#Hardware Migration & Upgrade Plan

Long-term plan for the three primary machines in Kris's setup. Written 2026-05-12.

#Target end state

The current STARGATE (HP Z440) gets decommissioned or kept as a cold spare.

#Phase 1 — Acquire the Mac Pro 7,1

The 7,1 is the only Mac Pro that makes sense as a serious workstation: Xeon W, DDR4 ECC RDIMM, 8 PCIe slots, MPX bays, up to 1.5 TB RAM, real internal expansion. It's the chassis you grow into.

#Base unit to look for

Used market target: $1500-2500 for a base 8-core 32 GB unit as of early 2026. Don't pay for pre-maxed configs — Apple charges insane markups on RAM/SSD and we can do better aftermarket.

#Upgrade path (priority order)

1. RAM → 192 GB (6× 32 GB DDR4-2933 ECC RDIMM) — biggest single quality-of-life upgrade. Use Samsung/Hynix server-pull RDIMM. ~$300-500 used. Populate 6 slots first (1 DIMM per channel) for best bandwidth; only go to 12 slots if you need >192 GB.
2. CPU → Xeon W-3275M (28c/56t, 2.5/4.4 GHz) — the top chip. Drop-in, socketed. Used pulls run $400-800. Unlocks full RAM ceiling (1.5 TB) and PCIe lanes.
3. Storage — Apple's stock SSD is fine, but for real work: install 2× 4 TB NVMe via Sonnet M.2 4×4 PCIe card (requires bifurcation — works in 7,1). Keep Apple SSD for boot if dual-booting macOS.
4. GPU — depends on use. Sapphire Pulse RX 6900 XT (works natively in macOS Monterey+) or Radeon Pro W6800X MPX. Skip Nvidia (no driver support past 10.13).
5. 10 GbE — stock 7,1 already has 2× 10 GbE on the I/O board. No upgrade needed; this is one of the few cases where the Mac Pro is server-class out of the box.

#Realistic maxed 7,1

• Xeon W-3275M (28c/56t)
• 192 GB DDR4-2933 ECC (room to grow to 1.5 TB)
• 4-8 TB NVMe via PCIe blade card
• Radeon Pro W6800X or RX 7900 XTX
• 2× 10 GbE onboard

Total cost path (base + upgrades): ~$2500-3500 for a machine that will be a top-tier workstation for another 5-7 years.

#Phase 2 — moirai → STARGATE migration

moirai is already on Arrow Lake (Core Ultra 7 265K, 20c, DDR5-5600). The migration is logical, not physical-first: provision moirai as a server, move services off the Z440, then optionally rack moirai.

#Current moirai specs (2026-05-12)

#Upgrade path (priority order)

1. RAM → 128 GB DDR5-5600 (4× 32 GB UDIMM) — Z890 board cap. moirai is already swap-thrashing at 32 GB; this is non-negotiable before becoming STARGATE. ~$300-400.
2. Boot/data NVMe → 2 TB or 4 TB (WD SN850X / Samsung 990 Pro) — leaves room for service data, container volumes, fast Postgres. ~$150-300.
3. 10 GbE NIC — Intel X550-T2 (RJ45) or Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx (SFP+). Critical link to the 5,1 NAS. Plug into a free PCIe x4+ slot. ~$60-150 used.
4. CPU → Core Ultra 9 285K (24c, +8 E-cores) — optional. Only meaningful uplift available on LGA 1851. ~$600. Skip unless you actually pin out the existing 265K.
5. Chassis — if rackmounting matters, swap into a 4U short-depth case (SilverStone RM41-H08 or similar). Otherwise keep the desktop case; it works fine sitting in a basement next to the 5,1.
6. PSU — current is fine for service workload. Only upgrade if adding GPU compute later (which the plan says you won't — that goes to a separate machine).

