Hi folks, I’m considering setting up an offsite backup server and am seeking recommendations for a smallish form factor PC. Mainly, are there some suitable popular second hand PCs which meet the following requirements:

  • fits 4x 3.5" HDD
  • Smaller than a regular tower (e.g. mATX or ITX)
  • Equipped with a 6th of 7th gen Intel CPU at least (for power efficiency and transcoding, in case I want it to actually to some transcoding) with video output.
  • Ideally with upgradeable RAM

Do you know of something which meets those specs and is rather common on the second hand market?

Thanks!

Edit: I’m looking for a prebuilt system, such as a dell optiplex or similar.

  • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
    11·
    4 months ago

    I don’t think you’ll find an SFF that’ll hold multiple 3.5" drives. Many regular desktops won’t hold that many drives.

    • The HobbyistOP
      1·
      4 months ago

      Thank you for taking the time to answer. Indeed, the title is a simplification, but I was hoping that the body of the text would highlight that it does not have to be a literal SFF but just something on the smaller side.

      • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
        11·
        4 months ago

        Sorry, I didn’t catch that.

        I’m working on something similar. I currently have an SFF that I’ve shoe-horned three 2.5" drives into. I had to get a power splitting cable for them (it’s surprisingly designed for this power splitting, even though there’s nowhere to mount all the drives).

        Would 2.5" drives meet your cost point? You can fit 4 of them in the space of a single 3.5 with adapters designed just for this.

        Another option (that costs more) is a PCIE card that hosts 4 M2 drives. If I could afford it, that would be my approach. But 4TB M2s are still pretty pricey.

        I’ve looked around a lot - it seems like it will cost no matter which way I go. A Mini-ITX case isn’t cheap, and that’s probably the most compact case that can support multiple drives.

        • The HobbyistOP
          1·
          4 months ago

          Thanks for the follow up. I wish I could afford multiple TB of nvmes but that is unfortunately out of my budget, but it would definitely be better for latency, notice and power draw. This time I will have to stick to HDDs, but I’ll keep looking :) Enjoy your setup!