Component Recommendations for Proxmox Homelab with TrueNAS and Various Applications

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alehop

New Member
May 24, 2024
1
0
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Hello everyone,

I'm in the process of setting up my own homelab and would greatly appreciate your recommendations and advice. Below, I provide the details and requirements of my project:

Goals and Essential Requirements:
  1. Homelab Server with Proxmox: I want to create an environment to learn and practice various IT certifications.
  2. TrueNAS: One of the virtual machines will be a TrueNAS that will utilize 6 Seagate Exos X18 HDDs, each 18 TB (already have them) for backups and cloud at home.
  3. Cybersecurity and Sysadmin Labs: I need to set up labs with virtual machines for practice.
  4. Home Service Applications: I wish to run various applications in virtual machines and containers (Docker or similar) to service at home.
Components I Already Have:
  • Chassis: Fractal Design Node 804
  • HDDs: 6 Seagate/dell Exos X18 - 18 TB
Additional Requirements:
  • Low Power CPU: Seeking a processor that doesn't consume too much energy.
  • Silent System: I want the server to be as silent as possible.
  • Compatibility and Performance: Compatibility with Proxmox and good performance to handle multiple virtual machines and containers.
Components I Need:

  • Motherboard
  • Processor (CPU)
  • RAM Memory
  • Additional Storage (SSD for the operating system and cache)
  • Power Supply Unit (PSU)
  • Cooling Systems (if necessary)
  • Network Card (if not integrated into the motherboard)
I'm open to specific recommendations for models and brands that you consider suitable. Additionally, any additional advice on configuration, optimization, and management of a homelab like this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your help!
 

Chriggel

Active Member
Mar 30, 2024
146
77
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It's basically impossible to give you specific recommendations, there is crucial information missing, like your budget and your hard requirements. Almost everything you've listed are soft requirements. They don't necessarily mean the same to you as they mean to everybody else. It's all relative.

How much energy is too much? Are we talking about idle? Under load, it will take as much energy as it needs to do what you ask it to do. At that point, efficiency and performance per watt is more relevant than idle power consumption. "Silent" and "good performance" also don't mean much. As silent as possible could mean mostly passive cooling, is that something you're interested in so that you want to spend more money on it and accept potential drawbacks?

Only you know how many CPUs and RAM you need for all your VMs, this affects the platform you'll need. I think a desktop class system with ECC, like AM5, could be enough, but I can't know for sure. You haven't specified any network performance requirements, the board will most likely come with RJ45 1, 2.5, 5 or 10 GbE. As long as that is fine for you, you don't need an additional NIC.

With the information we have, I'll take a wild guess and say that an AM5 system will be fine, the smallest CPU and 32 GB ECC RAM will be plenty, with at least 6 SATA ports for your HDDs and one or two M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs, potentially mirrored, for your OS. A 300W PSU will be enough, obviously you want a decent one. Thermalright offers CPU cooling solutions at insane price/performance ratios and the fans that usually come with Fractal Design cases are pretty good and usable as well, so you're fine on that front.