Self-Hosting: Hardware!

This blog is part of a series on self-hosting. I bought a server, and I’m setting it up. But I wonder: Am I doing things right?
By sharing, others can share their ideas, and together we can help people.

I’ve been wondering what would be a great home server? I’ve been messing with Raspberry Pi’s for a long time, but it’s annoying managing multiple ‘machines’. It ended up with me not really using any of the services hosted on it, since I felt like I was more a system administrator.

So it’s time for a ‘regular computer’ to use as a server. What are my wishes?

• Use it as a generic server for multiple use-cases. I want to install Nextcloud, media server, and some gaming servers.
• Very low power consumption. Every single watt counts, since a single watt is 8.76 kWh a year. At €0.30 per kWh, that’s €2.63 a year for every single watt. Savings matter!
• 2.5 Gbit/s or USB 3.2 Gen1. This way I can either use 2.5 Gbit/s, or use a converter. I want the server to be ready for that, since my PC is as well.

With this, I started with the most constraining requirements. Power vs gaming. I love Minecraft, but a Minecraft server isn’t the most lightweight. Here, I found something interesting which blew my mind.

Motherboard & CPU: ASRock N100DC-ITX

This is something I didn’t know existed. The ASRock N100DC-ITX is a motherboard with a CPU, and you power it with a laptop charger. It has absolutely great power consumption. It only uses about 8-15W when idle, and 30W under load. This last thing is less important, since most of the time my server will spend idle, because I’m either working or well, not behind my computer interacting with the server.

The CPU seems fast enough for a small Minecraft server as well, which means this meets all my requirements.

I wondered how it would work with hard drives, since well, how do they get power? The answer is on the board itself. There’s a power connector, and a cable which provides the disks with power. There’s room for two disks, which is enough for me.

With this ‘base’ in mind, I can start on the rest.

The Guide!

Now, while I was swapping parts in a list a Dutch tech website called Tweakers.net published a “Best Buy Guide” for a home server, including this motherboard!

That’s great news. This means a lot of things we don’t have to figure out anymore. Here’s their parts list:

Motherboard / CPU	ASRock N100DC-ITX
Memory	Kingston ValueRAM KVR32N22D8/32
SSD	Lexar NM620 1TB
Power adapter	“Power adapter 90W”
Case	Chieftec Pro Cube Mesh
Casefan	Arctic F14 PWM PST CO
Harddisk(s)	2x WD Red Plus 12TB

Now, it’s time for what I changed. I’m trying to save some money here, and see what I actually need.

For the SSD, I’m going with a 512GB model. I don’t need the 1 TB, the main storage will only be for the OS and configuration. I expect to need 100 GB max, so 512 GB is still being super safe.

For the hard disks, I’m going to do the bad thing. I’m going to use an old 3 TB hard drive and just have it be alone. I’ll set up remote backups for in case the worst happens.

For RAM, 32 GB seems perfect. It’s the max the motherboard supports. I was thinking of going down to 16 GB, but I also want this server to be future-proof. I prefer not to spend money on components that I might need to swap out later.

The final result:

Motherboard / CPU	ASRock N100DC-ITX	€136.60
Memory	Kingston ValueRAM KVR32N22D8/32	€64.86
SSD	Lexar NM620 512GB	€37.99
Power adapter	“Power adapter 90W”	€19.95
Case	Chieftec Pro Cube Mesh	€50.59
Casefan	Arctic F14 PWM PST CO	€9.55
Hard disk(s)	Spare 3TB Drive	Free
Total		€319.54

The Build & The Review

Building it went smoothly. Just putting in the motherboard, adding the memory and connecting the cables couldn’t have been easier. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was the orientation of the power / disk LEDs on the motherboard. I couldn’t find which was the plus/min, but it worked first try.

Now, would I buy this setup again? Well, I would! But I would adapt a few things.

Hard Drive
This is the one that I’m gonna change quite soon. The hard drive is clicking, and as far as I know this is a sign of impending death. For now, I’m not doing this, because it’s a great reminder for me to do backups.

Case fan
The case fan is loud. It doesn’t have the rubber that Noctua fans have, and it’s direct connection to the case only makes it louder. It’s not too loud to be annoying, but I’ll definitely change this soon.

The Case
The case is not perfect. Of course, there’s a hole where the PSU is. I’ll need to cover this up myself, and the power LED is bright enough to light up the room when it’s completely dark.

There’s another big thing, and that’s the case itself. The case is way bigger than I expected. It’s a bit silly so see all that empty space. The volume is 30 liters, and that seems like a big waste. I’m not even using half. There’s also the Chieftec Mesh Pro Cube Mini (18L), which is more expensive.

I also found the cheaper Inter-Tech IT-607 (12.7L), but that’s one of those ‘classic’ cases with bare metal and sharp edges everywhere. That would make the building experience worse. It does include a case fan, so you’ll also save that money, but with the exposed metal case I don’t expect any quiet experience.

I think I might end up 3d printing my own case for the server, so I can have a nice and small server.

Power Usage
This blog is written after I’ve started using the server. Which means I can figure out the power usage. I can make graphs, I can show tables of data, but I only care about one thing. The usage when idle. It’s important to note that this is with one hard drive, but besides that. Only one number matters:

17 W

That’s it! What do you think? What would you do differently? Let me know below or on Mastodon.

See you in the next blog, where we talk about the operating system & updates.