Search the Community

Budget (including currency): N/A CAD Country: Canada Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: NAS media server Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): Hey everyone! So I'm looking to build/setup a NAS media server for my personal home use, and I just wanted to fish for some opinions on the best configurations and setups. So far I've decided on using RAID10, for larger drive capacity and redundancy. I know that's not a true backup along the "3, 2, 1" route, but it's not going to be important data, just media files, and I'm going to maintain a directory list so I can just reacquire the data in the event a catastrophic loss occurs. But I'm getting hung up on what I should use when it comes to OS, type of enclosure, etc. . I've heard a lot of good things about TrueNAS, and Unraid, so I'm going to do a deeper dive on those after posting this. I want it to be always on, so NAS enclosures are attractive in that way. But I also want a high degree of customizability, and also a much higher number of drive bays than most NAS enclosures support. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hey all, I'm working on a personal media server build based around my old Core2 computer. I have a plethora of low capacity 3.5" hard drives (80-320gb) and some slightly more spacious 2.5" hard drives (250-500gb). Due to the restrictions of the power supply and motherboard I'm using only 4 drives can be connected at a time. As such, I'm looking to maximize available storage. None of the drives are anything special, just your standard fare (WD Blues, Seagate Barracuda). The 3.5" drives are all 7200 RPM, while the 2.5" drives don't list any speed (I can only assume they are operating at 5400 RPM). Is there any reason why I shouldn't use the highest capacity 2.5" hard drives along with the highest capacity 3.5" drives? Are there any performance penalties due to the difference in rotation speed, or maybe the 2.5" drives aren't mean't to be running as much as the 3.5" variety? Merci beacoup.

What software stack do you suggest for this server? Usage: -NAS: should also be accessable from outside the network, photo sharing within and outside of the network even from smartphones -Media server: 1080p video streaming Hardware: - SAS HDDs: starting with 2 (something like RAID 1) dynamically expandable up to 8 (something like RAID 6) - 2 x SSD Caching (something like RAID 1) - 16GB ECC ram - 8threads at around 3Ghz (e5 v4 so pretty new xeon) I would preferably like a GUI and as little command line interfaces as possible.

Has anyone used the X5650? I'm looking to build an unraid/plex media server and this chip seems like a great bargain, but I cant find any good motherboard options.

I am looking to build a new home server in a short while. I have been looking at a lot of articles, videos and read a lot of threads about this, but often I have one issue about all this. Often what I read or watch are outdated or it's focus is not on power efficiency. Since I'm a student (technical university), I do not have too much money to cover a very high electricity bill. I have money to build the server, and I don't want to make it too cheap; I need it to just work! I have a few requirements though. My first thought was to just by a Synology NAS, but I don't really think it has enough power. My top priority is that it can run Plex Server smoothly with maybe 2-3 simultaneous clients and work as a NAS, and then I need a simple webserver. If it has enough power though, I would like to also run a domain controller on it (Windows Server), but it is not too important. My top priorities of the server is that it has a low running cost (low power use) and it is fairly silent, as it has to stay in the living room. I think I'm going to use 3 drives (1 SSD and 2 WD Red 4Tb). I don't really need much more than that. Since I haven't built a server myself before, I hope that someone with a bit more experience can help me build this power efficient home server. Thanks. EDIT: I forgot to mention that the server will be replacing my 2 raspberry pi's. Ofc. this isn't an important factor, but more to show that, I don't need an insane server, it just have to upgrade my current server environment. RPI3 are just not powerful enough for simultaneous plex streams.

I want to repurpose my old pc for a local media center through which i can remotely access the data present in the data in my laptop,pc,tablet(android),IOS , T.v. the plan is to make a local media center without internet,I am planning to spread the data of my server in my home through network card offline.Is it possible.Help me it would be a great help since i dont know much about servers.

Greetings everyone I have some old hardware lying around and i wanted to build a new computer for my parents. A Core 2 Quad Q8400, TX3 Evo cooler for the processor, Gskill (2x2)4gb RAM, G41 motherboard(cheap build), 350W PSU(will swap this with a better one), 320Gb Samsung HDD and a Nvidia GT 520. along with an ATX supporting case. I would like to use this system with above mentioned hardware as a media center with all my movies, music, family photos, etc. also being a regular PC for home so that my parents can use it whenever they feel the need to. I want to stream media out of it so i was thinking of a single WD Red HDD, one will do for me. I can connect the drive to my home network and i read it somewhere that i need a media player (DIY Raspberry Pi Media Player) to stream the media to my TV. I was wondering whether this setup is right or am i missing something. IMP: I want to use the computer as a regular PC and also where all my media is stored(in the Red HDD) to stream it to other network connected computers,TV. I want everything wired, nothing wireless. Can anyone help me?

