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Hardware Options

Homelab Consolidation — Decision Summary

Overview

This document summarizes the hardware audit, decisions, and software assignments resulting from a homelab consolidation effort aimed at reducing device count, power consumption, management overhead, and physical footprint.

Hardware Inventory

Device CPU RAM Key Notes
Minisforum MS-01 Intel i9-12900H (20 cores) 62.5 GB Primary Proxmox host, QuickSync capable, 10GbE ready, expandable to 96-128 GB RAM
Minisforum N5 Air AMD Ryzen 7 255 29.15 GB 5x HDD bays, multiple NVMe slots, 5GbE + 10GbE networking
Synology DS923+ AMD Ryzen R1600 32 GB 4x HDD bays, 2x NVMe cache slots, running DSM 7.3.2
Node Server Intel Xeon E5-2680 v4 (28 cores) 125.7 GB Custom build in Fractal Node 804, HBA + Nvidia Quadro P400, high power draw
PVE183 Intel i7-11700B (16 cores) 31.12 GB Erying Chinese motherboard, 32 GB RAM ceiling was limiting factor
PVE3 Intel N150 (4 cores) 15.37 GB Bought specifically for iGPU transcoding, now redundant
Desktop AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 32 GB Running Linux + Ollama with Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti (12 GB VRAM) for local AI

Hardware Decisions

Device Decision Role
MS-01 (i9-12900H) Keep Primary Proxmox compute host — all production VMs and containers
Minisforum N5 Air Keep Primary NAS running Unraid baremetal
Synology DS923+ Keep (demoted) Backup/DR target + Proxmox Backup Server host
Desktop (Ryzen 5 5600X + RTX 3060 Ti) Keep as-is Local AI inference via Ollama — leave it doing what it's doing
Node Server (Xeon E5-2680 v4) Sell Aging platform, high power draw (~80-150W idle), no NVMe slots, currently powered off
PVE183 (Erying i7-11700B) Sell Redundant compute, good resale market for Erying boards
PVE3 (Intel N150) Probably sell Bought for transcoding now fully covered by MS-01 QuickSync

Node Server — Parting Out Recommendation

The Node server is best sold as parts rather than a complete system to maximize return:

  • 128 GB DDR4 ECC RAM — highest value component, sell separately
  • HBA card — has standalone value in the homelab/NAS community
  • Xeon board/CPU/case — sell as a lot separately

Software Decisions

Device OS Reasoning
MS-01 Proxmox VE (baremetal) Current setup, no change needed
N5 Air Unraid (baremetal) Preferred NAS OS with 10+ years familiarity, purpose-built hardware, no virtualization complexity
DS923+ Synology DSM (no change) Stays as-is — low power, law office parallel familiarity, isolated hardware for PBS
Desktop Linux + Ollama (no change) Already doing useful, distinct work — no reason to disrupt

What Runs Where

MS-01 (Proxmox)

  • Plex/Jellyfin VM (QuickSync transcoding)
  • Home Assistant VM
  • Docker VM for containers
  • All other production workloads

N5 Air (Unraid baremetal)

  • Primary bulk storage — 4x 4TB HDD array with 1 parity drive (16 TB usable)
  • NVMe drives for cache pool and appdata
  • *arr stack (when ready to deploy)
  • Replicates data to Synology for DR

DS923+ (Synology DSM)

  • Proxmox Backup Server — stays exactly where it is
  • Replication target from Unraid
  • Passive, low-power, isolated from both primary compute and primary NAS

What We're Not Doing (And Why)

Decision Reasoning
No DX517 expansion shelf Only 2.6 TB of current data — capacity problem doesn't exist yet. Revisit in 12-18 months if *arr stack consumption warrants it
No PBS migration to MS-01 Single point of failure — PBS and the host it protects would go down together
No PBS migration to N5 Air Co-locates primary NAS and backup server on same physical hardware — defeats the purpose
No virtualizing Unraid on N5 Air Prior bad experience with virtualized Unraid, and baremetal is the correct/intended deployment model
No desktop hardware repurpose Already doing useful distinct work, repurposing adds complexity and loses valuable LLM inference capability
No DX517 purchased used Data still doesn't justify it regardless of price

Storage Reality Check

Metric Value
Current usable capacity (Synology) 6.5 TB
Current data stored ~2.6 TB
Current free space ~3.9 TB
N5 Air usable capacity (1 parity) 16 TB
Headroom after migration ~13 TB

Growth from *arr stack is anticipated but not yet a capacity concern at current data levels.

Unraid Migration Path (Node -> N5 Air)

Unraid stores its entire configuration on the USB boot drive, making hardware migration straightforward.

Pre-Migration Steps

  1. Boot the Node server and access the Unraid web UI
  2. Navigate to Main > Flash > Flash Backup
  3. Download the resulting zip file (approximately 1.4 GB — includes full OS + all config)
  4. Store the backup zip on the Synology in a safe location

What the Backup Contains

  • Full Unraid OS boot files
  • All share definitions and settings
  • User accounts and passwords
  • Network configuration
  • Docker container XML definitions
  • VM definitions
  • Plugin list and configurations
  • Disk assignments and array configuration
  • Scheduler tasks and custom scripts

Migration Steps

  1. Pull the USB drive from the Node server
  2. Insert into the N5 Air and boot
  3. On first boot, expect to reassign network interfaces (hardware will differ)
  4. Reassign drives — array will need to be built fresh on the new physical drives (data loss is acceptable per decision above)
  5. Docker containers will carry over as definitions but appdata starts fresh
  6. Verify shares and users transferred correctly

Recovery Path (If USB Fails to Boot on N5 Air)

  1. Use Unraid USB Flash Creator tool on Windows/Mac
  2. Create a fresh Unraid USB from the backup zip
  3. Boot the N5 Air from the new USB — all settings restored
  4. License follows the USB GUID — no re-registration required unless using a physically new USB drive, in which case transfer the license via your Unraid.net account

Follow-On Topics (Future Discussions)

  • Unraid configuration on the N5 Air — drive layout, NVMe cache pool setup, share configuration
  • *arr stack deployment — Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, qBittorrent, etc.
  • Data migration from Synology primary role to Unraid on N5 Air
  • Network topology — how N5 Air 5G/10G ports factor into the 2.5G infrastructure
  • MS-01 RAM upgrade timing as DDR5 prices continue to fall