Well I'm dumb AF. Looks like there actually is an NVMe slot at the bottom right of the MB...but it points down where there isn't a way to mount it...so I guess both Lenovo and I are dumb.
btw, you can get cheap m.2 vertical brackets or 3d print one yourself for kinda free! but be careful cause i had a board that had one of those but it was actually a "mini pcie" keyed for wifi/bluetooth cards
It's insane what you can get out of these boxes as a homelab for the price. People spend a lot of money on rack mountable enterprise hardware for mostly cosmetic reasons... not that there is anything wrong with that 😂
I have two Proxmox servers utilizing the i7-8700. The i7-8700 is the best bang for the buck on a budget but powerful server since as you stated, Intel jumped to 6 cores/12 threads on this one. I threw 64 GB RAM in one of the servers and have been pleased with what I can do with it. The HP 800 G4 SFF are a great deal as well, not very large but room for 3.5" hard drives and some pcie cards, very similar to your setup. I believe the 800 G4 SFF also has two nvme slots. Hard to beat what you get for the price on these i7-8700 setups.
My proxmox box is an HP Elitedesk 800 G4 with an i7-8700 and it's been awesome. It does have dual m.2. About to upgrade it to a Xeon W-2265 (or maybe a threadripper 3945WX... something 12c24t with ECC ram cause all my issue have been memory related). Still agree with the 8500/8700 being great bang for the buck right now.
I got two minidesktop dells with i5-8600 on Proxmox node (just to have one screen where operate proxmox), and even they can handle my home lab stuff just fine. Old desktop pos got i5-2400 and that thing was slow.. haven't try to vm windows yet but maybe someday. File server is totally separate machine.
I have the same pc, just with a i5 8500, and I'm very pleased. I have 64gb, 2x 10gbps, 3x Nvme and 3 3.5" 12TB HDD (a little grinding was involved). I run my entire homelab on it, and I spare the full x16 slot. I would like to put a Quadro A2000 and the Windows VM but in low on available Cpu performance. May need to upgrade to a 8700.
In the subject of dumpster diving. Look around your area for companies that serve gas stations and grocery stores. I'm close enough to live near Niemans and they're recycling their stuff all the time, about a year ago i picked up an 8500 and 9700 based HP for next to nothing. The 9700 went to my sister's house with a TV tuner and a 16TB drive, and the 8500 became the on-site backup with a pair of 16TB drives on truenas. I have since 'downgraded' to a Jonsbo N1 with an Atom N100 but this allows me to better maintain the devices with a VPN and i prefer having 3 drives in ZFS Z1 as opposed to a single drive without backup and 2 drives in a mirror without parity calculations. I actually under-powered this thing because today i found out she wants to start putting in cameras for the exterior of the property and the kennel where she trains dogs, and i just so happened to test out frigate performance on this N100, should be fine for constant recording, but image recognition is only going to be good for like 2 4K cameras and she's looking at at least 6 of those dual sensor 180 degree POE cameras. i really wish i had more time on my hands to take in more of these old corporate boxes because i hate seeing good hardware like this thrown into the recycle i think if i could fix these up and give them way it would help *someone*
Love seeing budget builds for 2 reasons - they are affordable for a lot of people so something that is possible to easily replicate and also they really show creativity when trying to stick to a budget. Keep them coming!
Holy crap! I almost bought this item from you. Ended up in a bidding war for a different unit with a 7700 and 64gb ram and got it for the same price. Also, there is an NVME slot on the mobo. It’s the black slot, Lenovo did a super weird thing and makes the nvme drive hang off the side of the board. Thanks for the vid!
I bought a Lenovo M710s (SFF, 8gbs ram, i5 @ 3.2ghz) in Jan of 2023 (For $68 on Ebay) with the intent on turning it into a NAS (Nextcloud). I liked it, ended up upgrading it (1TB on-board Crucial NVME boot drive (with 1TB 3.5” that came with it as a backup), and 2x16 32gbs ram) and have been using it as a primary pc. I spent a bit of time learning more about servers/NAS/etc and bought another M710s (8gbs ram, i5-7500) in Jan of 2024 (For $74 on Ebay) for the same purpose, I added: The matching unused 8gb stick from the first M710s, bringing it up to 16gbs (will upgrade later) 2X pcie to NVME ( 500gb Crucial P3 Plus) 1X pcie to 3x usb 3 card, but may swap it out for a NIC card (Though I’m confused to weather I actually need one?). 1X direct motherboard NVME ( 500gb Crucial P3) Boot drive 1X 1TB Seagate 3.5” internal hard drive 2X 4TB Seagate 3.5” Baracuda hard drives (Mounted outside the pc in a 5.25” to 5x3.5” hard drive cage with fan, but being powered by the pc, because they won’t physically fit inside.) Of course this build is now closer to $350, but I needed to break it down into incremental purchases for my budget. Things I should have put more thought into: - Hard drive space, this pc only has physical space for 1X on-board NVME, 1X 2.5” drive, and 1X 3.5” drive. Though I had built an under-desk enclosure to “case swap” the components into. - Number of SATA ports, this motherboard only has 3X on-board SATA ports. While this is scalable with pcie, but only to an extent with the SFF psu. This might not be a problem for some, but I didn’t want to power my drives with an external power supply. - Ventilation, this pc is small internally so (currently without reason) worry about heat building up inside. They both seem to stay fairly cool, but I keep the cases open. With this one I really have no choice, since 2 of the 3.5” drives are technically external (SATA and power comes from the motherboard.). Conclusion This was never meant to be my permanent setup, just a “for now” for my NAS server. Though most of my purchases were considered with the next step in mind. I’ve logged hundreds of “How to” hours on UA-cam and Google, lol but have continued to procrastinate and put off the software side. Lol I have mostly be refraining because I prefer a Windows environment since it’s 2nd nature to me. I’ve been with Windows since I was 12 (1997), and change “was” hard. It seems the more Windows changes, the less I like it. While I prefer the idea of a native style NAS environment (Ubuntu 24), but have been looking more into Truenas scale since you initially suggested it. It comes down to usability and maintenance, I can invest in building a true server environment later if I decide move into web hosting or anything else. Ubuntu is more than what I am up for in those regards, I just need a backend for Nextcloud and that seems to be truenas.
