Well,
I have come to the conclusion that I am in need of a new home server. My combination of a HP N40L for storage, a HP Laptop for Plex and a Raspberry Pi 3 as a Home Assistant machine just isn’t working well anymore. Of course, I can’t afford to go out and buy brand new gear (for the most part). I am considering “old” LGA 1356 Intel E5-2670 Xeons (around $80 each), a motherboard to support two of them, rackmount case (new Norco RPC-5224 and probably the most expensive part of the build), new PSU, an additional SAS/SATA controller so I can use the case properly, etc. Just need to determine if I want to do Ubuntu with ZOL & root on ZFS or if I want to go with FreeBSD and a beta install of Docker. I’ll run as much as I can outside of Docker containers, but some will need to be containers. I’m also thinking of putting the server in the garage, although I have no clue how hot it gets in there in the summer which worries me. I would love to be able to run two fiber runs out there to do a connection between my current Meraki MS220-8P and my old Dell PowerConnect 2724 (LAG between them just because I can), would also give me the ability to upgrade to 10Gig at some point in the future.