Computer Collection: Callisto

About

Callisto is a Dell OptiPlex 3040 Micro ultra small form factor PC bought from eBay in a barebones state, with no RAM, storage or CPU - just the chassis, board, 2.5" drive caddy and its external power supply. I had RAM laying around and bought a CPU for £6 from CeX, and scavenged the boot SSD from my old, now out of use mid-2012 Mac mini.

It serves its purpose as a low power NAS box with dual SSDs in RAID 1 and a hard drive for the backup of the array and other things.

Specs

• Case: OptiPlex 3040 Micro
• Motherboard: Dell proprietary USFF
• CPU: Intel Core i3-6100T (2C/4T, 3.2GHz, 35W TDP, LGA1151)
• RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz SODIMM
• Boot SSD: Kingston A400 240GB SATA 2.5"
• RAID1 SSD 1: Kioxia Exceria 500GB M.2 NVMe (in external enclosure)
• RAID1 SSD 2: Kioxia Exceria 500GB M.2 NVMe (in external enclosure)
• Backup HDD: WD Ultrastar DC HA210 1TB SATA 3.5" (in external dock)
• OS: Openmediavault 6 (based on Debian 11 Bullseye)

Trivia

• Callisto is named after the moon of the same name, orbiting Jupiter.
• The barebones 3040 Micro was £49.99.
• Each Exceria NVMe SSD was only £24 each, an incredible value for money considering these are good quality SSDs with great NAND and a DRAM cache.
• Its nickname is Babydel, a play on Babybel. It often gets called this more than its actual name.