NOTE

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The guide will now solely focus on NON-SBCs as it’s the best value for the money going forward. No more recommendations of the Raspberry PI or similar Single Board Computing devices moving ahead.

Choose a link to see the hardware suggestions reproduced here, from my good friends at ServerBuilds.net

  • Cases
  • Motherboards
  • CPUs
  • Hard Drives
  • RAM
  • Power Supply
  • NIC
  • GPU
  • OSs
  • Firewall Hardware - OPNsense/PFSense/Protectli
  • Wireless Access Points (WAPs)
  • Network Switches

Cases

Tower Case Suggestions

BrandCase + LinkFits3.5” Drive SpaceEstimated Pricing
Cooler MasterN400 ATX8 + 2~$75
Cooler MasterElite 350 + PSU ATX6 + 4~$90
Fractal DesignNode 804 mATX10~$115
SilverStoneDS380BDTX, Mini-ITX8 (Hotswappable)~$200

Rackmount Chassis Suggestions

BrandCase + LinkFits3.5” Drive SpaceEstimated Pricing
RosewillRSV-L4500All15~$150
RosewillRSV-R4100All6 + 2~$110
RosewillRSV-R4000All8 + 3~$100
RosewillRSV-L4000All8 + 3~$120
RosewillRSV-L4412All12 (Hotswappable)~$275

Motherboards