Hardware help.

Let’s see if I can get some help here with planning and implementation.

The goal is to replace my current NAS, a QNAP TS251, because one of the drives failed, and I need more storage (currently 4TB in RAID1, so data is safe). Additionally, I’d like to replace my current Home Assistant server client, as one of its RAM sticks failed. I’m considering setting up a high-performance TrueNAS server, either based on Proxmox or with TrueNAS as the base and containers running within it. The budget is around €1000, excluding drives. I’m also looking into other potential applications for the setup. Offsite backups are handled with OneDrive (1TB), so this setup should integrate with that as well.

I’m debating whether to upgrade my current system and reuse the components listed below or buy entirely new parts for the NAS. One thing to consider is the bottleneck caused by the Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Ultra and my current Cisco Catalyst 3560-CG switch.

Home Assistant Configuration

Zigbee: Conbee II USB stick

Add-ons:

Frigate (CPU + Coral TPU)

ESPHome

AdGuard

Current PC Components

CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X

RAM: 16GB 3600MHz

Motherboard: MSI B550 Gaming Edge WiFi

GPU: RTX 3080 Suprim

PC Usage

Gaming (e.g., Warzone)

3D design with Fusion

3D rendering with Fusion

Current Network Setup

Router: Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Ultra (unfortunately limited to 1Gbps LAN)

Switch: Cisco Catalyst 3560-CG

Access Point: Ubiquiti UniFi U6 Plus

NAS Requirements

Storage for photos and videos (e.g., 4x 16TB drives)

Virtualization of at least the Home Assistant + add-ons (can be separate containers)

Offsite backup integration

Let me know your thoughts or suggestions!

If all you’re going to run is TrueNAS and HomeAssistant, that gaming machine is way overkill and doesn’t support ECC memory. TrueNAS really could benefit from ECC.

You can achieve this far below €1000 on a server platform, or even a prebuilt NUC if you don’t need the ECC.

To elaborate, for my home build, I went with this Qotom Q20331G9. Proxmox as the hypervisor, and VMs being OPNsense, TrueNAS, and HomeAssistant. Specs for this build:

  • Intel Atom C3758R 8C/8T CPU
  • 64gb ECC memory
  • 1tb SSD
  • 10gbe fiber and 2.5gbe network

Total build was ~$600. The processor is a server platform, so it does support ECC. Also supports QAT for IPsec VPN for offsite snapshot backups.