johnt

They seem largely similar, except the CPU and motherboards. The 12400 config is about $100 less, and that's mostly because of the motherboard. Neither one of these configurations will fit into the Jansbo N2 from your original post, but that's probably why you added another case. The N2 requires a mini ITX board, unfortunately. The ASUS motherboard is the same one that I use in my NAS.
 
I think you would normally get a lot of push back from other forum members about wasting money on an k-sku Intel chip that can overclock. Unless you have a direct need for it, you really don't need that much horsepower in a home NAS/server. I agree that a slow chip is not ideal either, but the 12400 is a perfect balance in my opinion. Plus, the 12600k does not come with a cooler. That's another cost.
 
The only suggestion I have is to skip the Crucial drive and look for an Intel drive instead. I've had nothing but great experiences with Intel drives, and the P3 Plus just does not perform the same. The Intel 670p 2TB is what I use in mine. The 1TB model will be just as good. I use it a lot to transfer files quickly to my NAS over the network, and then copy them to the SATA drives overnight.
 
I don't have enough experience with modern Seagate spinning drives to answer this question. In the past, I've had nothing but bad experiences with Seagate drives. I have never had a premature failure, but I did have instability (in the Windows 95/98 era), louder devices, poor performance, freezing, more frequent bad sectors. I think the reason I didn't have a premature failure is I just had to replace them before they could fail lol. I've just learned to avoid them. I bought a 5400rpm 2.5" drive for an Intel NUC about five years ago and the performance was so bad I just never used it. I did use the drive in a simple NAS situation and that served faithfully for years, but it was just on all the time and infrequently used... but it did keep the data! I'm sure there 7200rpm NAS products are better but I'm too jaded on this brand lol
 
Western Digital drives are my go to. They are all very expensive and using something like RAID1 for redundancy is just double the expense! I actually started looking for used drives on Amazon. I found a seller who has 2 TB drives for $29 each, and they had less than 30 days of use with manufacture dates from 2016 and 2017. They are performing perfectly in RAID1. My goal is to upgrade to much larger capacities in the future, but so far my 2 TB drives are serving me well. I can send you a link if you're interested. I have no affiliation with the seller and your drives may be wildly different than mine. For me, it was a fun starter "who cares what happens" project that seemed to work and I got the kinks out and it's just been working just fine.

Go for an i5 12400 with 32 GB of memory. Make sure the CPU has an integrated GPU. This will save you money if you are not planning to purchase a dedicated GPU right away. You may never need to if your CPU has it.
 
Buy the cheapest brand name motherboard you can find (AsRock, ASUS, MSI, etc.) that has the number of SATA ports you need and at least one NVME/M.2 port. Also consider if you need a 2.5 Gbps NIC onboard. They are very inexpensive to add on later if you need to improve your bandwidth speeds in the future. The other thing is the case you are going to build in. The N2 requires a mini ITX board, so that is going to be a significant cost just for the form factor.

Diagnosis is truly an art. But the fear mongering on this forum just for opening your PSU is on another level. Last year I was in an argument for swapping my PSU fan that was making a very loud bearing sound under load. It was a five minute job with a simple mini fan connector. It's not helpful to tell people they are going to die if they open their PSU. That doesn't fix problems... just creates e-waste. I could have easily bought a new PSU to get rid of the noise but it was a $20 fan.

it's accepted more on pc because media preservation on pc is easier than console. it's not hard to obtain movies/tv shows or games when sailing the high seas.

closed ecosystems like consoles it's less accepted due to basically being at the mercy of microsoft/sony/nintendo

 
then you did what the majority of people on earth did except instead of moving from a pc to a cell phone you went from pc to mac/console. so not really unique in that aspect.

50 is the way to go if you need quantity. 

I'll get the 50, cause I'll be using it for other things too, just wanted to make sure, appreciate the help!

30 is all you need. 50 seems like advertising but it’s a bigger quantity, which is the biggest difference in my review. 70 is an intermediate volume and comes with applicators and cleaning wipes. Wouldn’t recommend 50 or 70 if you are doing less than five CPUs. 

30 is all you need. 50 seems like advertising but it’s a bigger quantity, which is the biggest difference in my review. 70 is an intermediate volume and comes with applicators and cleaning wipes. Wouldn’t recommend 50 or 70 if you are doing less than five CPUs. 

30 is all you need. 50 seems like advertising but it’s a bigger quantity, which is the biggest difference in my review. 70 is an intermediate volume and comes with applicators and cleaning wipes. Wouldn’t recommend 50 or 70 if you are doing less than five CPUs. 

30 is all you need. 50 seems like advertising but it’s a bigger quantity, which is the biggest difference in my review. 70 is an intermediate volume and comes with applicators and cleaning wipes. Wouldn’t recommend 50 or 70 if you are doing less than five CPUs. 

30 is all you need. 50 seems like advertising but it’s a bigger quantity, which is the biggest difference in my review. 70 is an intermediate volume and comes with applicators and cleaning wipes. Wouldn’t recommend 50 or 70 if you are doing less than five CPUs. 

30 is all you need. 50 seems like advertising but it’s a bigger quantity, which is the biggest difference in my review. 70 is an intermediate volume and comes with applicators and cleaning wipes. Wouldn’t recommend 50 or 70 if you are doing less than five CPUs. 

While replacing a few capacitors is not complicated, knowing they were actually the cause of the problem and not a symptom of a greater problem elsewhere IS complicated.

