Tech

Hardware Recommendations

Server - If I had to do it again (and I will)

Minisforum

This bad boy will be my EEG going forward (everything except gaming). It's got tons of compute power, and enough RAM to run plenty of low-intensity VMs, or 2-3 higher capability ones.

RAM

(AMAZON TRACKING LINK ABOVE AND BELOW)

SSD PCIE4 (3 count)

2 of these will be throttled to PCIe 3.0 speeds

Synology (Budget)

This is a weak little thing, but with the prices you can get on storage at SPD, god damn is it value. Mine runs as a backup to the backup server, but you can run yours without any special configurations as a NAS, and maybe include some nifty services tacked on to it you can find at https://falkorr.org/tech/adfree

Base

This is a great little chassis for the price. The primary reason I recommend Synology is the amount of documentation their products have, makes it easier for the non-tech literate masses to upkeep.

Storage

Pick and choose, but don't mix and match!

Go as big as you can afford for TB

Server (Budget)

Lenovo Thinkcentre m900 or similar ($50)

With Raspberry Pi's being as expensive as they are these days, just buy something like this off eBay. Several times more powerful. Can run a VM or two at a time. I bought two for $100, some more powerful models go for around the same price individually.