Lenovo P520/P520c should be around the same price as this one and actually has upward facing NVMe slots. I know this b/c I bought 3 of em over the last 2 years. Especially the P520 which has a superb amount of space for HDDs and enough SATA power slots on the PSU. Up to 512GBs RAM and CPU upgradable to 18c/36t W-2295. If theres anything that comes close for bang/buck I will be in your comments section letting you know about it.
I love seeing the puzzle and justification of how you fit the parts into the budget. And I had no idea you could make Handbrake automatically look in a folder like that-thanks for the tip!
Next upgrades, get a 4x 2.5GB ethernet port...replace the dual 2.5...more expensive, and more RAM...always need more RAM...but that is for "later" "Entry level" is the key word of the day ;) Pretty cool...the all in one server is a VERY cool setup! Keep em coming!!!!
This similar setup was what I used as my home lab server for the last 10 years. Something to keep in mind, Lenovo uses proprietary power supply connector, so you may need to have an adapter that connect standard ATX PS. If you didn't want to spend the money for an extra NIC, tagged vLAN is a great way to get away with 1 network interface.
Just watched the whole video, and now I'm sitting here with popcorn, eagerly waiting for the next one to see how this build it stands up against a $400 server! :D
I love these sorts of builds. It's something that I never do but it's still interesting. And speaking of dumpster diving, here's a build idea for you : I am trying to help a friend build a very small, power efficient NAS for his off grid cottage. Its main purpose is to store jpg and mp4 files from a single motion activated Reolink POE security camera. The NAS will connect to a little GL.iNet travel router and pickup internet from his neighbour's WiFi. Now, with that setup, the plan is to use Syncthing to send the jpg files to his home in the big city. Maybe the mp4's if the bandwidth can handle it. Ideally, Tailscale would also be installed to administer the remote NAS. It's a fairly simple setup but I'm struggling with selecting the NAS hardware and software. Raspberry Pi ? Zima ? HP Desktop Pro mini ? I'd like to keep the operating system as simple as possible. Maybe Windows ? Linux Mint ? It only needs to be able to received jpg and mp4 files via FTP and send via Syncthing. Being able to run a DLNA media server for the odd movie or music would be a real bonus.
Great video. A LOT of my home servers over the years have been from either eBay, or from the off-lease computers from the local university. There are deals to be had if people just look. Hopefully, this will inspire future home labs to be built
My homelab is also based on the i7-8700 with 32gb ram. It's very capable for my uses, I have it running a few VMs and about 20 LXCs with plenty of resources left.
It's pretty amazing what you can do these days with almost ten year old second hand enterprise hardware like and EliteDesk SFF or similar. It's always interesting to me that this is usually a much better alternative then getting actual rackable server hardware from the same era for you homelab. Unless you absolutely need the expandability.
This is fun! You know, it's amazing what we can do with very little money, not a lot out of pocket and definitely not a lot out of the wall. Pretty cool, keep it up sir!
I had been kicking the idea around of doing a home server to help with group projects since I run a twitch channel and a podcast with some friends... aaaaand I think your videos have pushed me over the edge to actually doing it, since I have a 3770k system and 32 gigs of ddr3 to start with :) Awesome channel, definitely subbing!
For an Italian like me.. It's unbelievable how cheap are these things in the USA. Even now on eBay, I'm looking at double or triple the price for a comparable machine.
@@RaidOwl yeah, but I'm an atypical Italian, I don't love pasta very much. Luckily I work in an hospital IT so I'm plenty of hardware to reuse, as we often replace still functioning pc due to aging. But still now we're changing a lot of pro desk 600, sixth gen, or maybe some thinkcentre m93. But always with basic cpu. Nothing super powerful.
