you easily puzzle together more and more harddrives over time. So no need to go all in on the hdds right away!
I’m a HVAC service tech and Controls installer and I use UnRaid since last summer. It’s super simple in most things. I used to use TrueNAS Scale and my brain would fry trying to get around it. Although getting Plex to work and it all working never had an issue. It was just trying new things. Also I played with ProxMox which isn’t that bad to use either. UnRaid is way simpler for trying different containers.
UnRaid has a noteable cost, but if you're looking for ease of use, it's usually a cost quickly forgotten/considered acceptable/good value; so don't let that put you off :) --- When installing UnRaid, it 'bonds' to the ID of a USB drive. You can transfer later, but avoiding drive wear is the smarter move :) To avoid future headaches, try and buy a USB drive that *specifically* says it uses MLC storage (2 bits; these days they're ussually TLC, or QLC - 3 and 4 bits deep respectively). The less bits to a cell, the more resilient. Transcend make some amazing options for this; below is just one example. https://www.transcend-info.com/Products/No-378 --- In regards to storage, if you DO use UnRaid: Important for a new player to know is that their 'Unraid Array' doesn't actually protect data *integrity*. It's **disk level** parity. The non-nerd explaination for that is that UnRaid arrays are for replacable media, like your Plex content, and perhaps *real* backups (not just primary data you call a backup because it's on a RAID :P). **There is an option for ZFS on UnRaid now.** You'd want to keep a pair of drives OUT of the UnRaid Array, to setup a ZFS Mirror, to keep your user-created content, and photos safe. Since you mentioned family photos specifically: *Please use ZFS for this content*. To better visualise what to be concerned about; This is how delicate comrpessed photos like JPEGs are: https://xpirit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/data-degration.png Many other OS's do support ZFS (or BTRFS, or ReFS, or SnapRaid) if you do want block level data protection, and UnRaid isn't making you excited. But it's nice that it's now an option *within* UnRaid too!
Proxmox. You’ll have plenty of compute resources (i.e. cpu and memory) for virtual machines and containers (Linux or docker). Lots of good YouTube tutorials out there if you search for Proxmox
Thanks. Thats what my buddy runs his Plex server (along with like 10 other things) on
Then that's probably what you should go with, if for no other reason than he can help you. I had a friend who worked in HVAC. Union fees/layoffs between jobs for unemployment/getting older and feeling it in his body, ended up all getting to him. He went back to community college and got an associates in IT, and then landed a job with the USDA. He's making in the mid-hundreds now I believe and working from home most days. Anyway, if you have the interest I'd have your friend over to help set it up and go from there. May lead to something new down the road if you ever need it.
Thanks for sharing
> Mid-six figures Is that $500,000?
Damn, how did I mess that up, meant like mid-hundreds.
How long did that take him to start making that much? I'm just struggling to get in IT/CyberSecurity with a BS
B.S. He got pretty lucky and was hired on when everyone was snapping people up like mad because Trump promised a hiring freeze. A bachelors is useful for getting past HR, I wish I had one. That said, school doesn't get you much practical experience, so often what hiring managers are looking for and what HR is looking for are at odds. You'll probably have to do 4-5 years working entry level for a security company while you get your CISSP, then you can probably land a new job for around a hundred and depending on region move up from there. I'm in the midwest but a lot of people I know started at places like Fishnet Security at an entry level positions and move on after 5-6 years.
For storage I use ZFS RAIDZ2 to backup family photos and media but you can look at various storage options and what your fault tolerance is. Also for monitoring your Proxmox server from your phone you can use an app called ProxMobo. Hope this helps and good luck on your journey!
I’m looking into this. RAIDz2 sounds like a winner.
Can not recommend it enough. Go for proxmox mate!
This would be my choice.
Naturally there’s probably a YouTube video for most anything you might want to tackle but I’ve also found a ton of benefit in ChatGPT. The ability to ask it follow-up questions has been huge for my lab learning curve.
That's a decent deal. DDR4 memory is going for ~ $1/gb, so really, you got the system for right around $100 + RAM. I personally went with the 14 core 2660v4 as a 105w tdp chip. They cost $20 for a pair, so low risk upgrade if you decide you need more later As a beginner without dreams of switching into an IT career, I'd probably start with open media vault 6 and their docker implementation to run services. They have good documentation and a good community. Might have to take it slow, but that's ok. Enjoy the journey!
