I decided to cancel the order from ebay and just make do. I need to stop spending money, sell off all the bits I'm not using, and focus on other things. I have ALOT to sell so I should prioritise that.
I know that position well There's a couple of things I'd like to get, but really do need to see some other stuff to get some funds and make room
Sometimes the first step is the one of many to better things. I’ve been down this rabbit hole and have sat in limbo. I went to the loft earlier this week and what I found in there was pretty disgusting. Multiple keyboards, mice and game pads from razer, Logitech and similar, gaming headsets, motherboards, tower cases, PSUs, a full fat server ML310 I think it is, dell Ultrasharp monitors, a high power managed gigabit POE switch with 36 ports and then a boxed, used perhaps twice MacBook Air M2 base model plus various other things including a TB3 dock and KVMs… The amount of money lost just from the kit being sat is scary so my job over the next few days will be to bring it all out, throw out what needed throwing out, replace anything in the kids rooms that could do with replacing, repurposing some bits and then selling the rest on. The M2 MacBook, dock and switch should fetch around £600-650 alone and the rest id imagine will probably take me over a grand which will do nicely. That would pay for my storage upgrade and additional CCTV although that MacBook might be useful for the daughter for her college. (Given she’s failing and can’t be ar*ed, sitting on her phone and doing her eyelashes like a tart though is reason enough to sell it).
Dedicated local-ai server has been taken apart as I just wasn't using it and I can't see myself finding time anytime soon. I'm still considering simplifying things further and just going with the Synology NAS and a couple proxmox hosts, one of which will have a GPU in for. I'm going to do a little plan as if I'm building from the ground up and see how that comes out compared to what I have running at the moment.
Little bit of a hardware audit here for the homelab and main rig. TrueNAS Ryzen 5 Pro 5650G 64GB ECC 3200 Asrock B550M Pro 4 mATX Silverstone CS381 SFX PSU 10GbE Intel X520 8-port PCIex1 SATA card RTX 4060Ti 16GB 5*8TB HDDS (+2 spare) 3*1TB SATA 2.5” SSDs 2*256GB SATA 2.5” SSDs - boot drives Synology DS923+ 4x16TB HDDs (1 spare) 10GbE network card Minisforum Nab6Lite – i5-12600H, 64GB RAM Minisforum UN100D – N100, 16GB RAM Pi Cluster Main Rig 3950X B450i Strix 64GB DDR4 3200 RX 7800XT NR200 case 2*500GB NVME SSDS (Linux and windows) 4TB SSD 8TB HDD Ubiquiti Pro Max 16 switch hooking it all together in the office That’s all the important bits that are in service. “Spares” B550i Auros ITX (earmarked to replace B450i Strix in main rig) B550 Gaming X V2 (from short-lived dedicated local-ai server – up for sale) This I bought from the forum as a possible off site truenas host but can’t be bothered Silverstone DS380 ITX NAS case (bought here but going to ship on) SFX PSU for DS380 i3-10100 with a Corsair H55 AIO 8GB DDR4 ASROCK B460M-ITX/AC Selection of 500GB and 1TB NVME and 2.5” SATA SSDs 750W PSU Jonsbo D41 Mesh (up for sale) Silverstone SG13 ITX case GTX Titan (up for sale) 2 Minisforum mini PCs and a lenovo mini PC
Ideal world - sell all the spares, find an Asrock X570D4U-2L2T for a reasonable price (<£300 instead of the £500 it currently is in the 2 places I can find it) as that has onboard 10GbE, get a proper HBA and job done.
Having cleared a few things out and regained some funds I decided to just purchase this bundle (again) and a decent HBA. The bundle will take a while to arrive so if I free up some more funds through the clearout I'm looking to switch cases to the Silverstone CS382. The temps are still a little high on the HDDs despite additional cooling and the CS382 has 2 fans right on the back on the drive cages. There is also a 5.25" bay that I'd get a 4 or 6x2.5" hot swap cage for. All that should hopefully solve the multiple little issues I'm having that I'm afraid could become bigger issues in the future.
The new bundle arrived pretty quick and all looking nice so far. Proper LSI HBA installed also. A couple of HDDs are hitting 49C so while higher than I would like it's fine for now. 10GbE also working fine and no issues with unplugging one of the network connections and it falling on it's arse.
It's been a while since I posted an update. The TrueNAS server upgrades have been solid. One of the hard drives continues to slowly increase it's bad sector count so I may well replace that soon but the pool is healthy. Disks temps have also been OK for the most part as well. I've made a couple of additions in the last couple months. Added another proxmox node - Minisforum MS-01 with an RTX 2000 (brand new ebay bargain - couldn't believe my luck). This will be used for more experimental local-ai. I'd quite like the GPU in the TrueNAS box to be running the same couple of models consistently for things like home assistant. I hadn't really thought about it until now but maybe the RTX 2000 should be in the TrueNAS host... let's not go down that rabbit hole just yet. Another addition is a proper rack! Nothing exciting, just a cheap tecmojo 16U rack from Amazon. Everything is installed but it's a mess so needs a reorganisation as I'm not using the space well at all. I'll take a picture when done.
Id certainly switch out that drive as they go from bad sectors to no bueno pretty quick. MS-01, banging bit of bit, superb choice!
I went down the rabbit hole... I can't get the slim cooler for the RTX 2000 for another month and the heat generated by the 4060Ti in the truenas box still makes me a little uncomfortable. It's not a lot of heat, but as the weather gets nice I can see the drive temps getting back to uncomfortable levels again. A little rummage through my pile of stuff to sell and I have a CPU, ITX case, PSU, motherboard (which was going to go in my main rig but doesn't need to), SSDs and of course the 4060, just needed some memory and that is a full system ready to go, so I bought some memory. While it would have been awesome to have a mini local-ai server using the MS-01 and RTX 2000, it's far from necessary (none of this is necessary but you know what I mean) so I'm going to be a tad more practical.
What specs are the CPU mobo etc? My son is in the market to upgrade his ancient i5 8600 / 1080ti rig. Maybe we could work out a deal?
Once I've putting together everything the 'only' parts of I'll have spare are two B550 motherbaords (mATX Asrock and ATX Gigabyte), old titan X, ATX case and a few other bits. What I've just started building, and I guess what you're interested in is a Ryzen 5 Pro 5650G, Aorus B550i motherboard, the 4060Ti and 64GB DDR4 3200. It's all going in a Silverstone SG13. I'll go post on your MP thread.
After shifting shelves about a dozen times I think I have got everything where it needs to be. Replaced the 4060Ti with the 2000 and changed all the fans to be exhausts so cool air should be drawn in through the front and over the drives. PXL_20250411_174148856.MP by meandmymouth posted 11 Apr 2025 at 21:50 Not quite finished as I want to get a shallow shelf for the back to put the UPS on and I have a 6 way extension that will mount to the back as well. I might replace the shelf in the middle with one that doesn't take up 1U itself but as everything currently fits I think we are good.
Having spent more money with @David for his RTX 4000 SFF I now have all the local AI grunt I could possibly need, right? Hopefully I don't need to scratch that itch again anytime soon. It's been installed into the MS-01 (also from David) and it makes a hell of a powerful tiny machine. Very briefly eyed up the new MS-A2 but I need to stop spending money. All I need to do later is install a new short depth shelf in the back of the rack for the UPS to sit on and then I'm all done (for now), except for the failed drive in the truenas rig that needs replacing.