@@zCaptainz yeah, but I'm not in need now, I've got three machines for my homelab, but a newborn almost delivered and a 3 years little girl, so it's difficult to find time. Thanks for the advice though. Let's say it, prices are also doing me a favor, or I would start 6/7 projects at the same time. 🤣
Just replaced my Cisco M2 server from my home lab with a HP mini G9 for £300, so glad I did this I can now have it on my desk and run it all day without issue with multiple vms on esxi 👍🏻
From a security standpoint, it is better to pass through the NICs to your router VM as there's much less chance of leakage to the host hypervisor. IMO passing virtio NICs to a VM should only be done when either PCI passthrough isn't possible or the router OS does not have good drivers for the NICs. Good build anyhow 👍🏽 it's amazing what one can accomplish these days with dirt cheap old consumer hardware.
I built a new gaming PC end of last year and used my old PC with TrueNAS Scale and upgraded the ram and fans. Best decision I ever made. i7-6700 (non-k), 32gb of ram, and a gtx1070 for transcoding. With hard drives I think I only spend about $250, at the time I found 6tb HDD's to be a good deal but I'm kind of regretting it now with half my storage used up thus far with 24tb, now 9tb usable.
i love it when you call out comments that haven't even been made yet. would also love to see a dumpster dive/'junk people were throwing away' server build.
I really am enjoying this series. I would like to see what you could do with this same machine (and the 6-10 dollar M.2 plastic caddy to free up the main PCiE x16 slot) with 300 dollars!!! That would be awesome. Maybe throw in a cheap Quadro P1000 or 2000. I'd love to see it.
im currently embarking on a lenovo p710 build for my home lab so i dont have to (hopefully) have as many pcs around the house however the motherboard was dead upon arrival and trying to source one for this pc is a pain lol but ill get there, great vid!
An optlipex 3060 or 5060 are also 8th gen, and stupidly cheap here in the US. Also for the Ryzen 7 5700x right now is $160 and for a little bit more could have a killer server $400 server?
I like the build very efficient. If the mobo has a single m.2 slot, is it worth it to use an m.2 NIC instead of a PCI-E NIC? I haven't tried it before, and my chassis space is very limited. Need the LAN and WAN, and the motherboard only has one 1G RJ45 connection
I'm curious what's the penalty when using bridge network to a virtualized router setup, especially using 2.5G, I'm planning on using a mini pc with 4 network ports, and if bridge network is viable I'd save some money on a dedicated 2.5g switch
Honestly surprised at what you can get around the world for cheap, here in Bangladesh shit's EXPENSIVE. A simple and heavily used HP Elitedesk 800 G3 costs like around 250$, really do wish to find something like that over here in the future, otherwise, awesome video dude. Got me into homelabbing using two old laptops and here I am.
My main problem with this build is the networking capability, for someone going for a budget home server, they probably want everything in one machine, most notably storage, and that would probably be core of the server. Most services a normal person would run require and center around storage, backups, file sharing, etc., and because of that, I would have not gone for the network cards and instead gone for some storage. Two 2TB drives are really cheap and should fit in the budget, which gives flexibility to run a mirror or a strip RAID. And hosting a firewall in a VM like Promox is just not recommended for a variety of reasons.
When and where are you seeing an i7 8700 for ~$50? I don't see them below $75 on eBay and below $95 on AliExpress. I ended up getting a cc150 (i9 9900 without turbo boost) for $65 to go with my dell precision 3630.
Probably a little out of budget, but knowing if the UEFI/BIOS can handle PCIe Bifurication would be handy. Possibly something to add to the ever growing list of tests on builds. It may have allowed for NVME RAID, giving more speed, and/or more capacity.
looking at the specs on the Lenovo Thinkcentre M7200 there is 2 m2 slots next to the power supply would eliminate the PCI slot to add a GPU for passthru..... just saying..lol
Pro tip: Also look out for companies offloading a lot of servers. I haggled with one person from the company and managed to get a 1U 2x10core 256GB RAM server for just under 300 bucks! Just my 2c, thanks for making the video anyhow!
having opnsense VM with dedicated NICs for both WAN and LAN is smart - when tinkering, you definitely don't want to cutoff your proxmox host (management) NIC, virtual bridges in proxmox have negligible impact on performance unless bridging 10Gbe NIC where you can realistically get around 6Gbit, not full 10 indeed :D
@@RaidOwl Yea, with the HP G1 USDT, a 4th gen system that has an MXM3.0a slot, it works really well. The card I have in it is a Quadro M2200, it took a little trial and error to get it to work, but it works really well for transcoding. With the 220w power adapter, you can slap an e3 1245 v3, 4ct/8t, 16gb of DDR ram, and a 2.5gb ethernet miniPCIE, and it runs really, really well. Thermals arent great, but they arent dangerous either. I keep the fans om medium speed. It pulls files from my NAS, works like a charm. Im upgrading soon, but only because I got new hardware that I want to play with. Highly recommend, especially since they can be had for cheap.
