EBay server vs HP microserver vs Home Built

delonm

Cadet
Joined
May 13, 2020
Messages
2
Greetings,

I have been running a NAS server built using a Fujitsu MX130 for many years. It finally died the other day so I began researching replacements. At first I was leaning toward building one as I normally build my own PC’s, but after looking at prebuilt options like the HP Microservers (Gen 10+), I was not sure home built was really the way to go. My NAS usage is mainly for PC backup and photo and video archiving. My current (dead) NAS is only 6TB using ZFS raid 10.

Now that I have started looking at NAS options again, I am interested in expanding my storage and playing around with Plex. Expanding the HP box would force me to replace my existing drives which would drive the cost up. Which leads me to eBay. It seems like really good deals can be had on Supermicro servers with plenty of RAM and great drive expandability, like this one:


I would welcome feedback or shared experiences with purchasing used servers off eBay as well as any insights into good models or configurations for my modest use case.

Thank you,

David
 

delonm

Cadet
Joined
May 13, 2020
Messages
2
As a follow up to this post, I decided to pull the trigger on an eBay Supermicro server. Specifically, this one:


It should have all the power and expansion I will need for a while. Hopefully it will also work well for Plex and the odd VM or two. Given the description, I am not 100% sure the HBA has been flashed to IT mode so I am checking on that. If not, I will get to learn how to flash an LSI HBA. :)

Thanks,

David
 
Top