It’s time to get some storage for the homelab. I could get a Synology, but I’d quite like to build my own using ZFS.
However it seems hard (or my Google-fu sucks) to find good, reasonably priced 4 bay JBODs. Most of what I can find either looks very cheap or is almost as expensive as a Synology.
Any suggestions?
You could buy an old 1u server on eBay
It’ll have to live in my office, and my experience with most rack mount servers is that they are pretty noisy?
They can be. I have a supermicro 2u server that has a 12 disk backplane that I stripped of its original mobo and fans and put in my own gear. Its pretty quiet once you replace all of the stock fans with noctua.
They aren’t usually terribly noisy and you can control the fans through the emc/idrac/etc. I used to keep mine on my desk or entertainment stand and put a TV on it lol