Hi, I wanted to start selfhosting and I’d like to have your opinion on something that I’m struggling to decide.

I don’t plan to tinker too much with my system, I’ve been a Linux tinkerer myself some time ago but now I’d like to setup something that’s really bulletproof and then leave it running (ofc I know I’ll have to do a bit of bugfixing now and then), not replacing hardware ideally for >= 10 years.

This is why I’m planning to use TrueNAS, and that’s why I’m planning to buy a UGREEN DXP2800: has two 3,5" HDD bays (4TB should be enough for me for the next 8-10 years, so I’ll have two 4TB disks in RAID1 or mirror or whatever is recommended). Only problem I have with this machine is that it only has 1 RAM slot, and I guess 8 GB isn’t enough if I use zfs. So I’ll have to upgrade to either 16 or 32 GB. Now I did my research and from my understanding 16GB seems to be enough, but it would be such a waste having to replace the whole RAM if it turns out it isn’t enough.

For reference, I don’t plan on having more than 7-8 services running: Immich, Nextcloud+office, firefly, audiobookshelf, paperless and a maybe few more if they’re useful. I value responsiveness but it’s ok if some things take longer to process (thinking immich ML, or stuff like transcoding)

I’m very interested to know your opinion:

  • is the dxp2800 a good choice?
  • should I go with 16 or 32 GB RAM?

And a little extra

  • how much ssd space do you recommend for high speed data? is 500gb enough?

Thank you so much!

  • bordam@feddit.itOPEnglish
    1·
    7 hours ago

    Thank you! Really appreciate your input. I could sacrifice Nexcloud if it’s too resource hungry actually. And good to know about ZFS having low RAM impact in my case. If you say 8gb could be enough, in case I go with the dxp2800, I could try keeping the stock 8gb and upgrading only if necessary and when I find a good offer.

    I really feel your point about the diy pc, what worries me is the price (I can get the dxp2800 for about 300 including 8gb of ram, hardly beatable by a custom build with new hardware) and then there’s also noise, space, power consumption, heat that must be taken into account. It’s a bit overwhelming and I think I would mess up. But yes, it’s true that if something breaks in the ugreen I’ll have to replace everything.