Yo, do you have a discord or anything setup to help people swap or sell gear for cheap for projects? I would love to know if there’s a good channel for offloading older gear to others for projects like that aside from just posting them individually on eBay for cheap af to get rid of without it going in the trash
so I went dumpster diving and have a asrock x470 taichi ultimate MB amd 2600 cpu 2 12TB 3.5 disk drive's 1 tb nvme 2 rx580 gpu's 16gb ddr4 memory old junk case 1000w psu what would you do with this mess? I am looing for more storage and running hosting a game server for friends and I to play on. thinking proxmox...
my servers are my old editing rigs , one is my 2008 core2quad , the other is my i5 1150 , my curent x99 that i got in 2015 will become a nice server , when i will need to get something faster , well am thinking to get a dual x99
Hold on... I didn't know you can set up automatic transcoding with Handbrake. I'm still very, very new to homelabs and this is a game changer. It looks like docker is moving up higher on my 'to learn' to do list
I'd like to see what you could put together for $300, but instead of building a workstation based machine pick up a used decommissioned rack server like a Dell Poweredge or something. Because when you get to the $200+ price point that kind of stuff starts to hit the radar. And form factor aside what do you get vs building a workstation based contemporary.
Dell PowerEdges will not idle at 15W. In large parts of the world energy cost will rule server hardware out for a homelab. It's usually why it is so cheap to buy second hand these days...
could of gone with a Macpro 5,1 with 6 sata drive ports, ample Ram, etc abit heavy and sonsume more power but its a 1000 watt psu inside, and it boots a nvme on pcie port
$120 for the equivalent C$170 for that full system with i7 8700 is INSANE deal. For context, in Canada, just north of you the same configuration would've cost C$300 + C$150 shipping. Even if we'd purchase the exact one you have the shipping/tax/duties is still unavoidable.
Cries in UK pricing. Even allowing that those I can see over here come with more memory and an ssd eg 16/256, I'm seeing £199 = $267. That Atlantic premium still exists. Ouch. Price improves a bit with an older model and and i5, but that's a much reduced spec.
Instructions unclear: I won a pallet of those prodesks for $200 at local auction instead of putting the $200 towards a better all around machine But it performs surprisingly well. I've got 5 minecraft servers as well as a bunch of other stuff running on it as a nice all-in-one machine
Well I'm dumb AF. Looks like there actually is an NVMe slot at the bottom right of the MB...but it points down where there isn't a way to mount it...so I guess both Lenovo and I are dumb.
btw, you can get cheap m.2 vertical brackets or 3d print one yourself for kinda free! but be careful cause i had a board that had one of those but it was actually a "mini pcie" keyed for wifi/bluetooth cards
Oh well, we all have our moments where we hit our head getting up in the morning, it happens. :)
Could it possibly be a WLAN slot?
@@ragtop50 the black slot is an m.2 wifi slot and the white one is for nvme...both point down with no mounting points lol
HP does something like that where the mount screw is on the chassis itself.
Content like this is super useful for people who want to dip their toes into homelabbing without spending a huge amount of cash.
It's insane what you can get out of these boxes as a homelab for the price. People spend a lot of money on rack mountable enterprise hardware for mostly cosmetic reasons... not that there is anything wrong with that 😂
Dumpster Dive!!!!!!
I have two Proxmox servers utilizing the i7-8700. The i7-8700 is the best bang for the buck on a budget but powerful server since as you stated, Intel jumped to 6 cores/12 threads on this one. I threw 64 GB RAM in one of the servers and have been pleased with what I can do with it. The HP 800 G4 SFF are a great deal as well, not very large but room for 3.5" hard drives and some pcie cards, very similar to your setup. I believe the 800 G4 SFF also has two nvme slots. Hard to beat what you get for the price on these i7-8700 setups.
My proxmox box is an HP Elitedesk 800 G4 with an i7-8700 and it's been awesome. It does have dual m.2. About to upgrade it to a Xeon W-2265 (or maybe a threadripper 3945WX... something 12c24t with ECC ram cause all my issue have been memory related).
Still agree with the 8500/8700 being great bang for the buck right now.
I got two minidesktop dells with i5-8600 on Proxmox node (just to have one screen where operate proxmox), and even they can handle my home lab stuff just fine. Old desktop pos got i5-2400 and that thing was slow.. haven't try to vm windows yet but maybe someday. File server is totally separate machine.
I have the same pc, just with a i5 8500, and I'm very pleased.
I have 64gb, 2x 10gbps, 3x Nvme and 3 3.5" 12TB HDD (a little grinding was involved). I run my entire homelab on it, and I spare the full x16 slot. I would like to put a Quadro A2000 and the Windows VM but in low on available Cpu performance. May need to upgrade to a 8700.
In the subject of dumpster diving. Look around your area for companies that serve gas stations and grocery stores.
I'm close enough to live near Niemans and they're recycling their stuff all the time, about a year ago i picked up an 8500 and 9700 based HP for next to nothing. The 9700 went to my sister's house with a TV tuner and a 16TB drive, and the 8500 became the on-site backup with a pair of 16TB drives on truenas.
