System types compatible with TrueNas Scale

[toibs]

Hi all,
Currently have an old microserver build running Openmediavault from years ago. It's only got 4x 2Gb disks in, and I'd like to upgrade to something maybe a little newer and more powerful, along with some new disks with hopefully a little more storage. I have more storage on a single drive than i do in my Microserver NAS :)

Was looking around some posts here and also looking at old datacentre servers that are available on eBay and Marketplace. Whilst i'm Good at IT and Pc's in general, NAS's and servers have never been something i have played about with too much - Only with previous Prebuilt systems (such as QNAP and Synology). I'm more than conscious that there's so much more that can be done and would like to be able to have a play with. I have a working knowledge of Linux (but limited - enough tto get by, but happy to learn more).

Anyhow, there seems to be lots of varients out there.. things like Proliant DL380P Gen 8's and 9's, Dell Poweredges etc. I'm looking for what may be good/easy to pick up and use as a Home Server, and whilst I have no issues with swapping cards, upgrading firmware etc, I dont really want to do anything too much to increase the costs... (Disks are going to cost enough, on top of the server price that is).

Have had a scan here and whilst i am quickly learning, is there anything that may fit the bill, anything that i need to look out for, anything to avoid?

Many thanks for any info
Paul

 

[Davvo]

Stay clear of:
- hardware RAID cards
- Realtek and Aquantia NICs
- SATA port multipliers
- SMR drives
- not type 1 hypervisors if you want to virtualize

In my signature you can find links to resources that explore those points, or you can look in the resource section yourself.

 

[Ericloewe]

Depends on what you want to do... Supermicro X10SL* boards and the corresponding CPUs and memory are cheap cheap cheap, but you're limited to four cores and 32 GB of RAM. And crap PCIe connectivity by modern standards. But they work well and they're cheap cheap cheap.

 

[toibs]

Thoughts on a Poweredge R730xd??
Only thinking this route since it seems to be tried and tested on here...

Also gives 12 3.5" drive slots, with 2x 2.5" for the OS...

 

[Davvo]

It's a proven machine that demerits from dell's propietary madness (ie the drive sleeves).

You will likely need to buy and HBA since that server usually has a RAID card iirc.

 

[Ericloewe]

Supermicro is typically cheaper, Dell is fancier - for better and for worse.