New BI build, modest load, Mini + NAS or local storage

[Ferguson]

I've got a fairly large old desktop running BI now, and also serving both as a NAS and a HyperV server for a couple of linux systems. Works great, can't upgrade to Windows 11 though as it's an older I7 processor that's not supported.

I'm thinking along two lines -- one is to just replace its motherboard (and case) and keep most of the same storage (largely spinning purple drives). The other is to turn that system into a NAS server. I can probably move those VM's to it under one of the various options there, and then get a new mini PC with enough horsepower and maybe a GPU, and use the NAS for storage.

I see postings of people using NAS, it sounds like it works OK. I'm somewhat leaning in that direction, I hate to throw away a perfectly good system, but then again it's pretty old, maybe it really is time to replace it. It does date to 2015 so it's pretty old.

I'm curious if people have gone the split system/NAS route and how it worked out? Would you go that way again?

[Ferguson]

Not much interest in the subject I guess...

I decided to forego the separate NAS box. I realized I had plex running on that server as well, which was just another video related thing to deal with, and it was simpler to just put the storage inside the new box especially with the really big HDD drives now (I got 18T and will mirror them).

[HeneryH]

I run Proxmox as the hypervisor and then run TrueNAS as a VM. The thing to be sure of in that case is to pass the disk controller through to the NAS completely. So in my case I have the NVME disks host the Proxmox OS and the VM images and pass the entire SATA controller with the spinning platters through to the NAS.

I tried to run BI on a Win VM but never really put the energy into getting it to work well. I use a separate ebay micro/mini for my BI.

I'm moving to a 10G / 2.5G network so I could probably move my 'saved' BI folder to the NAS.

[Ferguson]

Thank you @HeneryH

[grumpy]

I run Unraid with all my dockers, NAS, and VM's in one lower power box now then my now Dead Thread Ripper 2950 Unraid. At least half the power savings if not more at 165 Watts. 100 TB 3 NVME Media BI and of course Docker and VM playing. I use a Synology as a Mirror backup.

[Ferguson]

I ended up putting two big WDC Purple drives and mirroring them (I compared to storage spaces and mirrored storage space was slower, oddly).

This left me with a fairly large system that can't run W11, but was a really good system for NAS, I7-6700K and tons of SATA storage.

Except I can't figure out what I need to do with it. The new system has 17TB (formatted, mirrored), so plenty of space to do my desktop backup plus store lots of video. I can't figure out any good use for that other system. I could have put the new storage on the old system and let BI access it there, but with (currently) only a 1g network connection it would be pretty slow.

So I may just decommission the old server. Damn Microsoft for creating so much scrap by their W11 requirements. That was a rock solid system even if old.