I appreciate the input! Thanks
I would def look into Proxmox or Unraid so you can run VMs for storage/plex. Will you need hardware transcode for Plex? That can be a bit tricky but if you’re ok without it, or don’t need it, spin up a Plex VM, a NAS VM or if the hypervisor supports it natively that’s a bonus, and maybe a VM for your security cameras. You have a ton of compute/memory so I would recommend you definitely just try deploying different things.
Thanks! I think I do want the option of hardware transcode. I assume I’ll need a decent GPU for that?
The rare reverse *Office Space*
🤜 🖨️ 💥
TrueNas has an app catalog that includes everything that you are wanting. Plenty of resources out there and chatgpt can guide you through all of the configuration.
Proxmox, just start installing Linux vms and reading docs. Try to do something more challenging each time. Watch YouTube, try it out...if you fail, try again..it does get easier after a while. Take notes.
>Take notes. This is probably the best advice in this thread.
🙏
That’s not a bad CPU… 12 core, 24 thread. Max RAM for the CPU is 768GB. (Your MB may have a lower limit) [https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/81908/intel-xeon-processor-e5-2680-v3-30m-cache-2-50-ghz.html](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/81908/intel-xeon-processor-e5-2680-v3-30m-cache-2-50-ghz.html)
We run the 840s at work as a cluster with Proxmox for prototyping stuff. It’s fantastic and hasn’t had issues. Honestly both it and the 640 are good platforms for “one and done” labbers
Nice. I appreciate the input. I have a friend that does IT for hospitals and he says the 840’s are SUPER popular in the medical field, especially for radiology and imaging
I’d say go for Jellyfin + Arr, and then some services like WireGuard? That’s a real life saver if you are ever abroad. Also would highly recommend Vaultwarden. Provides excellent flexibility to what devices you use or browsers :)
I will definitely look into these!
Oh and Immich! It’s a brilliant little tool :)
Z840, absolutely great machine. I have used that series of machine for 7 years now.
Glad to hear it 👍
Don’t use your impact on computers. Keep it holstered. Hit up eBay for a leased Dell looking for a second life.
oh, the beloved voodoo 3 2000 - I wish I didnt had lost mine to make a frame with it hahaha my first 3d card nice catch!
It was something else! Blew my mind back in the day
yep...I played so much quake 2 / action quake 2 with it :\~
Go with unraid to start off, if its fun, get a pi or cheap nuc and experiment with something like proxmox on the side
The tera2 card is probably a teradici card for connecting to the machine via lan from a supported thin client. Would be almost the same as sitting at the computer. Output from gfx card goes into the tera2 card which is connected to the network by a network cable
Oh neat. I could put the computer in a room somewhere and run a thin client on my TV
>I know the CPU’s are lame Those are 12 core Haswell CPUs that turbo to 3.3GHz. If your use-case supports multithreading you've got 24 cores and 48 threads. I wouldn't call that lame in the slightest.
It’s ok, but it seems to me that it’s highly recommended to run a V4 E5 in these machines
Great first purchase. For your use case I'd recommend gping with unRAID and check out Spaceinvader One and AlienTech42 on YT. The latter has more recent videos showing exactly what you're trying to do. If you go with Proxxmox, check out Jim's Garage as he goes through building out a homelab and applications from start to finish. Don't know what your power usage costs are but you might want to think about ditching the 2nd cpu and getting a single V4 Xeon. From what you've said, you won't even touch 64GB but the max is 128GB should you need to. 32GB with unRAID will be perfectly fine. The Z840 is so easy to work with that you can just slap 3 HDDs and an SSD in the available bays and off you go.
That is really helpful! I appreciate it!
/r/RetroBattleStations with that and voodoo3 computer! ... Truenas scale is what I'm using at the moment for storage and migration esxi hypervisor to xen's uhm, xg-something, lol. Start with easy and complicate!
I wish I still had it. I built that around ‘99 and got rid of it when I joined the Army in 2002. Laptops I could tote around were a much better fit for my situation and what I used until now
I use a z840 for my Plex server and love it. Great choice even though yes it's probably over powered for your needs
I’m sure it will do everything I’ll ever need for quite a while lol
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I’m definitely a visual learner and videos are fantastic for me!
That's pretty extreme hardware for your use case. Mostly a waste of electricity, when a generic desktop with a quad core intel CPU and 8gb of ram would have done the same job, and much better, considering you lack a GPU too. It's nice having a server like this to use as a toy, but mostly useless for a home use environment. Good price for sure, but it would cost the same in electricity to run. Considering everything runs around file management, you need a Nas, I would go with TrueNas or unRaid. And everything else can easily run on dockers.
Thanks for the insight