#Realistic maxed STARGATE

• Core Ultra 7 265K (or 285K if you want)
• 128 GB DDR5-5600
• 4 TB NVMe boot + 4 TB NVMe data
• 10 GbE NIC to NAS
• RX 6800 XT stays (display + occasional accel, irrelevant to services)

This destroys any used enterprise box of similar cost in per-core performance, while consuming less power and being silent.

#Migration order (Z440 → moirai)

1. Upgrade moirai RAM to 128 GB first (otherwise migration just moves the swap thrashing).
2. Install 10 GbE on moirai + on the NAS-to-be.
3. Stand up Docker / Tailscale / nginx on moirai as a parallel STARGATE.
4. Migrate services in order of blast radius (small first):
   • AdGuard, Glance, Invidious
   • Immich (move blobs over 10 GbE)
   • n8n, Linkding
   • Ghost / forge instances
   • krisyotam.com and notes.krisyotam.com last
5. Update DNS / Tailscale routes once everything is verified.
6. Decommission Z440 (keep as cold spare for a few months before parting out).

#Phase 3 — Mac Pro 5,1 NAS

The 5,1 is the cheapest credible NAS chassis on the planet for the storage capacity. Single-CPU tray with a hex-core is the right config — dual-CPU adds heat and noise for no NAS benefit.

#Base unit to look for

Target price: $200-400 for a working empty 5,1 chassis. Don't pay for upgrades — RAM, CPU, drives all go in aftermarket.

#Capacity ceiling

Internal-only, stock chassis:

8× 3.5" HDDs internal. At today's 24 TB drives: 192 TB raw / ~140 TB usable RAIDZ2. At conservative 16 TB drives: 128 TB raw / ~96 TB usable.

#Required upgrades

1. HBA — LSI 9211-8i in IT mode (~$40 used). Replaces the slow SATA II onboard ports. 8 SAS/SATA channels at SATA III speeds. ZFS prefers this.
2. 10 GbE NIC — Mellanox ConnectX-3 EN (~$25 used) or ConnectX-4 Lx. Pairs with moirai's 10 GbE.
3. RAM to 64-96 GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM (single-tray takes 6 sticks). ZFS ARC loves RAM. ~$80-150 used.
4. NVMe PCIe adapter in slot 2 — 2× 1 TB M.2 for L2ARC + special vdev. Hugely improves metadata-heavy ops. ~$30 adapter + drives.
5. 8× 16 TB HDDs — bulk of the cost. Buy in pairs over time; ZFS lets you expand by replacing one drive at a time. WD HC550 or Seagate Exos used pulls run $130-180 each.

#Software

• TrueNAS SCALE (Debian-based, official ZFS, web UI) — recommended for set-and-forget
• Or Arch + OpenZFS if you want full hands-on (matches the rest of your stack)
• Datasets: at minimum split /photos, /media, /backups, /archive
• Snapshots: hourly/daily/weekly/monthly, with zfs-auto-snapshot
• Replication: nightly zfs send to a Hetzner Storage Box or similar for off-site

#Realistic build cost

For ~$2K you get a 96 TB usable NAS in a beautiful chassis with 10 GbE to the rest of the rack. Drives are 80% of the cost.

#Sequencing recommendation

If acquiring everything on a budget over time:

1. Now / immediately: moirai RAM upgrade to 128 GB. This unblocks the migration and stops current swap thrashing on both moirai (when it migrates) and STARGATE (after migration).
2. Within a few months: acquire Mac Pro 5,1 chassis + minimum upgrades + 4-6 drives. Stand up NAS, migrate bulk media off Z440's /mnt/storage (currently 82% full).
3. Within a year: acquire Mac Pro 7,1 base unit. Use as workstation while moirai handles services. Upgrade 7,1 RAM/CPU/storage incrementally as budget allows.
4. As needed: add 10 GbE between moirai and 5,1. Expand NAS drives in pairs.

Total budget across all three machines, end-to-end: $5,000-7,000 spread over 12-24 months. Result is a homelab that will last another decade.