High-performance home server/workstation build Hi everyone, I am new to the forum and the whole PC building stuff, therefore excuse my novicehood! First of all, do you think it is even a good idea to build a two-in-one home server and a high-performance workstation or am I better-off building two separate machines? Below are details about what I have in mind for this build, I appreciate your recommendation in the question marks area or anywhere else for that matter. Uses: Fast NAS Photo editing Powerful Media server – 4K movies, Dolby ATMOS and DTS: X audio encoding Media streaming over the home network Maybe occasional AutoCAD and 3d Max OS and Software: UnRaid Virtual Machines (Win10, maybe MacOS or Linux just for fun!!) Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop PLEX server Hardware: CPU: Intel Xeon? iCore? or AMD EPYC? RYZEN? Motherboard: Supermicro? or ASUS? Model? RAM: Min 32Gb Brand? Reg ECC? Cache Disk: Min 512Gb PCIe? M.2? NVMe? SSD Storage: Min 12Tb - 3x 4Tb WD Red? GPU: ?? Network: 10Gbit and WiFi Case: ?? Cooling: ?? Power Supply: ?? Others: ?? Budget: I am not sure what is a reasonable budget for the above? Is $2,000-$2,500 sound reasonable? Anyhow, I am a bit flexible as far as the budget concern. Thanks in advance, and looking forward to your suggestions.

Hi, Ive decided today after the recent update of plex forcing news on my server to look for a alternative. I've come across Emby and love the user interface on its apps which is close to plex. So what are the pros and cons of Emby ?so far I know the setup is more complex. Cheers.

Hello! So I've finalized my network setup and plan to use my own Windows 10 gaming rig as also a 24/7 SMB media server for an AndroidTV box. Now I'm trying to decide the HD I will be buying. IIRC Reds are preferred for 24/7 operations but when I checked, the prices of Reds are almost 1.5x of Blues. So now I'd like to get your opinion if I can use a WDC Blue instead. Or if you have other recommendations. I only need about 2-3TB worth of storage so I'm not considering to do a RAID. Media will mostly be downloaded (*wink*) stuff so IMO backup is not necessary. I can just redownload EDIT: I'm not considering building another rig specifically for server purposes as I current don't have the funds to do so. I only have money for a router and an HDD. Anyways, the electricity bill is basically free so powerdraw is NOT an issue.

I just want to be able to store my videos on it.

So I'm building a Plex media server; I have all my parts except the storage drives. I have two main questions... Ideally, I'd like to stay within Windows. Is there a software solution similar to RAID6 that will work well for a media server in Windows? I'm aware of Windows Storage Spaces which I've attempted to use in the past but it refused to detect all my drives, even though they had all been formatted in Windows that same day. It doesn't have to be a RAID solution, but something similar. I want a giant pool that offers some kind of redundancy in case 2 drives were to fail. Can I use any drives or should I go for purpose built NAS drives such as WD Reds? I recently bought 8 Seagate IronWolf drives, but they all died when the PC went to sleep while wiping them. I don't necessarily want to spend the extra on NAS drives if I don't have to. Is it worth having a separate SSD as a transcoding directory? Originally I was trying to decide between: WD Reds, HGST Deskstar NAS drives, Toshiba N300s or Seagate IronWolfs, but I'd just as happily buy WD Blues or whatever I can get my hands on if they're cheaper and will work just as well. I should say that the PC will be on almost 24/7. I'll turn it off here and there for updates but really, that should be it. Media Server Specs: CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Motherboard: MSI B350m Mortar RAM: Adata XPG 16GB 2400MHz (saw it going for £79.94 and went for it) GPU: Nvidia GT 710 (no iGPU on Ryzen) OS Storage: 256GB Samsung 960 Evo NVME SSD Mass Storage: TBD PSU: EVGA SuperNova 650 G2 Case: Fractal Node 804 Misc: LSI 9211-8I 8-port HBA Card

