Help a Noob Out

WrenchDoctor · February 25, 2025

Good Morning/Afternoon. New member here but i have lurked the forums off and on for years. I am hoping you can help me break the state of analysis paralysis i find myself in about the best way to start a home server setup for myself with what i already have. This is a blank slate type build as i have never done any of this and i am not tied to any one program or strategy. I plan to tinker with it in my free time, and am not afraid to put the time into learning the software/s.

Goals (in order of importance)

1) Media Server (Plex or Jellyfin input appreciated)

2) idevice backup (photos mostly) for my wife and I to stop needlessly paying apple ( any input appreciated)

3)Home automation

4)Routing/firewall

I currently have an older Dell 3630 with a e-2124g processor, 64gb ram, and a P2000 card. I also have a Netgear ReadyNAS rn526x with six 1tb drives. With this setup, how do you suggest i proceed.

Docker?

Proxmox?

TrueNAS?

Something else?

Having never dealt with containers, I'm really struggling to understand how docker works. I'm hoping its one of those things that makes better sense as you dive in and gain experience. Most seem to favor Ubuntu or Fedora but it looks like it will work with any OS for the most part.

I have limited exposure/experience with VM's and the idea of a hypervisor but have never started one up from the ground up. No matter what I'm on the hook for learning something. Any advise is appreciated.

OddOod · February 25, 2025

Welcome to the forums!

Sounds like you are looking for a solid virtualization server with NAS functionality on top

OS:
Given that you are a beginner, I would say the most well supported option would be Unraid. Spaceinvader One has TONS of videos on how to configure various dockers. It's pretty easy to get started and mess around in Unraid, and the user forums are super helpful.
That being said, it runs on a USB drive which have terrible reliability. And they lock you into that specific drive for a year before you are allowed to freely transfer the license to a new drive. I now own two licenses for this reason. Also, they have reneged on their license agreement. You used to be able to buy a license and get a lifetime of free version upgrades, now you need a service contract. Very shady.

The new kid on the block is HexOS (Linus invested in them). I have no experience with it, and I cannot imagine there is remotely as much support material out there for it. Additionally, it's still in Beta so stability might be a problem. But they're young eager and hungry so you might find them more responsive to any query or request.

You could go with TrueNAS, but I have found their docker ecosystem less userfriendly. But it IS rock solid stable.

Storage:
SIX 1TB drives? That's really not a great set up. I'd recommend grabbing a few manufacturer recertified HDDs off ServerPartsDeals and just transferring the data.

Other hardware:
The P2000 will be fine for transcoding etc. Unfortunately it looks like that Dell only has 1 16x slot and a couple x4 slots. Ideally you'd want a couple 16x slots, one for GPU, one for HBA (LSI for the brand, i means internal ports, e means external ports), and a 1x/4x slot for a NIC. I am seeing that you could probably add a converter from 4x to let the HBA actually communicate. Alternatively, if you only ever want to run 4 drives (3 for storage, 1 for parity), you could definitely get away with that.