Specs are slightly in flux right now, but basically it's an HP ML310e Gen 8, with a random HDD cage on top for 4 additional drives, and a bunch of fans zip tied to the front to cool the 6 internal drives. Oh, and a little 7" display stuck to the side which I'll get a stats readout on soon.
Xeon E3-1220 v3, 32GB ECC RAM, 40TB array, Quadro M2000.
It's running Unraid and I use it as a media server (Plex, Sonarr, Radarr) as well as a backup for my music and video production, and general stuff (NextCloud, Photoprism).
The machine itself is so stupid and hacked together, built entirely from used parts I got cheap on ebay. It's probably cost me £300 max, all in.
I've found used SAS drives really cheap. Averaged around £6 per tb.
Really now? Whereabouts are you looking for deals like that? Are there any limitations concerning sas drives, other than the different connection? Can they be pooled with SATA drives?
I should probably google all of this haha
I just grab them off ebay. SAS drives are almost exclusively used in enterprise servers, so there's fuck all demand for them on the used market. Buy a cheap PCIe SAS controller card and you're good to go.
I use Unraid which doesn't care at all about what types of drives you use, so you can mix and match into one huge array. I have 8x SAS and 2x SATA drives in one array.