Storage Solutions Help selecting parts for my home lab server(NAS + VM).

Austropotian

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So, I have finally decided to start my journey to build a tower server for my use case. Majorly, I would be using the server as a NAS(have lost a couple of hard drives due to failures), Media Storage for Plex and a backup for the security cameras. Apart from this, I would also like to shift some of my Postgres databases to my server rather than on GCP, and I would like to experiment with some self-hosted projects on the server. Initially, I thought of going to the Raspberry Pi 5 route, buying the 8GB version and getting either the M2 HAT/ NVME Base or the best Pibox dock. I later had to drop the plan since I would like to run some VM on it along with the storage part so there was some hardware limitations. Then, I looked over for some refurbished workstations/servers but was not satisfied with their current parts/price ratio since the parts are almost 8/9 years old and they draw in so many watts even at idle stage(250-300 watts). They still work great though since you can get so much cores at a dirt cheap price, no doubt the Xeons have shown their resilience.

Unsure about where to start. Confused about the CPU/Motherboard combo and system compatibility for PCIe lanes, system upgradeability, unsure about the performance needed, and unable to start selecting parts for it.

1. Budget - 40/50k apart from harddrives
2. At least 8 cores CPU with integrated graphics(TDP if possible should be lower than 70/80 W)
3. No GPU for now
4. Ram - 32GB DDR4(DDR3 also acceptable depending on config)
5. Storage - minimum 4/6 bays for 3.5" drives + minimum 1 nvme port for boot drive
6. Motherboard(No ITX, looking for upgradability in the future)
7. Case - Don't care about looks (only good airflow is needed)
8. PSU - Gold rated(500/600 W)

I am open to refurbished tower servers and older machines for starting purposes(so that I can experiment for 2/3 months and then get a clear image of work I would really like to do on the home lab server) and decide the config accordingly for the next build and also if anyoner can suggest any good site/local sellers where I can buy it along with spare parts then I would be grateful for it.

One more question, which is better use old gen parts or build using the recent gen intel/amd chips? Pros and Cons for homelab servers

Location - Jaipur/Rajasthan

Every response/suggestions is appreciated, also since I am new hear if I made a mistake in this thread please correct me.
@vivek.krishnan @assimenator
 
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