this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
23 points (87.1% liked)

Selfhosted

61236 readers
183 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Detailed Rules Post

  1. Be civil.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts are to be related to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

  7. Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.

  8. AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
ayyy@sh.itjust.works
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus
curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world
23
Repurposing an old Alienware r8 (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 year ago by TacoEvent@lemmy.zip to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
15 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I have an old Alienware r8 and several 2-4 TB HDDs gathering dust in a closet. The Alienware actually runs remarkably quiet and it occurred to me I could turn it into a DIY NAS.

I’m not entirely sure where to start though. Some immediate questions:

  • What’s a good NAS OS to install?
  • Any fun things I can do besides plex transcoding with a 1080 GPU?
  • Would it make sense to run a Pixelfed/Mastodon server off this guy?
  • Can I run a RAID on it without buying a separate HDD bay?

Background:

I already have a Synology NAS running Plex. It transcodes 1080p fine which is really all I need it for.

Other than a Plex port forward, I have zero experience putting services out on the public web (but would like to learn!).

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] vfsh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I did something similar with an old Alienware, I slapped a 4TB drive in it and put unRAID on it and it became my general server for pretty much everything. I've moved to a Dell R510 for now though.

With a 1080 you could do some pretty decent models with Ollama, or other AI projects. I have a 1650 in the server I use for my LLM stuff.

Seems like itd make a fine server for fedi verse stuff

Unsure about the RAID question, theoretically if you have enough SATA slots and drive bays in the case it should at least be doable with software? But that's another reason I recommend unRAID, especially if you're not buying drives in a preconfigured storage size configuration

[–] TacoEvent@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

I see the appeal with unRAID! My drives are pretty straight forward though I pretty much only plan to use the 2 4TB drives. Will probably skip the RAID for now (it's not going to store anything SUPER important) and just use it as a hobby test server.

Ollama of course! Looks like the 1080s should be able to handle most 7B models. Exciting! Thanks for the help and suggestions!