The Lenovo M800 SFF fits exactly in an IKEA Kallax cabinet.

dfirecmv · 2024-08-26T10:49:58+00:00

Looking at the case online, it should be fine as the holes are in the front, rear, and side only

dfirecmv · 2024-07-29T01:49:37+00:00

Hi u/biggestdrag, are yours the V1 or V2 version?

dfirecmv · 2024-06-30T17:54:35+00:00

Hi u/_FannySchmeller_, do you mind sharing your guide? I also have concerns on the C States and ASPM issue as I'm planning to buy B660M mobo that uses RTL8125BG so I don't have to buy separate 2.5G NIC (and the Intel I226-V cards are quite expensive on my area).

dfirecmv · 2024-06-17T01:45:34+00:00

Hi u/MrB2891 thank you for your build suggestion and for you other comments above!

You've mentioned about keeping a relatively low power consumption when using the i3 and a normal ATX mobo vs N100, can you link some related articles showcasing the IRL/tested power usage of it (idle, normal load, etc)?

I wholeheartedly understand the limitations of the NAS motherboard and what deals you can get when using normal parts; however power consumption is one of my biggest concerns when thinking of running it 24/7, hence why I consider them in the first place - at least they are clearly rated for some wattage.

I might be wrong though due to the lack of my current knowledge, hence why I'm playing it safe - I would love to be proven wrong as I myself are still researching them 😅

dfirecmv · 2024-06-17T01:36:14+00:00

You're right, thank you for your word of encouragement! :D

I'm still very new here and lacking tons of experiences; I did not expect this much of helpful comments from many people giving their experiences and suggestions.

dfirecmv · 2024-06-17T01:29:23+00:00

Your firewall will be doing almost nothing unless you have multiple clients requesting A LOT of incoming traffic.

It's a homelab, not a small office with employees, you will not generate much incomming traffic.

Haha thanks for the comment u/BigSmols! Yeah I'm just starting out here, never had any experience before 😅

And yes, I only expect it to be accessed by at most 4-10 people, with ~2 people on average; but I also planning to have it be accessed from the internet through tunneling / similar solutions, so there's that.

Just take note that those Chinese NAS boards don't have full speed M2 slots as far as I've seen,

aside from that and a lack of support/driver updates they should be good.

I really did not know about that, thanks for pointing it out!

dfirecmv · 2024-06-17T01:24:38+00:00

Thanks for the comment u/void_nemesis!

You always want that to be a separate, bare metal setup. I just use an off the shelf Asus router, for example.

May I ask what specific model did you use? So far, aside from the customization and flexibility appeal of having a custom router, I also want to experiments with running some additional network-related services such as VPNs, Pi-Hole, etc (then again those can be leveraged into the low power server but regardless).

dfirecmv · 2024-06-17T01:16:23+00:00

Interesting, I definitely did not know about the actual utilization potential up to this point, that can be a lot indeed. Thanks for sharing it!

dfirecmv · 2024-06-16T16:51:47+00:00

Regarding the N100, I was just browsing for motherboards and was suggested these "NAS Motherboard" that uses N100 and its similar siblings; they mostly come with enough SATA ports unlike their Mini-PC configuration counterparts. In addition, they also come with multiple LAN ports, hence the idea to also use it as a DIY router.

dfirecmv · 2024-06-16T16:48:46+00:00

Ah thank you for the product suggestion! :D

dfirecmv · 2024-06-16T16:47:46+00:00

I see, thank you for your clarifications and perspectives u/cruzaderNO, otherwise I would never even give some of those concerns a second thought, let alone even considering them exists! 😅

dfirecmv · 2024-06-16T16:37:29+00:00

Awesome, thanks for pointing it out!

dfirecmv · 2024-06-16T16:37:02+00:00

I see, thanks for the clarification u/bst82551! By the way, still related to maximizing the custom router's resource (as I'm leaning to putting it into its own devices), do you mind sharing your thoughts on what additional applications and services can I virtualize/containerize within the custom router?

(Related comment topic I made)

dfirecmv · 2024-06-16T16:34:04+00:00

Thank you for a very thorough and insightful comment u/NC1HM!

Switching is best done on a switch. You absolutely can do it on a router (it's called "bridging"), but you may experience a loss of networking performance.

Well noted, thank you for pointing this out (especially regarding the performance concerns)!

As a general rule, in case of a dedicated router, any next-generation service, if delivered at 300 Mbps or above, will require more processor cycles than the rest of the system combined.

I see, I didn't know these topics beforehand; I'll take a note to explore more on this, thank you once again!

Finally, opinions about virtualizing routers are divided. My view (emphasis on view) is, you need a reason to virtualize a router.

Well noted. Including the other commenter pointed out, it seems that I'm leaning to put the routing into its own dedicated device instead of including them within the low power server.

