Goal:
- 16TB mirrored on 2 drives (raid 1)
- Hardware raid?
- Immich, Jellyfin and Nextcloud. (All docker)
- N100, 8+ GB RAM
- 500gb boot drive ssd
- 4 HDD bays, start with using 2
Questions:
- Which os?
- My though was to use hardware raid, and just set that up for the 2 hdds, then boot off an ssd with Debian (very familiar, and use it for current server which has 30+ docker containers. Basically I like and am good at docker so would like to stick to Debian+docker. But if hardware raid isn’t the best option for HDDs now a days, I’ll learn the better thing)
- Which drives? Renewed or refurb are half the cost, so should I buy extra used ones, and just be ready to swap when the fail?
- Which motherboard?
- Which case?
Then just go with debian+docker. As raid software i would recommend ZFS, its a filesystem that does both and also integrity on file level. (and lots more)
I personally would only buy new ones. No matter the brand just the best TB/€ you can get.
For MB basically every Chipset gives you 4 SATA ports. You could consider picking one that Supports unbuffered ECC memory but that is not a must. If you want to Hardware Transcode in Jellyfin, then Intel is probably your best since the dGPU with Quicksync is pretty good and well supported, otherwise i would go AMD.
For 4 drives you can use most ATX cases have no recommendations here.
Just make sure the drives are CMR, not SMR.