How's the power consumption? Everytime I look at used server deals on ebay that seem too good to be true, the hidden cost is usually power. It's fairly normal for these systems to consume hundreds of watts idle, and $1/watt/year is a decent rule of thumb in the US (but much more in places like CA). And that’s not factoring in running the AC more if you’re in a hotter climate.
I’m looking at a NAS build myself and am leaning toward a consumer mobo and an older Intel, like maybe a 9th gen i5. 6 SATA ports is pretty standard, and three mirrored 20 TB pairs is a lot of storage for most folks. Boot drive could be a small NVME.
Depends on how you configure the whole thing. You could add another XEON and not spin down the drives and it would consume quite a bit of power, of you can put it to sleep and conserve but there is of course a spin-up price to that when you need it.
It will definitely consume a few hundred Watts, and when you pack it full of drives it will be more than that. But that's kind of logical. A Synology would not consume that much power but it would also be far slower and have less capacity.
I’m looking at a NAS build myself and am leaning toward a consumer mobo and an older Intel, like maybe a 9th gen i5. 6 SATA ports is pretty standard, and three mirrored 20 TB pairs is a lot of storage for most folks. Boot drive could be a small NVME.