I’m currently facing a dilemma. Right now, I have a synology NAS that I use to host my homelab containers (*arr, pi-hole, vaultwarden, Plex, etc).
I am planning to offload as much of that as possible to a dedicated machine, which hopefully will allow me to continue self-hosting even more demanding services (Immich, etc).
I was lucky enough to get a proper server - Supermicro, for free, with 64GB Ram DDR4 and 1TB. However, I plugged it in and that thing is NOISY.
My rack will be in the home office, where I will spend at least 8 hours a day, so I can’t afford that level of noise.
What should I do? Should I try to sell the supermicro and buy something else with that money? Should I keep the RAM and SSD (and CPUs?) and build something else with them? Are there any quiet servers I could look into (I am guessing better performance but more expensive), or Should I go the MiniPC route instead (cheaper and smaller, but more limited specs)?
You honestly could get a Lenovo tiny PC with 2 bay so-dimm RAM. I’ve got a i5-10500T and 32GB DDR 4 RAM with 2TB NVMe and 2x 2TB SSDs for various stuff. You can loaf A LOT on those since it’s not Windows. Maybe lol into Yunohost for apps, or ZimaOS.