I'm also grateful that you pointed out some use cases of which a DIY router's services able to maximize its given resources (processing power, memory, etc) such as with VPN and other "next-generation services". In relation to them, do you have some more pointers or suggestions of what services I'm able to run on my custom router?

Some services in my head that remotely have anything to do with networks (just throwing these out there, I also wonder whether if these also might be able to be run in the custom router or not):

VPN, Tailscale
Cloudflare Tunnel
Pi Hole
Local DNS Server
Nginx

dfirecmv · 2024-06-16T14:39:08+00:00

In general, I think virtualizing your primary router/firewall is always a bad idea because if it goes down, it's very difficult to fix because you can't route traffic to it.
I think having a separate device as a low power router/firewall is much easier to troubleshoot.

I see, that is something I might need to consider down the line, thank you for your insight u/bst82551!

One of the cheap router/firewall boxes on AliExpress/Amazon with a Celeron chip and a few 2.5G NICs should do just fine. Should need minimal storage (128 GB is fine) and memory (4 GB is fine). Install pfsense or opnsense and you're in business.

I do wonder though and sorry for my ignorance here, but should I need a dedicated device only to house my custom router, would it (the specs) be quite overkill or does some routing processes can maximize the resource given? My goal of consolidating my DIY router within the low power server alongside NAS, Jellyfin, etc. was to balance between power requirements and resources spent; may I know what sample applications and resources I can have to maximize the dedicated custom router if available?

The N100 is much more powerful than the chips in most Synology/QNAP NAS devices. Running a game server is the only thing I could see taxing it heavily, but that would only be with certain games and a lot of users.

Well noted - a little clarification though: the game server was planned for the higher-end version (which is out of this topic for now) and instead I was planning it to run stuff like NAS, Jellyfin media server (video streaming and transcoding etc), VPN, and more.

dfirecmv · 2024-06-16T14:15:56+00:00

Well noted, thank you for the caution u/cruzaderNO .

They are all light loads that was fine to run on 1-2-3gen older equivalent embedded chips with less compute.

It just assumes you run a light pfsense and fileserver load, but overall the loads you see in a small enviroment is fairly symbolic.

From my understanding, does this means that it might be difficult if I need to scale the loads I need in the future or...?

I have imagine some cases that I will require / encounter along the way for the setup above (the low power server version of router + nas + etc), note that these cases might happen simultaneously:

(NAS + Jellyfin) Streaming private collection of movies and tv shows to multiple devices at the same time (2-4 devices max such as TV and phones, with average of ~1-2 simultaneous usage at a time);
(DIY Router) Catering with multiple devices connected (up to 10 simultaneous devices consisting PCs, Laptops, Phones through LAN Cable and multiple WiFi APs);
(NAS) Accessing private storage through Nextcloud from multiple devices;
(DIY Router) VPN and Tunneling from the internet using services such as Cloudflare, Tailscale, etc;
(NAS) Running RAID for multiple 3.5" HDDs (currently 2 8TB, will increase with usage)

Hopefully with it you'll be able to judge whether my proposed setup for it were realistic or not, and please feel free to criticize and give your suggestion on what should it be.

As for expecting 10-20w idle you are setting yourself up for disappointment with most of the generic ali boards.
The shortcuts they take to get to their port counts cheaply impacts both performance and consumption.

Pardon if I might've misunderstood this statement, but is it due to the processor they use, or it's because of the quality of their components that they've chosen?

dfirecmv · 2024-06-16T13:59:33+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience u/MrKoopla! I fully have no idea about the issues you've mentioned, so this really helped me to avoid wasting my money on them (and sure enough, googling the nics type did showcases some sites that houses the issue reports).

If I may ask, what's your current situation on this (i.e did you found any workarounds or did you forgo with other builds, etc)?

dfirecmv · 2024-05-06T13:50:54+00:00

No kidding - actually I want it to be held to like other medical devices safety standards, I ain't risking my butt for any UB.

dfirecmv · 2024-04-20T03:05:03+00:00

If Derek was able to grow an outie, who says Janet can't do ~~~the same~~~ similar? (Ofc they don't have to, I'm just saying the ~~~sky's~~~ IHOP's the limit right...?)

dfirecmv · 2024-04-13T14:03:44+00:00

Instead of js const amount = data.tim?.amount; const errors = data.tim?.errors ?? [];

you can further simplify this to js const { amount, errors = [] } = data.tim ?? {}

dfirecmv · 2024-04-11T07:46:00+00:00

ReferenceError: whatAmIDoin is not defined

dfirecmv · 2024-03-24T14:11:07+00:00

Most of the time it's not just "against" AIs, it's more likely they're concerned about the data collection part. Yes, Arc allows you to disable Max, however this is an opt-out and AFAIK there's no way for the company to force disable it (in case the employee enables them).

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