Custom home server built from spare parts

> So the NAS runs Kubuntu 24.04 with ZFS

My experience is similar. I no longer use dedicated NAS, firewall, or other exotic distributions. I run plain Debian, and add what I need through standard repo packages. My "NAS" is simply a Samba daemon. The same box runs countless other services including hostapd (WiFi), DNS (Unbound), an email stack (Postfix/Dovecot), multiple game servers, and Podman.

> everything else in Docker Compose

I would suggest Podman instead. It is far more secure by design (rootless) and is unable to silently alter the firewall's configuration.

> The rest of the upgrade came out of my junk drawers. Two DDR4 sticks from an old laptop take the memory to the platform maximum of 32 GB

Realtalk: make sure you are religious about testing your RAM if you're going to run ZFS with non-ECC RAM. I'm not going to say “don't do it”, but know what you're getting into and how to protect yourself from this failure mode.

It's unintuitive, but ZFS will actually modify your files on disk as a side effect of a read-only operation if blocks get read into bad RAM and checksum mismatch compared to the blocks on disk.

This happened to me in 2013–14 with some bad PC3 10600 in my 2600K desktop FreeBSD system, and it rotted a bunch of my most frequently accessed files. I was able to figure out what was going on once audible blips started appearing in all of my favorite most-listened-to music, then I learned about `flac -t` and was able to confirm the rot thanks to the fact that FLAC files embed an expected MD5 digest in their `STREAMINFO` block. `man flac` sez…

“In test mode, flac acts just like in decode mode, except no output file is written. Both decode and test modes detect errors in the stream, but they also detect when the MD5 signature of the decoded audio does not match the stored MD5 signature, even when the bitstream is valid.” (emphasis mine)

  [Lammy@popola] flac --test "Floating Door - Hypersomnia in loop - 12 templeOS.flac"
  Floating Door - Hypersomnia in loop - 12 templeOS.flac: ok

  [Lammy@popola] metaflac --show-md5sum "Floating Door - Hypersomnia in loop - 12 templeOS.flac"
  d9ccdc78cfa45dda01b38198575b4f56

  [Lammy@popola] flac --decode --stdout --silent --force-raw-format --endian=little --sign=signed "Floating Door - Hypersomnia in loop - 12 templeOS.flac" | md5
  d9ccdc78cfa45dda01b38198575b4f56

After that experience, I moved my ZFS storage to a dedicated system — first on an Atom C2750 board and later (and currently) an Atom C3758, both with ECC UDIMMs. (Stay away from the C2xxx series tho; they are all doomed to CLK-circuit-degradation death which repairing only prolongs but does not prevent)

I am most interested in that DC power supply. I bought a similar one recently (rgeek brand on aliexpress), but haven't yet dared to connect it yet.

I'm wondering what:

- the failure mode is if it can't provide enough current.

- How to properly test it under a fake load

- If these tiny power cables can really handle 150 W (this is 12 A at 12V). I don't have such a powerful 12V PSU, so I am thinking about adding capacitors to handle transients.

I imagine that it is really built to handle transient peaks to 150 W, with a more reasonable baseline.

Anyway, if anyone knows a good knowledge source for these PSU, I'd be interested.

My initial motication for going with these was:

- hopefully increase my PSU efficiency

- less cable clutter

- hopefully power it from a small DC UPS (there are plenty of "router" UPS sold on the market, though the power rating is a bit low, 18-36 W usually).

It’s a HDD, so it’s ok if not CoW will kill your consumer SSD/NVMe sooner.

Also you can very well add Proxmox if you want to on top of Debian.

Beware, Ubuntu are dropping ZFS. That's something that's annoyed me as that's now ruled out future upgrades

> So the NAS runs Kubuntu 24.04 with ZFS,

I broadly approve, but why Kubuntu? Isn't it headless?

That tiny touchscreen that shows metrics was an extremely nice touch. Fascinating read!

Nice custom job, I use my old hardware too, it’s the perfect use case providing it’s relatively power efficient.

Not sure why they claim to have written the dashboard themselves though. It’s clearly vibe-coded, I did that too and mine is almost identical.

Re names, I like "homeprod". The main goal isn't to experiment and learn, and you're not scrapping to get a pair of Cisco 2501's to study for your CCNA. Rather the main goal is providing services that support your family's larger existence, independent of the surveillance industry - the tinkering is an (unfortunately necessary) side effect.

Hmmm. Only fans Linux service running?

On the wifi requirement I just noticed unraid has added wifi support

I've noticed 3d printing people have this annoying habit of posting pics of their projects in just low enough res that you can't assess what the surface finish actually looks like. From what I can tell this "pebbled" finish looks uncommonly nice, I wonder if that's a byproduct of the glass fiber material or some post-processing.

This is great. I also avoid stuff like TrueNAS or Unraid and opt to simply run my own ZFS and smb/nfs/etc configuration. Love the unifi-style display... I am cooking something similar but it is not a touchscreen just a blue-on-black OLED that cycles through status pages. You've inspired me to finally write a post on my own setup.

> six drives spinning up at once pull about 125 W for a brief moment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin-up#SATA_and_PATA

Of course it's a lottery if it would work on a kitbashed homelab case.

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