I would (read: does) keep it that way. When your server inevitably goes belly up because of a misconfigured firewall or whatever you’ll thank yourself when the lights still turn on and your robot vacuum keeps going.

I have considered that and am not 100% decided either way but would love the convenience of having everything in one place though this can also he a drawback like you mentioned and “in one place” is just a matter of opening a new browser tab even if it’s on a separate machine, so maybe not really worth it. The Pi actually boots off a SSD since I’ve been burned by faulty SD cards in the past so it should be solid.

What’s wrong with keeping your old hardware?

I would actually love to reuse as much as possible since a primarily media server doesn’t need a lot of horsepower. I am wanting to go to an Intel CPU with an iGPU so that I could ditch the 1080TI and I can get them for a discounted price, but another user suggested the 5700g which would allow me to keep the mobo and RAM. The case is actually fantastic for being quiet, and the PSU is a decent platinum grade from when it was originally built. So all is looking good here except for the data transfer aspect since I need an intermediary machine to transfer from but I do have a few SFF PCs, micro PCs and laptops sitting around collecting dust that might be up to the task.

As for the OS. “Not Windows” is probably a bit intimidating at first but you seem to be pretty technical so it isn’t really an issue as long as you can read and process information.

This is going to be another challenge as I have played around with Ubuntu in the past and have a basic understanding of CLI, but struggled with random issues and getting myself into trouble and not knowing how to get back out of it. “You don’t know what you don’t know” was really in play after stuff like an update would cause everything to come crashing down and not knowing why. With my hobbies, it seems like something I really should learn but have really struggled with. I’m sure a lot was hidden with editing magic but the video I watched on TrueNAS made it look easy to pick up with a nice GUI so that I’m not spending all my time pasting esoteric commands into a terminal.

I wouldn’t mind a mini rack but don’t have anywhere to put it. Maybe when we move to a new house someday, that’ll be one of the first things I get.

How’s transcoding on the 5700g? I know Intel is praised for their iGPU and recall AMDs being less universally compatible but this was with discrete GPUs and may be several years out of date.

I actually do have a couple Optiplex micro PCs sitting around so maybe I’ll try one of those out for my general PC needs. I had considered using them as the brains of a server in the past but there’s no logical HDD storage option outside of a NAS and I’m not going to drop $2k on a box to hold and control some HDDs. DAS boxes and other external drive enclosures just seem pretty risky and unreliable.

You’re right that the migration is going to be the biggest hurdle, especially without adding some new machine in the mix. If anyone wants to volunteer to come hold my hand while I fumble through it, let me know 😅

-I don’t have a set budget, but like I said, would prefer to spend the least amount while meeting my needs (I understand this is ambiguous). That could be $500 or $2k, but I don’t want to buy something like a Synology as I feel they’re a big waste of money especially with how many drives I have.

-Possibly. I have thought of hosting a Minecraft server for my daughter, Frigate as mentioned, and who knows what else. I think I have ADHD and pick up new projects left and right

-Physical space is actually a huge issue. I currently have my Fractal Define 6 sitting on my desk but my office is already jam packed with stuff and I can’t think of any other practical space in the house to keep an entire server plus all my networking stuff is in the office. The Define is actually quite silent for having 11 drives, a GPU and 6 fans inside of it.

-Electricity isn’t terribly expensive. I think it’s around $0.12KWh, though conserving energy would be a good thing, so I don’t think an old Xeon server would be a good fit.

-I think I have somewhere around 15TB free still. My storage is JBOD so some are only 8TB while the larger ones are 14TB (currently for parity). I plan on buying at least two more 14TB when I get this going so that I have plenty of space to condense things and form the new pool, and to phase out some of the smaller HDDs so that I can better utilize the storage and not waste TBs of space.

Pretty much. The system isn’t designed to run 24/7 and I wind up with lots of glitchyness, programs freezing, and just generally weird behavior as of late. I want something I can just tuck away and ignore for the most part.