Help Building Cheap backup server

[Calis1000]

hi there 

 

i am trying to make a cheap backup server inspired by LTT vids but i am pretty new I'm going to use windows first and then try a Linux OS later on once i know more what I'm doing 
its going to mainly be important doc backup and precious photos and videos backed up

 

Current specks: 
I3-2120 @3.30
HP5800 desktop motherboard (its from an ex-lease retail computer)
Mixed Ram: 4GB Samsung and 2GB SK Hynix

and PCI slots available  
PCIe x1
PCIe x16

possibly another PCIe?

 

should i get better RAM? i was looking at 
Crucial 8GB DDR4 Desktop RAM
2400 MT/s (PC4-19200) - CL17 - SR x8 - Unbuffered - DIMM - 288pin - DDR4 $32 NZD ($18 USD)
or 
Crucial 8GB DDR4 Desktop RAM
3200 Mhz - Unbuffered - DIMM - 288pin - DDR4 $36 NZD ($21 USD)

 

i am looking at SATA SSDs for storage I'm going with 3x1Tb drives 

 

is there other considerations?

I have been buying secondhand parts on marketplace or at the dump So far but its taken me a while to get this far, its cost me 37 NZD (22 USD) and I'm trying my best to keep it low on price but i know the drives will be expensive 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Why SSDs for storage? I'd get a single larger HDD if its just for backups. Can you put a 3.5in hdd in there?

 

Ram should be fine, keep it for now.

 

 

[Calis1000]

thanks @Electronics Wizardy i was just thinking SSDs would be more long term reliable and more power efficient, could i do a HDD & SSD mix as long as i keep the sizes the same?

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 hours ago, Calis1000 said:

thanks @Electronics Wizardy i was just thinking SSDs would be more long term reliable and more power efficient, could i do a HDD & SSD mix as long as i keep the sizes the same?

With 3 ssds vs 1 hdd, the power numbers are getting a good amount closer. The CPU will pull more power than a single drive here though. 

 

Realivity I don't see as a big issue a HDD or SSD should last a while here.

[Needfuldoer]

A pair of high capacity mechanical hard drives will give you more storage for your dollar than SSDs, and the speed difference won't be too huge because transfers in and out of your server will be limited by your Gigabit Ethernet connection.

 

Get two hard drives and run them in a mirror, so either one can break down and your server won't go offline. (Note that RAID is not a backup! You still want to maintain an offline backup copy. RAID just saves you from the downtime of having to restore from your backups.)

 

One SSD will help you if you run services that touch a lot of small files, like a media server (episode descriptions and thumbnails), a locally hosted Office 365-alike, or a photo album like Immich. Store their datasets on the SSD, then have that data backed up to the spinning drive mirror in case the SSD fails. Get a used enterprise-grade SSD instead of a new consumer-grade SSD. (Speed doesn't matter as much as longevity in this use case, and enterprise SSDs are practically immortal compared to even "name brand" consumer SSDs. You also usually get more for your money.)

 

As for power consumption, we're splitting hairs talking about a handful of watts here. If that's your primary concern, I recommend switching platforms to an N100 style board instead of cutting down on storage space. (They're low end by modern standards, but still faster than your Sandy Bridge machine.)

[cmndr]

On 3/25/2025 at 1:20 AM, Calis1000 said:

thanks @Electronics Wizardy i was just thinking SSDs would be more long term reliable and more power efficient, could i do a HDD & SSD mix as long as i keep the sizes the same?

two cheap HDDs in RAID 1 would probably be more reliable. 

In terms of power draw... if you're open to a pre-built NAS there's options out there that have ARM CPUs that barely use power. 

 

Performance would be lower but for a backup server this barely matters. Some might support SSD based caching OR using RAM for caching. 

 

I suspect the idle power draw of a 14ish year old i3 2100 is higher than you suspect (probably 60W for the CPU + board + RAM). 

 

One possible approach if it's ONLY a backup server would be to have it powered on for a fraction of the day (e.g. when you're not supposed to be asleep or at work) on a schedule. 

 

---

What I did back in the day was get an HPE Microserver gen10 for around $200ish and then slap drives. 

One thing I'd consider TODAY would be something like a miniPC with an intel n100 CPU or similar (try to find one with 2.5Gbe), and an internal SATA slot, a single, larger SSD and an external HDD that you have plugged into it for less regular backups.