I had a cool little bare-bones server that had an x8 series mobo and I wanted to turn it into a NAS. I ended ordering a X11SSM-F board so that I could use some better hardware. From what I could tell it should be a simple swap, but I put everything together today and cant get the dumb thing to POST.

Ive tried unplugging everything but the PSU and send the power-on command from IPMI. I've tried with 4 sticks of ram, 1 stick and no ram. I never get a beep or fans or anything.

I bought this board off ebay and it came with a processor installed and was "pulled from a working system". If I can Verify that its DOA then I'm sure I can get a refund, but I want to make sure I test everything I can before going that route.

So I fall pretty heavy on the paranoid side when it comes to all the Chinesium home automation and IoT devices. However, my wife wants me to put up some security cameras and if I’m going to do that then I might as well add all the other life conveniences that I want. I would love to keep everything 100% air gapped, but I know that would defeat the purpose of most stuff.

Here is a rough linear diagram of what I think I can do: Internet > pfSense > home network > IoT hub > IoT network

The important thing to note is that I want no traffic to make it from the ‘IoT network’ to the Internet. And the only traffic I want going from the ‘IoT hub’ to the ‘home network’ is a browser interface for the software I’m planning on using.

If I understand correctly, this is pretty easy to do with a firewall on the ‘IoT hub’. I should be able use separate NICs, completely lock down the ‘home network’ NIC, and just allow one application access to one port so that I can open my browser interface.

Is this about as secure as it gets? Or is there a better way?

So I have a small server that I’m getting ready to use as dedicated TrueNAS host. The mobo is a SuperMicro X8STi-3F with an E5502 and single 4GB stick of DDR3.

To use my current server I need to buy at least another 4GB stick, but I’d probably try to jump up to the max limit of 24GB. ~$50

The other option would be to look at upgrading the mobo so that I can utilize DDR4 and have a higher memory cap. Also it’d be cool to be able to have the OS running on an m.2 or NVME drive instead of using one of the hot swap bays. It looks like I could do this upgrade for ~$150.

Ultimately this NAS is strictly going to be a file server. We keep family pictures, tax documents, and other misc stuff on it. I’m also planning on using the NAS as the storage pool for JellyFin, but JellyFin itself will be running on separate hardware

The most resource intensive thing I can think of is if we had 4-5 users streaming from JellyFin at once. I’m not sure if that kind of load would hit the NAS or JellyFin harder, but that’s literally worst case scenario.

One other note is that this chassis only has 4 3.5”bays. My plan was to buy a JBOD when we outgrew this chassis. So this system needs to be able to support that.

Any thoughts? Do y’all have any mobo suggestions?

Just an update on my homelab rack.

From top to bottom: • TP-Link AX21 - Wireless Router • PDU - powers network and Synology • Synology DS419slim - horridly managed w/ about 6TB of combined storage, no raid • Netgear ProSafe 5748T - main switch • Cisco Catalyst 3560-X - unused, planned for home automation / IoT devices • Proliant DL180 g9 - Proxmox with a couple containers(JellyFin, Trillium, VaultWarden, Ignition, and a couple Linux distros), 8x 1TB HDDs, raid 5 , 32GB ram • Cisco Multiservices Platform - about to install FreeNAS w/ 4x 12TB HDDs in raid 6, 8GB Ram • DataDomain DD160 - unused, wanted to turn into a JBOD rack but will probably become ewaste ☹️ • APC Smart-UPS X 1500 - currently powering the whole rack with a new battery bank • APC ??? - not used yet. It’s a 220v model, so I won’t be using it until I move my rack later next year. But the batteries were good when I got it.

Not pictured is my PFSense router running on a Protectli VP2420.

All in I think I’m under $700, when the drives for the new NAS get in I’ll be at $1000.