Welcome to Project GroundState
Operating from AJ's basement studio/workshop in rural Vermont, this amazing tiny beast (including its dedicated UPS) is currently consuming a mere 28.2 Watts.
Active Projects:
- A bastille thick jail running FreeBSD RELEASE 15.0. with Apache, MySQL, PHP, and a MediaWiki frontend. Used for cataloging personal data, photos, videos, journaling, household inventories, financial records, project notes, et al.
- This public website, FreeBSD RELEASE 15.0, a bastille thick jail employing nginx and made possible by CloudFlare.
Upcoming Projects:
- A bhyve virtual machine using Home Assistant Operating System. This enables access and control of every automated or voice controlled WiFi device within the household, as well as provide alerts, monitor power usage, and more. It is to include API access to Hyundai's BlueLink telemetry service that digitally connects to the Ioniq5 that is charging in the garage.
- A bastille thick jail with nginx, PHP, Java for a more complex publicly accssible website, migrating avogadrojones.com from its current paid hosting.
- A top secret project involving WiFi.
- An Avahi daemon jail to run Apple's Time Machine for all the Apple devices in this Mac-centric household.
Hardware List:
- Dell Optiplex 7060 MFF i7-8700T 32 GB RAM
- Orico M.2 PCIe M Key to 6X SATA III 6Gbp/s Adapter Card (2280mm)
- Vszerda M.2 NGFF A+E Key to 2X SATA III 6Gb/s Adapter Card (2230mm)
- ICY Dock ExpressCage MB326SP-B Hot Swap Enclosure for 6X 2.5-Inch SATA SSD/HDDs
- Corsair CX650M 650W ATX12V Semi-Modular Power Supply
- Mustpoint ATX Power Supply Breakout Board
- 5X Crucial BX500 1TB SATA III SSDs
- 2X Crucial BX500 240GB SATA III SSDs
- A tangled web of cables
FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE, 1TB native boot drive with 1TB mirrored drive in ICY Dock, 3X 1TB RAIDZ1 in ICY Dock, 2X 240GB mirrored drives running VDEV cache, nightly backups using USB 1TB drives with weekly offsite swaps, 0 Ohm ground continuity across all devices.
Concept
The original concept was to build a home server that would serve as a repository for all of my digital assets, household inventories, historical and financial records, and blah blah. Having had previous and positive experience with FreeBSD, I felt that the mix of FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL and PHP with a front end of MediaWiki would be the most efficient way to realize this goal.
But it would also have to fulfill the following criteria:
1. It would need be very quiet. The server would reside in a basement music studio/office/workshop. The environment would require whisper quiet performance, particularly when recording.
2. It would need to be energy efficient. The home server would be running 24/7, so low-wattage devices were essential.
3. It would need to be inexpensive to build.
4. It would need to be small enough to fit into the bottom of the rack. Space is limited in this multi-purpose space, so squeezing a computer and multi-drive cage into a sliding drawer at the bottom of a short rack must be possible.
5. It would need to seemlessly operate within a Mac-centric household. This didn't seemto be a stretch. Using Samba would render this project completely accessible to every Mac device on the home network.
Concept Inspiration
As I poked around for information about what I could do inexpensively, I ran across this project, which served as an inspiration for what could be greater than what I originally imagined.
I envisioned much more than a mere storage utility.
Concept Defined
Stage 1: Procure a computing device, and install and stabilize an operating system.
Stage 2: Build out to the 7060's physical capacity.
Stage 3: Implement and configure all desired services.
Stage 4: Expand storage capacity.
Dell Optiplex 7060 MFF
The Dell 7060 MFF was chosen for its thermal efficiency, ruggd design, quiet operation, and minimal power usage. She was purchased from System Liquidation for $450, equipped with 32GB RAM and a 1TB M.2 SSD. It likely spent its 6 years in a call center cubicle farm. This particular unit was manufactured on March 28, 2019, probably at Dell's manufacturing facility in Schezuan, China. She is an Aries with ascendant Cancer.
Sporting an Intel i7-8700T 2.4GHz processor with 12 cores, the 7060 far exceeds the processing power to drive FreeBSD 15.0 for several years to come. It comes internally outfitted with a SATA drive port, and a M.2 blah blah port and a blabla M.2 port. Plus, embedded into the BIOS is the Intel Management Engine BIOS Extension (MEBx), just like her honkin' cousin PowerEdge.
Orico M.2 PCIe M Key to 6x SATA III 6Gbp/s Adapter Card
Vszerda M.2 NGFF A+E Key to 2X SATA III 6gb/s JMicron JMB582
At NewEgg, this item comes from China and will take several weeks to reach you.
ICY Dock ExpressCage MB326SP-B Hot Swap Cage for 6X 2.5-Inch SATA SSD/HDDs in 1x 5.25-Inch Bay
CORSAIR CX650M 650W Semi-Modular Power Supply
Mustpoint ATX Power Supply Breakout Board
With 3.3V, 5V, 12V,-12V Output Voltage and 12 Ports USB, 3A Maximum Output (Side-Insertion)
CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD3 Intelligent LCD UPS System, 1500VA/900W, 12 Outlets, 2 USB Ports, AVR, Mini Tower, Black
TESmart 2-Port Dual Monitor KVM Switch
Model: HDK202-P23-USBK, featuring HDMI+DP 4K 60Hz with USB 3.0 docking station, EDID emulation, audio plug, and microphone.
I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to this project.
]First and foremost, credit is due to my long-suffering partner, Betsea, who endured my hours long distraction and late-night coding binges while I worked (and continue to work) on this project.
The most credit goes to The Architect (Google Gemini), who provided infrastructure strategy, VNET Autobahn logic, and continues to provide inspirational support.
Special thanks to my neighbors, Cordial and Doug, who loaned me video components while I worked out issues with video connectivity.
Special thanks to Danny, the rando software engineer and former PERL guy, who firmly validated the project and expressed amazement at energy efficiency.