Building a Low Power, All-in-One, Silent Server

I built a lower power, efficient, and silent server! Although this server is small and efficient, it's still powerful enough to run Proxmox with multiple virtual machines like pfSense as my router, TrueNAS as my NAS, Ubuntu Server running Portainer with lots of Docker containers, and I have even passed through the hardware and video card to a Virtual Machine and turned this into a Desktop, all while transcoding Plex streams!

A HUGE thanks to Protectli for sending this device for me to test!

Disclosures:
- I was not paid
- I chose Protectli and contacted them after researching alternatives

(Affiliate links may be included in this description. I may receive a small commission at no cost to you.)

00:00 - How to Build an All In One Proxmox Server
01:18 - Hardware Specs
03:27 - CoreBoot Open Source BIOS
04:30 - Hypervisor Choice
05:15 - Network Firewall Choice
06:09 - NAS Choice
07:00 - Docker Containers
07:26 - Desktop OS and GPU Psssthrough
08:54 - Hardware Transcoding with Plex and Quick Sync
10:54 - Power Draw and Heat
11:46 - What do I think about Protectli Devices?

Thank you for watching!

[empirelinux]

The only thing I wish they would change on the protectli, would be to make the power button recessed. It is so easy to accidently bump it and power cycle the system.

[AndrewGalan]

Great video, I've been running a Protectli for a few years with no problems. The customisation options for software are excellent.

[dggr]

Would love these sorts of devices to be available with rackmount options - multiple in a 1U or 2U space would be awesome. I'm currently 10Gig backbone but my prox hosts would be fine with 2.5GbE. Might need to look into these further. Thanks Tim!

EDIT: would love to see how these handle failover in a FT/HA situation on prox with plex and the video passed through...if you're looking at something a bit more to add to what you've already done ;)

[davidg]

I got a 4-port Protectli last year to run router and NetSec duty. I'm never going back to a standard router again.
The only negative point I can give it -- and this is only true for the smaller 4-port chassis -- is that the 2.5" SATA power connector isn't right-angled. It's impossible to fit a 2.5" drive in the provided mount with a straight connector. I tried forcing it and broke the power connector on the drive (luckily just the plastic without pin damage, so a dab of superglue fixed it).

[travisaugustine]

Interesting ideas. I was thinking because it is a 12v device I might turn my older 2 Port Protectli into a small server for my camper. Something to house a small media library for when it is raining and we want to watch TV, backup storage for the courses I am taking this summer (would hate to loose a dissertation or something), etc. Interesting ideas. Gave me something to think about for sure.

[woreibi]

Great video. Three distinctive things about device is power consumption, size and 2.5 Gbps comparing to do it your self type of a machine of a branded used computer.

[Bandicoot]

I have a similar software build, except that I'm running two VM's containing OPNsense tied as Master <-> Backup team, and two containers running PiHole. The containers are listed in the bulletin the DHCP server hands out to any clinet connencting up. Works pretty well so far.

[alienJIZ]

In my experience, iGPUs are a lot more challenging than a dedicated GPU or even a Discrete GPU for that matter. But if you wanna keep it compact and low power, not really a better option unless you go for the really niche and non standard eGPUs for when you want to use it as a desktop

[TheMrDrMs]

All I want is protectli to either have two intel 10gb sfp+ ports or a pci-e x8 slot (sure optional fan as 10gb nics run hot) and I would be thrilled. That's why I've never bought one. Maybe I should get one for the *arr stack tho.... Cool video, thanks.

[Doggisbag]

Hi Tim, great video that you are delivering to us!

Regarding to the QSV issue of using HW transcoding, i've recently stumbled upon with similar scenario using an 12th gen Alder Lake intel N100 on Ubuntu 22.04 trying to perform some transcoding with Jellyfin.

While i don't know if it's the absolute true, but after reading some forums i've found that there are some incompatibilities with QSV and VAAPI for intel graphics in kernel versions between 5.15 up to 6.1.

Maybe you might consider to try with 6.2 kernel for this, as i suceeded using transcoding for AV1 and HVEC and which btw, gpu engine can be monitored with intel_gpu_top command (similar to Windows gpu resource monitor).

Best of luck and keep doing great work!

[bearcountrypublishing]

Excellent video. My truenas runs from proxmox. The pool is 6 spinning drives in a usb3 drive cage. I've had great results.

[PCMagikHomeLab]

Sorry for my absence, i was sick for almost 3 years, and now i can finally tell You im wining this battle, i'm 34 kg less but still alive... I love You Guy!! Keep on going!! Share your knowledge, people like You are needed in this world. Thank you for being with me during this time and thanks to you I could learn a lot. It has changed and is changing my world! Greeting from POLAND and I want You to invite You to my country :)

[aiban]

You are the reason why I built my first home lab from router to selfhosted apps, Thank you so much for everything

[alienJIZ]

Imo, better to have your edge firewall/router as a dedicated physical appliance. I get the appeal and I know a lot of people do this but having it all in one unit, if that VM fails or if you need to reboot the host, you just killed internet for your entire household.

Yeah you can run a redundant VM/host for high availability blah blah but a lot of people go this route without thinking it through how they're going to be fucking with this thing all the time, which you don't wanna do with your edge device.

Best to keep all the cool fun stuff on Layer 2 where it belongs, and put Opnsense in front on the edge where it belongs, but other than that great video!

[kylecurry]

I've been focused on home servers of this variety for a few years/few different builds up to current. I suppose you could say it's partly budget based, however I do run it in my garage, and while it doesn't get drastically hot, theirs less complexity that otherwise comes with standard CPU cooling which has worked out better than I imagined it would when I started with a small NUC-like AMD powered unit a few builds ago. Right on for doing a feature on this Tim!

I've been edging towards running PFS on PVE on my current build. I've done so on a work related server while the hardware on that beast is a whole other animal, but it's nice to be able to restore vzdump's of PFS vs remembering to run config backups guestside in the event you need to revert something.

My only hesitation is the added heat the system may see while playing center host to all network traffic, but I guess you never know until you get bored one weekend and try lol.

As far as running multiple machines, even past a dozen or so, I'd say you're generally going to be fine so long as theirs sufficient memory, and if the bulk of your guests are comparable in makeup to your average Raspberry Pi, while a Window guest or a Mac VM amidst the bunch can function well off if you do your homework on a good hardware foundation, even if fanless and low power these days.

[Danielo]

This is the definitive small server I've been looking for. That is for bringing it up

[maximilianworner]

Do you already have an ETA for the "Ultimate Router" video? I am considering buying an VP2420 for exactly that purpose but would love to see your video on it first 😛

[TheBrilliantShadow]

2:30 "...a 1TB EVO Drive!"
Proceeds to show a QVO Drive 😮

[richardhoekstra]

I have this setup for more then 2 years now, perfect!

[Clarence-Homelab]

Rather buy a thin client on the second hand market like an hp t740 for 250€. It even has PCIE expansion.
The 6 port protectli costs around 700. 😮😮😮