I use technitium as the primary server, with a pair of backup servers running bind9.

The backup servers do zone-transfers from the primary.

Ebay.

Also, i3 doesn’t really use less power. The -T models will use a lot less power. But, you aren’t really going to notice a difference with the i3 models.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2639vs2627vs2599/Intel-i3-6100T-vs-Intel-i5-6500T-vs-Intel-i5-6500

TDP is the same between them too.

For reference, I have 3 micros. i5-9500T, i7-6700, and i5-8500t. They all use pretty much the same 8-12watts of idle power.

Also, I generally avoid the pre-6th gen computers. DDR-3, slower, less efficient. i5-6500 is the oldest processors in my lab.

And- right now, 50$ is the going-price for M900s / Optiplexes/etc, with an i5-6500t.

Although, you can get the i3 models for 30$ or so.

Go pick up a optiplex micro on ebay. 6th gen intel, or newer.

This will cost you around 50-150$ depending on which one you get.

Slap a couple NVMes into it, and a 2.5" SSD.

Run your docker containers here, including paperless-ngx.

You might check out unraid too…

I went from TrueNAS Core -> Unraid -> TrueNAS Scale -> And Landed back on Unraid.

My reasons were documented here: https://xtremeownage.com/2021/11/10/unraid-vs-truenas-scale-2021/

No… I have proper, tested backups.

Don’t host your own email server.

Just trust me.

A mini self-hosted cloudflare… you mean, like building a reverse proxy? If so… we already have treafik, nginx, haproxy, etc…

Self-hosted, ruins the reason I use cloudflare, completely.

I use cloudflare, because…

1. DDOS / Attack protection. The bandwidth hits their servers, and not mine. You CANNOT SELF HOST ddos protection, unless you have a MASSIVE amount of bandwidth. Otherwise, it just overwhelms your internet connection. It doesn’t matter if the traffic is blocked. It still fills your pipe.
2. Hiding my private IP / handling my dynamic IP.
3. Processing my domain’s SMTP. You don’t want to handle email at your home IP… its likely blacklisted from major providers.

I mean… I use xtremeownage.com

But, ya know… I own it. Although, I use a few subdomains for my home-network, with a split-horizon DNS setup.