I'm stuck in my own thoughts when it comes to my next home server.
I'm currently running out of space in the current system and the setup feels old and inefficient.
This would be something like the version 4.0 of something that has evolved from multiple desktop machines, single desktop with virtualization, HBA passthrough for mdadm RAID and finally HW RAID. Great fun but a pain to navigate through the jungle of NIC and VT-d support for ESXi. Also, power draw has increased for each revision.
What I really like about this is the isolation between the VMs. It feels good to have pfsense and not me trying to setup iptables on a native Ubuntu server or similar.
Sure, long intro... The solution above feels old school when I read about all the new exiting stuff out there. ZFS, containers.
Right now I'm thinking of going for a Xeon for ECC support, native Ubuntu Server, KVM for pfsense. Storage wise I'm thinking ZFS with 2x8TB in mirroring for future proof and safe storage and 4x3TB (re use the old ones to begin with) in RAIDZ + SSD cache to get better responsiveness. I guess I can run a Kodi MySQL in a container and Transmission in another one. But then, I have no idea how to isolate photos from media without moving them into VMs and losing some of the nice ZFS possibilities. MySQL and Transmission would need access to the media files, but I do not want to put all the eggs in one basket on the host. Or, do you think that's the way to go?
Please share you ideas!
My priorities would be:
I'm currently running out of space in the current system and the setup feels old and inefficient.
- APC SmartUPS 1500 (bought used, probably over sized for the task, noisy when the fans runs every now and then. Efficiency? I have no idea...)
- Desktop chassis (good noise proofing) with desktop components (Core i5 3330, 16GB RAM)
- HW RAID, LSI 9261-8i
- Storage
- 2x3TB RAID1
- 2x3TB RAID1
- ESXi installed to USB drive
- VMs:
- pfsense
- 4x Ubuntu Servers
- "beach head" into the LAN
- photography storage server
- media server with MySQl for Kodi and Transmission
- a test server (python, web development, random testing))
This would be something like the version 4.0 of something that has evolved from multiple desktop machines, single desktop with virtualization, HBA passthrough for mdadm RAID and finally HW RAID. Great fun but a pain to navigate through the jungle of NIC and VT-d support for ESXi. Also, power draw has increased for each revision.
What I really like about this is the isolation between the VMs. It feels good to have pfsense and not me trying to setup iptables on a native Ubuntu server or similar.
Sure, long intro... The solution above feels old school when I read about all the new exiting stuff out there. ZFS, containers.
Right now I'm thinking of going for a Xeon for ECC support, native Ubuntu Server, KVM for pfsense. Storage wise I'm thinking ZFS with 2x8TB in mirroring for future proof and safe storage and 4x3TB (re use the old ones to begin with) in RAIDZ + SSD cache to get better responsiveness. I guess I can run a Kodi MySQL in a container and Transmission in another one. But then, I have no idea how to isolate photos from media without moving them into VMs and losing some of the nice ZFS possibilities. MySQL and Transmission would need access to the media files, but I do not want to put all the eggs in one basket on the host. Or, do you think that's the way to go?
Please share you ideas!
My priorities would be:
- Low noise
- Simplicity of the solution
- Learn new technology (ZFS, KVM, containers, etc)
- Low power
- Cost