I've got a new homeserver/NAS (Network Attached Storage), previously I was using some Raspberry Pis, but I've wanted for a while a low power board that has SATA ports for attaching hard drives and one that could run GNU Guix, and the ZimaBoard 2 looked like it might be a good option.
These were the specific bits that I ordered:
- $349.00: ZimaBoard 2
- $29.90: 2-Bay HDD Rack Tray for ZimaBoard 2
- $9.90: PCIe to NVMe & NGFF SSD Adapter
It's definately not a low cost approach, but the x86 architecture, PCIe slot, dual 2.5G networking, SATA ports and passive heatsink case are all really nice features to have.
The PCIe to NVMe & NGFF SSD Adapter does work, but comes with a full size bracket, which doesn't fit the smaller mount on the HDD Rack Tray. It's fine just sitting there though.
Installing Guix was very easy, I connected a display to the mini DisplayPort connector and booted the installer image from a USB drive, installing Guix on to NVMe drive. I think I had to fiddle in the UEFI bios to get the installer to boot, but this didn't take too long.
For playing audio around the house, I'm using MPD+Snapcast with the snapclient's running on various Raspberry Pis. I've got MPD setup, and I've got the Snapcast server running in a screen session currently (this needs Guix service).
I'm running ddclient to do dynamic DNS, and I'm working on packaging this for Guix, it could also do with a system service.
To get the attached hard drive to spin down, I'm using hd-idle. This needs adding to Guix and also could do with a system service.
I'm using this for Wireguard, which is something I'm new to configuring, I think I've got this working now so I can connect in to my home network easily.
I'd like to run Prometheus for monitoring, and I had a go using Jellyfin on onen of the Raspberry Pis, so it would be nice to try that on this machine as well, those take a bit more effort to get running on Guix though. I should also sort using this machine for backups.
If you've got any comments or questions, please reach out on the Fediverse @cbaines@gts.hotaircat.net . I'd love to hear what other people are using Guix homeservers for.