I have since 'downgraded' to a Jonsbo N1 with an Atom N100 but this allows me to better maintain the devices with a VPN and i prefer having 3 drives in ZFS Z1 as opposed to a single drive without backup and 2 drives in a mirror without parity calculations.
I actually under-powered this thing because today i found out she wants to start putting in cameras for the exterior of the property and the kennel where she trains dogs, and i just so happened to test out frigate performance on this N100, should be fine for constant recording, but image recognition is only going to be good for like 2 4K cameras and she's looking at at least 6 of those dual sensor 180 degree POE cameras.
i really wish i had more time on my hands to take in more of these old corporate boxes because i hate seeing good hardware like this thrown into the recycle i think if i could fix these up and give them way it would help *someone*
Love seeing budget builds for 2 reasons - they are affordable for a lot of people so something that is possible to easily replicate and also they really show creativity when trying to stick to a budget. Keep them coming!
Holy crap! I almost bought this item from you. Ended up in a bidding war for a different unit with a 7700 and 64gb ram and got it for the same price. Also, there is an NVME slot on the mobo. It’s the black slot, Lenovo did a super weird thing and makes the nvme drive hang off the side of the board. Thanks for the vid!
Wait for real...I'm about to go check
I bought a Lenovo M710s (SFF, 8gbs ram, i5 @ 3.2ghz) in Jan of 2023 (For $68 on Ebay) with the intent on turning it into a NAS (Nextcloud). I liked it, ended up upgrading it (1TB on-board Crucial NVME boot drive (with 1TB 3.5” that came with it as a backup), and 2x16 32gbs ram) and have been using it as a primary pc. I spent a bit of time learning more about servers/NAS/etc and bought another M710s (8gbs ram, i5-7500) in Jan of 2024 (For $74 on Ebay) for the same purpose, I added:
The matching unused 8gb stick from the first M710s, bringing it up to 16gbs (will upgrade later)
2X pcie to NVME ( 500gb Crucial P3 Plus)
1X pcie to 3x usb 3 card, but may swap it out for a NIC card
(Though I’m confused to weather I actually need one?).
1X direct motherboard NVME ( 500gb Crucial P3) Boot drive
1X 1TB Seagate 3.5” internal hard drive
2X 4TB Seagate 3.5” Baracuda hard drives
(Mounted outside the pc in a 5.25” to 5x3.5” hard drive cage with fan, but being powered by the pc, because they won’t physically fit inside.)
Of course this build is now closer to $350, but I needed to break it down into incremental purchases for my budget.
Things I should have put more thought into:
- Hard drive space, this pc only has physical space for 1X on-board NVME, 1X 2.5” drive, and 1X 3.5” drive. Though I had built an under-desk enclosure to “case swap” the components into.
- Number of SATA ports, this motherboard only has 3X on-board SATA ports. While this is scalable with pcie, but only to an extent with the SFF psu. This might not be a problem for some, but I didn’t want to power my drives with an external power supply.
- Ventilation, this pc is small internally so (currently without reason) worry about heat building up inside. They both seem to stay fairly cool, but I keep the cases open. With this one I really have no choice, since 2 of the 3.5” drives are technically external (SATA and power comes from the motherboard.).
Conclusion
This was never meant to be my permanent setup, just a “for now” for my NAS server. Though most of my purchases were considered with the next step in mind. I’ve logged hundreds of “How to” hours on UA-cam and Google, lol but have continued to procrastinate and put off the software side. Lol I have mostly be refraining because I prefer a Windows environment since it’s 2nd nature to me. I’ve been with Windows since I was 12 (1997), and change “was” hard. It seems the more Windows changes, the less I like it. While I prefer the idea of a native style NAS environment (Ubuntu 24), but have been looking more into Truenas scale since you initially suggested it. It comes down to usability and maintenance, I can invest in building a true server environment later if I decide move into web hosting or anything else. Ubuntu is more than what I am up for in those regards, I just need a backend for Nextcloud and that seems to be truenas.
Lenovo P520/P520c should be around the same price as this one and actually has upward facing NVMe slots. I know this b/c I bought 3 of em over the last 2 years. Especially the P520 which has a superb amount of space for HDDs and enough SATA power slots on the PSU. Up to 512GBs RAM and CPU upgradable to 18c/36t W-2295. If theres anything that comes close for bang/buck I will be in your comments section letting you know about it.
I love seeing the puzzle and justification of how you fit the parts into the budget. And I had no idea you could make Handbrake automatically look in a folder like that-thanks for the tip!
Yeah use the jlesage repo 👍🏼
I really like tdarr, look into it
Also good
Next upgrades, get a 4x 2.5GB ethernet port...replace the dual 2.5...more expensive, and more RAM...always need more RAM...but that is for "later"
"Entry level" is the key word of the day ;)
Pretty cool...the all in one server is a VERY cool setup!
Keep em coming!!!!
This similar setup was what I used as my home lab server for the last 10 years. Something to keep in mind, Lenovo uses proprietary power supply connector, so you may need to have an adapter that connect standard ATX PS.
