I'm based in the UK and am looking for a new PC to use as a NAS with the capacity for at least two NVMe/SSD drives.

I note many mini PCs seem to limit the upgradable/installable SSD to 2TB.

Can anyone recommend a make or model of any kind (mini, desktop, tower etc) with which they have had good experience (re component compatibility, storage expandability and especially WiFi) with Debian 12? Any worth avoiding, particularly?

I had Fujitsu in mind but it seems they no longer sell PCs (or laptops) in Europe.

DebianOn on the wiki doesn't seem to be particularly up to date.

I would prefer to buy one off the shelf than build my own, but that's an option too.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks,
Gareth

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On Thu, 24 Apr 2025, jeremy ardley wrote:

On 24/4/25 13:03, Gareth Evans wrote:

I would prefer to buy one off the shelf than build my own, but that's an option too.

You can go to Dell but when you look into the actual specs you end up paying a
lot more to get something that fits your need.

I bought a second hand Dell T5820 which did the job for me.

Then get one or more Western Digital Red hard drives (accept no substitutes) .
These can provide your NAS storage for many years without replacement

I thought that RAID meant "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks" but I guess that under pressure from manufacturers Inexpensive became Independent. If you run a RAID you accept that replacements will happen, so I don´t see the advantage of buying expensive (I know, I should say Independent) disks for a personal system. A cheapo Seagate in one of my RAID 1's now has well over 90000
hours. Only the WDs have failed.

Roger

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On Thu, 24 Apr 2025, jeremy ardley wrote:

On 24/4/25 14:58, Roger Price wrote:

A cheapo Seagate in one of my RAID 1's now has well over 90000
hours. Only the WDs have failed.

Were the WDs Red? There is a major difference in life with them

No, I use Green (Desktop) WDs. The WD Green in the box on which I am typing this has 57000 hours. I always mix Seagate and WD Greens. Roger

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On 4/23/25 22:03, Gareth Evans wrote:

I'm based in the UK and am looking for a new PC to use as a NAS with the capacity for at least two NVMe/SSD drives.

I note many mini PCs seem to limit the upgradable/installable SSD to 2TB.

Can anyone recommend a make or model of any kind (mini, desktop, tower etc) with which they have had good experience (re component compatibility, storage expandability and especially WiFi) with Debian 12? Any worth avoiding, particularly?

I had Fujitsu in mind but it seems they no longer sell PCs (or laptops) in Europe.

DebianOn on the wiki doesn't seem to be particularly up to date.

I would prefer to buy one off the shelf than build my own, but that's an option too.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks,
Gareth

"NAS" has come to mean "commercial server appliance with an impressive
list services and features". Many are based upon Linux or BSD. For
example:

https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/ts-873a

Take a look at Specifications -> Software Specs. I would be hard
pressed to match that shopping list using FOSS alone. I can only wonder
if the QNAP software stack is fully "open source".


If all you need is an SSH or Samba file server for a SOHO network, most
any x86_64 computer built in the last ~15 years can work. I prefer and recommend ECC memory. As another reader commented, your LAN may be the bottleneck (depending upon workload). Also, file servers and NAS's tend
to use HDD's for data storage and to use SSD's for caches and/or metadata.


David

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On Fri 25/04/2025 at 02:54, David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> wrote:

If all you need is an SSH or Samba file server for a SOHO network, most
any x86_64 computer built in the last ~15 years can work.

Hi David,

I thought it was still the case that some NICs, for example, weren't supported. Is that a thing of the past?

Thanks
Gareth

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On 4/25/25 07:43, Gareth Evans wrote:

On Fri 25/04/2025 at 02:54, David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> wrote:

If all you need is an SSH or Samba file server for a SOHO network, most
any x86_64 computer built in the last ~15 years can work.

Hi David,

I thought it was still the case that some NICs, for example, weren't supported. Is that a thing of the past?

Thanks
Gareth

Wi-Fi adapters frequently require proprietary firmware blobs. Debian
provides "non-free" packages for some adapters. It all depends upon the manufacturer and how well they support FOSS on their hardware. I have
had good luck with Intel and Broadcom network adapters.


David

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