I run my Plex server from a Windows PC and the usage always spikes to 100% during transcoding. I don't see the fate of a 12600k being much different.
 
I'm getting curious about unraid and truenas just to see the differences.

You need a pc to run plex or jellyfin server. That’s where you store all your media. Then you can use a built in app on your tv to access it. Plex will work for sure on a Sony. Not sure about jellyfin. Or you can use apps on a fire tv or Apple TV or shield. I recommend the shield since it’s the only device that does bitstream from plex and you are planning to use a receiver. 

They are definitely the most qualified bunch to give advice 👍

I agree with this completely. I hated how the smoothing worked on my TV from 2008, so I always turned it off. The modern LG OLEDs have some crazy good interpolation! I found myself bumping it up and it still looked fine. I watch a lot of animated movies with my kids and smoothing was almost a requirement to enjoy the movies. Once I turned on smoothing and realize the panning and fast action are less jarring, I didn't want to turn it off.

Plex transcoding can be tough on a cpu. I would go with the 12600k since it’s cheaper with the same P core count. 

The Philips Hue system can do all that except track you inside a room to another room. It has motion sensors but those require motion. I use motion sensor automation in my bathrooms, hall ways, garage, laundry room, and stairs. The stairs are amazing.
 
Yes Hue is expensive but it's absolutely worth it for the reliability. I've only had one bad bulb in the 5 or so dozen I've purchased over the years, and it was replaced immediately by Philips without question. I also installed most of my lights in 2016 and 2017, and they all lasted until now. Two of them died because of power outages. The rest are all working.
 
I've also purchased a ton of their fancier products used and saved a lot of money that way. Of course that depends on your luck, but the used items I purchased are still in service. I purchased ten outdoor spot lights that are on a timer.
 
I am not sure if there are cheaper alternatives for the same functionality. Also, you have to remember that Philips packaged a really good product and software. You can watch the videos of Linus putting together the smart products in his new house. It honestly turned me off to the entire craziness. I have no compatibility issues with my Hue products, no software updates to worry about, no reliance on a server or Jake to setup everything.
 
If I may suggest something... just start with their cheaper normal bulbs. Don't worry about RGB until later. RGB in normal rooms is ridiculous. I have an RGB strip under the bannister of my staircase and it makes sense there. I set to a very bright orange during the day and a dark, dim orange overnight. I also use RGB in my backyard. It doesn't make sense anywhere else.

Oh I think you’re talking about unraid. I was talking about Plex.

I'm a bit wary of this, as the fan started to seize on my 12400 stock cooler when running 24/7.  I only noticed because I upgraded it to a 14700K (the none K variant was barely any cheaper so I figured get the potentially better binned part) and kinda got in the habit of spinning the fans with my finger to check how they are holding up and noticed it was no longer freely spinning.
 
I mean sure it was probably just a fluke, but at least after market coolers you can swap the fans if they fail, and not even need to remove the heatsink.

I think unraid likes a little more memory, but 16 GB will be more than enough to start. And really it should be enough for everything you've listed. I would build it and just have fun. I don't think the R1600 has a built in GPU, so you will need a dedicated card to install and gets this configured at first, but I think you will be able to run everything remotely and remove the video card when it is all setup.

Here are my thoughts in order of your components and my suggestions:
 
Plex Media Server uses less than 5% CPU usage on my 12400 while streaming 4k content natively. I do not do transcoding to my phones, but if you do plan to do that, that will run your CPU usage to max. Also the requirements for Minecraft server seems very low. It seems to want more memory than CPU power, but 32 GB should be more than sufficient.
 
1) You do not need an overclockable CPU for a server. You can easily get away with a 12th gen CPU, like a 12400 for years to come. Under no circumstances do I recommend purchasing a CPU that does not have a GPU built in for a server, like f sku Intel chips. That is a terrible idea. You won't even need the 1650. The 14600k is much better suited for a client device.
 
2) That motherboard is overkill. Is there anything you specifically need that it offers? You can pick up an ASUS prime model for much cheaper. I think the only recommendation is to make sure it has 2.5 Gbps NIC. PCIE 2.5 NIC's are available in the states for around $30. I'm sure they aren't much more expensive in Australia.
 
3) The Crucial P3 Plus series is... fine. It's a good enough as long as the cache isn't filled. I have a P3 Plus and for some reason it drops to the folding speed when transferring 40 GB files. It is supposed to have a dynamic 250 GB SLC cache but it doesn't act like it. I suggest Intel drives. I've found them to provide much more consistent performance. Also, it's a server that is going to be on for 24/7 or close to it. I would not be considering a PCIE4 or PCIE5 device for this purely to reduce power draw and heat output.
 
 

ideally, it should just be plug and play. if anything's missing then you can redownload drivers.

Boys! Add me to the group of the biggest dummies ever. Turns out I set the "Limit the number of simultaneous users to" to 2. I thought this wouldn't be an issue since I was the only one testing everything. But my laptop and phone must have taken those connections even after I quit the app or turned off the screen... didn't see that one coming smh
 
I was doing some other testing and I was about to add another user to my system and test more. So I disconnected the server from my laptop in preparation, came to my gaming PC and everything started working just fine. I increased the number and all my devices can access the folder shares and everything across the VLANs (all clients on default to NAS) at the same time.
 
I'm a fucking idiot sometimes. But at least I didn't give up! Thank you guys for the suggestions and discussion. @leadeater thank you for suggesting I try to map it again. Without that error message I wouldn't have pushed my brain to think about users.
 
 
So I figured out how it came to that conclusion