If you didn't want to spend the money for an extra NIC, tagged vLAN is a great way to get away with 1 network interface.
Just watched the whole video, and now I'm sitting here with popcorn, eagerly waiting for the next one to see how this build it stands up against a $400 server! :D
I love these sorts of builds. It's something that I never do but it's still interesting.
And speaking of dumpster diving, here's a build idea for you : I am trying to help a friend build a very small, power efficient NAS for his off grid cottage. Its main purpose is to store jpg and mp4 files from a single motion activated Reolink POE security camera. The NAS will connect to a little GL.iNet travel router and pickup internet from his neighbour's WiFi. Now, with that setup, the plan is to use Syncthing to send the jpg files to his home in the big city. Maybe the mp4's if the bandwidth can handle it. Ideally, Tailscale would also be installed to administer the remote NAS. It's a fairly simple setup but I'm struggling with selecting the NAS hardware and software. Raspberry Pi ? Zima ? HP Desktop Pro mini ? I'd like to keep the operating system as simple as possible. Maybe Windows ? Linux Mint ? It only needs to be able to received jpg and mp4 files via FTP and send via Syncthing. Being able to run a DLNA media server for the odd movie or music would be a real bonus.
Great video. A LOT of my home servers over the years have been from either eBay, or from the off-lease computers from the local university. There are deals to be had if people just look.
Hopefully, this will inspire future home labs to be built
Ah, the shuffle out the door.... greatness! 😂😂😂😂😂😂
"The Walk of Shame" XD
Loved it, thank you.😊
My homelab is also based on the i7-8700 with 32gb ram. It's very capable for my uses, I have it running a few VMs and about 20 LXCs with plenty of resources left.
It's pretty amazing what you can do these days with almost ten year old second hand enterprise hardware like and EliteDesk SFF or similar. It's always interesting to me that this is usually a much better alternative then getting actual rackable server hardware from the same era for you homelab. Unless you absolutely need the expandability.
This is fun! You know, it's amazing what we can do with very little money, not a lot out of pocket and definitely not a lot out of the wall. Pretty cool, keep it up sir!
I had been kicking the idea around of doing a home server to help with group projects since I run a twitch channel and a podcast with some friends... aaaaand I think your videos have pushed me over the edge to actually doing it, since I have a 3770k system and 32 gigs of ddr3 to start with :)
Awesome channel, definitely subbing!
For an Italian like me.. It's unbelievable how cheap are these things in the USA. Even now on eBay, I'm looking at double or triple the price for a comparable machine.
But y’all have awesome pasta so like…fair trade
@@RaidOwl yeah, but I'm an atypical Italian, I don't love pasta very much. Luckily I work in an hospital IT so I'm plenty of hardware to reuse, as we often replace still functioning pc due to aging. But still now we're changing a lot of pro desk 600, sixth gen, or maybe some thinkcentre m93. But always with basic cpu. Nothing super powerful.
@@MrSousuke87Have you tried eBay and filter by EU only? There's some pretty good deals from Eastern Europe
@@MrSousuke87 > I don't love pasta very much
italian citizenship removed
@@zCaptainz yeah, but I'm not in need now, I've got three machines for my homelab, but a newborn almost delivered and a 3 years little girl, so it's difficult to find time. Thanks for the advice though.
Let's say it, prices are also doing me a favor, or I would start 6/7 projects at the same time. 🤣
Love the home lab videos. Always great work, sir.
awesome video. just watched both of them. 100 and 200 build.
Here loving the content and helping the engagement stat lol
OMG dumpster dive server sounds like a great idea
Just replaced my Cisco M2 server from my home lab with a HP mini G9 for £300, so glad I did this I can now have it on my desk and run it all day without issue with multiple vms on esxi 👍🏻
From a security standpoint, it is better to pass through the NICs to your router VM as there's much less chance of leakage to the host hypervisor. IMO passing virtio NICs to a VM should only be done when either PCI passthrough isn't possible or the router OS does not have good drivers for the NICs.
Good build anyhow 👍🏽 it's amazing what one can accomplish these days with dirt cheap old consumer hardware.
Bruh... 😂 4:12....That Man had to do the some dirty deeds and the walk of shame for that hardware! I'll stick with the used lenovo lol.
tyvm for great vid
I built a new gaming PC end of last year and used my old PC with TrueNAS Scale and upgraded the ram and fans. Best decision I ever made. i7-6700 (non-k), 32gb of ram, and a gtx1070 for transcoding. With hard drives I think I only spend about $250, at the time I found 6tb HDD's to be a good deal but I'm kind of regretting it now with half my storage used up thus far with 24tb, now 9tb usable.
I’m all about that dumpster dive
Please dumpster dive a home server! That would be so awesome.
I'd love to see a networking equivalent of this series(?) like a $50 network, 100, 200, 400.
i love it when you call out comments that haven't even been made yet. would also love to see a dumpster dive/'junk people were throwing away' server build.
