Evolution of My Home Server: From a Slim PC to an Unraid Powerhouse (Part 2)
For the beginning, see Part 1:
doreets
As of the last post, I was running on my eBay Z230, which posed the following challenges:
Dust Accumulation and Maintenance: The Z230 workstation was susceptible to dust accumulation due to its design, requiring regular cleaning to prevent performance issues caused by clogged components.
Limited Cooling: Equipped with only one fan, the Z230 struggled with cooling, particularly when managing multiple hard drives. 45C heat warnings were often tripped ...
HDD Heat and Performance Impact: Heat generated by closely-packed hard drives posed a risk to performance and longevity. This 45C steady state, dust baked drives situation would have to change soon ..........
I began envisioning "Server 2.0", which met the following requirements;
- LARGE PC case with more than 4 HDD Slots.. I did NOT want to replace all the drives one by one with larger drives to obtain more space.
- Actual cooling - the Z230's single exhaust fan on the back was not enough to keep dust away and keep my drives cool
I purchased a 10-bay case -Corsair Carbide 500R- and Power supply on Facebook Marketplace for $80CAD.
Feb 17, 2023(!): Getting ready for Server 2.0
Reached 129 days uptime, upgraded to 6.11.5. First major change in a year and a half.
78% used. 22 running containers. No more drive bays left in Z230 case.
Getting ready to move drives into nice new case with the guts of OLD-RELIABLE (i5-2500) that has 10 HDD bays (and actual cooling) - until I can get some better hardware.
Feb 18, 2023: Goodnight sweet prince - the Jank period - jankiest my server has ever been
End of Z230's life as server. “Upgraded” to the new case, Server 1.8, which is a used Corsair Carbide 500R. Thanks FB Marketplace. “Downgraded” the Mobo and CPU to original BIGBLUE / OLD-RELIABLE Shitty Asus Mobo and i5-2500. lol.
Had to use a fat ass graphics card because onboard graphics don't work. Downgraded to 16GB RAM because one of the RAM slots is bad.
Added 2TB Drive acquired for free when I bought UPGRAYDZ (Gaming PC). Thanks FB Marketplace.
8.5TB used of 13TB (65%)
March 8,2023: FINALLY! SERVER 2.0 FOR REALS
Upgraded for reals to the motherboard I wanted off Ebay; an ASUS Q87M-E. This has onboard graphics again, slight slight reupgrade to i5-4590, and I can use all 4 RAM slots.
Yay! Now we're cookin baby. Back to 32GB overkill RAM, real server 2.0 vibes.
Time passes …
August 2023: S T A B I L I T Y
Almost no changes. 9.78 TB used of 13 TB (75.2 %). UPS still going strong, have weathered many a minor power outage. At some point in the last couple months (maybe May?) added a Sonoff_Zigbee_3.0_USB_Dongle_Plus and installed Zigbee2MQTT and got some Aqara buttons and a cube. I have been using them for things … they're dope.
Cache SSD is getting down to 79% wear. Around 2% every 2 months ..
Here's a snapshot of the beginning of 2024!
