FTB.Yashin

Well, I am quite happy with this one: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7VZ2FT/asus-prime-z270-a-atx-lga1151-motherboard-prime-z270-a It isnt Red/Black, but Black/White shouldn't interfere with anything you try to throw at it and you can just turn the RGB to red ^^.

I know, this Thread is kinda dead, but I wanted to share the decision I made. So I went wit the DIY route. Here is a link to the parts I chose. It cost me around 600€ without HDDs and OS. Propably gonna run unRaid, because I am familiar with it. I chose the Case, since a 2U rackmount case would be noisy as hell, and I have to put it into my bedroom. And anything with a large footprint would be bad as well, so I settled on the DS380 from Silverstone. It isnt the most cost-effective thing I could have done, but it should be able to accommodate anything I throw at it. I went with the cheapest sealed i3 I could get (sealed because of reliability: less likely to fail because it has never been used and degraded) and the cheapest Mobo I could find. Then I got a Dell PERC H220, which I will flash to IT Mode, so it will work with unRaid. I hope that this is the best compromise between value and ease of use/quality of life, since I don't want to deal with nasty to configure vanilla Linux (I have hands on experience and I don't want to repeat that experience), big cases or any other inconveniences: it just has to work. I have almost all parts together. If it is finished, I can write a little bit about my experience with that machine.

Well I am kinda drawn to the easy to use/no-hastle interface of prebuilt models. While I am kinda stuck with the hardware when I buy something like the PR4100 (btw I did make a mistake, i meant PR4100 instead of EX4100 and the PR4100 has an even better processor), I most likely wont need more. My only concern is watching subtitled content in high quality. If I watch non subtitled movies in full quality the server doesn't need to encode and there is no buffering or any other performance issues. But If I add subtitles the Server has to encode the video on the server and I am limited to a bitrate of approx. 8Mbit/s and that is not enough for a satisfying experience in 1080p. Well I guess I need to live with that limitation, cant have it all ^^

I have been looking into getting a new NAS for myself, as I am going to college soon and I cant bring the old Server we had at home with me. However I have some special problems that restrict my options on what to get. The criteria are as follows: It needs to run Plex Media Server and it needs to be able to transcode one stream of 1080p footage at moderate bitrates (about 8Mbit/s) It has to be compact, since I will be living in a one room apartment; I don't want an additional full-tower behemoth taking up precious space It has to be moderately quiet, since I will be sleeping in that room Low power consumption is a bonus HDD Hot-Swap is a (much appreciated) bonus It doesn't cost more than approx. 500€ (without HDDs) While i like the idea of building it myself and doing some tinkering, it would be kinda expensive to do so. I don't like buying cheap now and upgrading down the line if it means that I will be throwing away/selling old equipment since that is like pouring money down the drain. Rather wait for money and build the better one now, instead of paying two times. Since I am kinda restricted in case size almost nothing I am aware of fits my needs, except the Silverstone DS380. However that case alone costs 170€ (I live in Germany) and I didn't find affordable Mobos that have an adequate amount of SATA Ports. I don't need 12 Ports to utilize all the options of that case... heck, I don't even need to hook up all 8 Hot-Swap Bays but I couldn't find any mobo that costs less than 200€ that could do that (6 ports would be kinda my minimum, since I dont want to let to much of the case unused and if I already pay for it I wanna use it at some point). A HBA Card (or generally a PCI-E Card that lets me hook up HDDs) would cost me too much and I might run into compatibility issues, since I would plan on running unRaid. I don't know heck about alternatives, but I will not do vanilla Linux. I already did that and it was a ton of work to set up and maintain and I am tired of that. unRaid seems like a hastle-free solution but compatibility with HBA cards or whatnot is limited. I am open to any alternative OS that is easy to use and has hastle-free maintenance, so feel free to make suggestions. I have looked into this for tens of hours but I couldn't come up with a DIY solution that fits my needs. So I am considering a prebuilt Synology/Qnap or whatever Brand solution that has at least 4 Bays, easy Raid-Volume expansion and the Plex capabilities that I mentioned earlier. But the only reason for that is that I don't find a somewhat affordable DIY solution. But I kinda have the feeling that I am a huge moron and I am doing something wrong while parting out my DIY NAS. I would be happy about any kind of advice regarding DIY solutions that fit my bill. Or does anyone of you have experience with prebuilt NAS solutions and can provide me with some insight about it. Here are Links to the NAS solutions that I consider: QNAP TS-451+ DE Pricing: https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B015CDDGZU/ref=s9u_simh_gw_i2?ie=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B015CDDGZU&pd_rd_r=XCB31RQ57DE2DNNHKJ41&pd_rd_w=RL2ga&pd_rd_wg=Zp71Q&pf_rd_m=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&pf_rd_s=&pf_rd_r=VV3X0SQGXV0V50FPKZJP&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=b9192609-35a1-4877-9094-5ab9bc159b27&pf_rd_i=desktop US Pricing: https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-451-Personal-Quad-Core-Transcoding/dp/B015VNLGF8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499815167&sr=8-1&keywords=qnap+ts451+plus Synology DS916+ DE Pricing: https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/Synology-NAS-DS916-2GB-_1060489.html US Pricing: https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS916-2GB-DiskStation-Diskless/dp/B01EMSGNCY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1499815200&sr=8-2&keywords=synology+ds916 WD PR4100 DE Pricing: https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01GRFF1JQ/ref=s9u_simh_gw_i5?ie=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01GRFF1JQ&pd_rd_r=6S38X932JTCJ99S56A11&pd_rd_w=BAgnE&pd_rd_wg=VcwxD&pf_rd_m=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&pf_rd_s=&pf_rd_r=C8PBDQZWFZYQEE9SWBFK&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=b9192609-35a1-4877-9094-5ab9bc159b27&pf_rd_i=desktop US Pricing: https://www.amazon.com/Diskless-Cloud-Pro-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01GLRX6C4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499815461&sr=8-1&keywords=wd+4100

Well, I plan on using the virtualisation features of unRAID and rather prefer software RAID than hardware RAID. This is why I am looking for a compatible HBA card so that I can use software RAID. If I was just using unRAID as a NAS or a Server with just one OS I would fully agree with you. If you have other suggestions how to use virtualisation without too much hastle then please, go ahead but from what I have seen unRAID is a quite comfortable solution.

Hi Guys, I have bought a HP Proliant Server http://www.ebay.de/itm/HP-ProLiant-DL380-G5-2x-QuadCore-Xeon-E5405-8x-2-0-GHz-32-GB-RAM-8x-72-GB-HDD-/112005919524?hash=item1a1412b324:g:TQYAAOSw14xWIMHE (It is German but you should be able to understand the spec list) and I want to install unRAID. However the Raid Card that came with that server (HP Smart Array p400) is not on the validated parts list of unRAID and it doesn't work (tried to delete all volumes and to use it as JBOD but didn't work and a bunch of single drive RAID 0 Arrays didn't work as well). So I am looking for a HBA Card to put in there that works with unRAID, but the Problem is that I am quite limited in my choice of a HBA card because the case requires half-height expansion cards and the Hot-Swap-SAS3Gb/s-Backplane has 2 SFF-8484 connectors which I didn't find on any of the HBA cards on the validated list. I found a HBA (HP SC44Ge) card that would be compatible with my server, but I don't know whether it works with unRAID. Does someone have experience with that card or a reccomendation for a card that fits my needs (and isn't expensive)? Thanks in advance Yashin

I want this NUC as my streaming box for my livingroom.