I really am enjoying this series. I would like to see what you could do with this same machine (and the 6-10 dollar M.2 plastic caddy to free up the main PCiE x16 slot) with 300 dollars!!! That would be awesome. Maybe throw in a cheap Quadro P1000 or 2000. I'd love to see it.
im currently embarking on a lenovo p710 build for my home lab so i dont have to (hopefully) have as many pcs around the house however the motherboard was dead upon arrival and trying to source one for this pc is a pain lol but ill get there, great vid!
Really, really like this build. The only thing I would like to know if it’s if you can add 4 HDD and build a NAS. Love the space in the case.
You could maybe get 2 3.5” drives in there.
@@RaidOwl Thank you. Sadly couldn't find any listing on eBay/
Nice, looking forward to the 400 USD server video! 😃
An optlipex 3060 or 5060 are also 8th gen, and stupidly cheap here in the US.
Also for the Ryzen 7 5700x right now is $160 and for a little bit more could have a killer server $400 server?
I like the build very efficient. If the mobo has a single m.2 slot, is it worth it to use an m.2 NIC instead of a PCI-E NIC? I haven't tried it before, and my chassis space is very limited. Need the LAN and WAN, and the motherboard only has one 1G RJ45 connection
Awesome video man !!
Splendid stuff!. Dont know what it says about me but that Lenovo case is a handsome thing!
Any chance of more Proxmox networking tutorials?
Really enjoyed this. Is there a way to set up handbrake to automatically convert a DVD whenever one is inserted in that half height drive?
Yeah I'd assume so...I'll have to try it
I'm curious what's the penalty when using bridge network to a virtualized router setup, especially using 2.5G, I'm planning on using a mini pc with 4 network ports, and if bridge network is viable I'd save some money on a dedicated 2.5g switch
Server 2: the end of the trilogy
8th gen i7 is spot on for this challenge 👍
Kindest regards, friends and neighbours.
Honestly surprised at what you can get around the world for cheap, here in Bangladesh shit's EXPENSIVE. A simple and heavily used HP Elitedesk 800 G3 costs like around 250$, really do wish to find something like that over here in the future, otherwise, awesome video dude. Got me into homelabbing using two old laptops and here I am.
Laptops have a built in UPS…perfect! Haha
@@RaidOwl yeah, at the cost of expansion 💀💀
Thank you for getting back to your normal content, the whole robot vac had me thinking you lost your way lol
lmao every once in awhile you gotta take the bag 💰
You could use GVT-g and passthrough a mdev to the Windows VM
Next time if you do part 3, you can build an even cheaper home server with: A ski mask and a crowbar. Hope this helps :)
My main problem with this build is the networking capability, for someone going for a budget home server, they probably want everything in one machine, most notably storage, and that would probably be core of the server. Most services a normal person would run require and center around storage, backups, file sharing, etc., and because of that, I would have not gone for the network cards and instead gone for some storage. Two 2TB drives are really cheap and should fit in the budget, which gives flexibility to run a mirror or a strip RAID. And hosting a firewall in a VM like Promox is just not recommended for a variety of reasons.
Dumpster Dive, lets go
I need to learn about 2.5 Ghz networking. Also PFSense.
Both have a low cost to entry so let’s get it 👍🏼
When and where are you seeing an i7 8700 for ~$50? I don't see them below $75 on eBay and below $95 on AliExpress. I ended up getting a cc150 (i9 9900 without turbo boost) for $65 to go with my dell precision 3630.
Can you make a video how you done it with proxmox and opnsense?
Can we have comparaison of power consumption too ?
Probably a little out of budget, but knowing if the UEFI/BIOS can handle PCIe Bifurication would be handy. Possibly something to add to the ever growing list of tests on builds.
It may have allowed for NVME RAID, giving more speed, and/or more capacity.
That was a better sponsor segue than Linus could ever hope to achieve.
looking at the specs on the Lenovo Thinkcentre M7200 there is 2 m2 slots next to the power supply would eliminate the PCI slot to add a GPU for passthru..... just saying..lol
Yeah looks like the eBay listing had the wrong model. Apparently this is the 720t which doesn’t have nvme.
cool video's, keep old systems form landfil !!!
Were you walking out the door with a Unifi Dream Machine? Lol
Great Vid, Do The Dumpster Dive lol
Pro tip:
Also look out for companies offloading a lot of servers. I haggled with one person from the company and managed to get a 1U 2x10core 256GB RAM server for just under 300 bucks!
Just my 2c, thanks for making the video anyhow!
Can you use a standard power supply?
0:52 - I’m not above this segue… to our sponsor
2+1, carry the 6 does not equal 3 😂 it was funny tho for sure
Add a nice gpu and it’s a more than good enough little developer workstation.
I really wish these things had space for 3x3.5 drives. I can always add a PCIE card to add in M.2 drives, but i cant add 3.5 inch drives.
I do want to see you get dirty. Dumpster diving server!
With 200 usd of you made a miracle 😊
having opnsense VM with dedicated NICs for both WAN and LAN is smart - when tinkering, you definitely don't want to cutoff your proxmox host (management) NIC,
virtual bridges in proxmox have negligible impact on performance unless bridging 10Gbe NIC where you can realistically get around 6Gbit, not full 10 indeed :D
Wow, I use one of those HPs as my Plex server. It slaps
Low key?
@@RaidOwl Yea, with the HP G1 USDT, a 4th gen system that has an MXM3.0a slot, it works really well. The card I have in it is a Quadro M2200, it took a little trial and error to get it to work, but it works really well for transcoding. With the 220w power adapter, you can slap an e3 1245 v3, 4ct/8t, 16gb of DDR ram, and a 2.5gb ethernet miniPCIE, and it runs really, really well. Thermals arent great, but they arent dangerous either. I keep the fans om medium speed. It pulls files from my NAS, works like a charm. Im upgrading soon, but only because I got new hardware that I want to play with. Highly recommend, especially since they can be had for cheap.
Yo, do you have a discord or anything setup to help people swap or sell gear for cheap for projects? I would love to know if there’s a good channel for offloading older gear to others for projects like that aside from just posting them individually on eBay for cheap af to get rid of without it going in the trash
so I went dumpster diving and have a asrock x470 taichi ultimate MB amd 2600 cpu 2 12TB 3.5 disk drive's 1 tb nvme 2 rx580 gpu's 16gb ddr4 memory old junk case 1000w psu what would you do with this mess? I am looing for more storage and running hosting a game server for friends and I to play on. thinking proxmox...
Talks about legally obtained media after queuing up a WEBDL of Free Guy 😂
thats craaaaaaazy
@@RaidOwl Wild stuff indeed 😁
Did you use the built in nick at all?
Haha depending on where you dumpster dive you can find full blown servers jajajaja
my servers are my old editing rigs , one is my 2008 core2quad , the other is my i5 1150 , my curent x99 that i got in 2015 will become a nice server , when i will need to get something faster , well am thinking to get a dual x99
Cheers!
🍺🍺🍺
Its a cool video. I myself like the Dell 3060 micro as its small can sit on a 1u rack shelf and can just use iscsi for storage to my nas :)
Had a look on the ebays , and is the m7200 also known as M720T ?, appears to be the same?, maybe a regional naming thing ?
Yeah the actual label says M720t so maybe a typo on the listing?
Hold on... I didn't know you can set up automatic transcoding with Handbrake.
I'm still very, very new to homelabs and this is a game changer.
It looks like docker is moving up higher on my 'to learn' to do list
With that specific image you can do automatic transcoding
hope you have tested it at Plex for instance
I'd like to see what you could put together for $300, but instead of building a workstation based machine pick up a used decommissioned rack server like a Dell Poweredge or something. Because when you get to the $200+ price point that kind of stuff starts to hit the radar. And form factor aside what do you get vs building a workstation based contemporary.
Dell PowerEdges will not idle at 15W. In large parts of the world energy cost will rule server hardware out for a homelab. It's usually why it is so cheap to buy second hand these days...
I'd like to hear more about this 2 nickel home depot deal.
That’ll cost you 2 nickels
Need to go dumpster diving my friend.
could of gone with a Macpro 5,1 with 6 sata drive ports, ample Ram, etc abit heavy and sonsume more power but its a 1000 watt psu inside, and it boots a nvme on pcie port
I like Microsoft. I might be biased because I am a network engineer, and my life is Microsoft. It pays well, and I like money.
Excellent reason
Dumpster Dive Server video please!
$120 for the equivalent C$170 for that full system with i7 8700 is INSANE deal. For context, in Canada, just north of you the same configuration would've cost C$300 + C$150 shipping. Even if we'd purchase the exact one you have the shipping/tax/duties is still unavoidable.
Cries in UK pricing.
Even allowing that those I can see over here come with more memory and an ssd eg 16/256, I'm seeing £199 = $267. That Atlantic premium still exists. Ouch. Price improves a bit with an older model and and i5, but that's a much reduced spec.
For $100 can I come over so you can teach an ADHD old Fart how to ProxMox Properly...
Im about to make Everything Win2k Pro Boxes again LOL
😂😂😂
Will you be continuing this series by doubling the budget every time?
Thats the plan
Instructions unclear: I won a pallet of those prodesks for $200 at local auction instead of putting the $200 towards a better all around machine
But it performs surprisingly well. I've got 5 minecraft servers as well as a bunch of other stuff running on it as a nice all-in-one machine
Dumpster dive fo sho
Dumpster dive server!!
Now that I am seeing this, I am ditching my HP 8300 Eliredesk pc with an i5 2400 and buy the one with 6 cores 12 threads
LETS GET DIRTY!!!!LETS GET DIRTY!!!!LETS GET DIRTY!!!!LETS GET DIRTY!!!!LETS GET DIRTY!!!!LETS GET DIRTY!!!!
Dumpster diveeeeeee!
Did you ever get a good answer on how to use windows without using windows
Nah just got an ad for OneDrive