First off, I hope I'm not completely breaking any social etiquette from this forum. I've been watching LinusTechTip videos on Youtube for a while, but haven't really been to the forums. I'm extremely new to Networking in general, and not very versed in Hardware either, though I am a Computer Science major, so I'm not entirely, utterly hopeless (or, maybe I am *shrugs*) Anyways, I've set up a Plex Media server on my poor mans home server (an ASUS X502ca laptop that I never use anymore) running Ubuntu Server 16.04. My Desktop is running Windows 10. I have a Samba server installed on the laptop for file transfers. Here's a list of my network devices and a "map" (to use the term lightly) of my network. Router: https://www.asus.com/us/Networking/RTAC66U/ Powerline Adapters: http://www.tp-link.com/us/products/details/cat-5509_TL-PA7020-KIT.html Cables: Cat6 Ethernet Desktop LAN: Realtek RTL8111E chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) Motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3853#sp Server Laptop: https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/X502CA/specifications/ From what I can tell, all of my devices should be Gigabit compatible, including the Powerline Adapters. Now, obviously I don't expect to be getting 125MB/s uploads to my server, since real world speeds are never going to be as fast as 'theoretical' speeds, but I feel like I should be getting something faster than 5-7MB/s (and yes, I am aware of MB vs. Mb). For the record, I tested uploads to the server on my other laptop (definitely a newer model that would be gigabit capable, especially if my server laptop is), and both direct connections to my router and wi-fi speeds were roughly the same. They would start at a spike of around 30MB/s, then settle down closer to something between 7-10MB/s. So my question is, are these normal speeds for a set up like this? Am I missing something crucial, or completely misreading the specs on one of my devices? Did I make some other kind of amateur mistake? If I'm just being stupid somewhere, please be brutal. I deserve it.

My goal is to set up the pihole adblocker shown in a previous LTT video for my grandparents network (not very internet savvy), and eventually have it double as a media server for a NAS. (Just on the LAN, nothing too fancy) I'm currently working with an ISP provided ARRIS NVG4438 modem/router combo with Frontier as ISP (no choice) and a NordVPN subscription. Multiple devices will be connected via wifi. So my questions are: 1. Should I upgrade my modem/router for this project? What to? 2. Can pihole and a media server be run side by side with each other? 3. Would using a VPN interfere with this project? Just change DNS settings or more complicated? 4. What sort of rasberry pi should I get for this usecase? Any help/input is appreciated!

I have a HP xw8400 I would like to turn into a media server. I currently do not have any storage for it however and I have a $400 budget. I am planning on buying 2 Toshiba x300s, for redundancy and buying a small ssd for the operating system. Is there anywhere I can find a guide to set it up?

Simply, I have folders on my Windows 10 PC that i share via right clicking on the folder and selecting share. Other devices on Wi-Fi/the network use VLC which sees my PC name to which i enter my password and i can see all my shared folders. Streaming like this works 100% untill the internet drops then the streaming either stops or cant be played (ininite loading circle). It must be a setting on my router such as DNS, my network setup is as follows: Fibre-> CPE (fibre termination box)-> Ethernet-> Router 1 (WAN)-> Router 1 (LAN4)-> Ethernet-> Router 2 [AP mode] (LAN1) Router 1 details: TP-Link Archer C2 Standard config, DNS: 8.8.8.8 & 1.1.1.1 <-This might be the issue, would setting the secondary DNS to Router 1's IP solve this? Router 2 details: D'link DIR 852 DHCP disabled Please do not convince me to use Plex or other streaming server software, this works perfectly should the internet be up. Thanks.

Hi, I want to build a home media server mainly to centralize all the media in my house. I tried to get suggestions from tutorials on youtube but I can't really decide what parts do I need for my use case. Basically, I want to centralize all media and would like to access it through the internet from anywhere. Right now I only plan to use a single 2TB hard drive as there will be nothing mission-critical stored in it and later add additional drives if the need arises. The server is going to be connected to a network switch with a Gigabit line and it is going to be accessed from two desktops as well as 4-5 mobile devices. I want it to be on a budget so I can't get anything crazy. I'm open to consider used parts as well. Can someone suggest to me what processor do I need, how much RAM do I need as well as the operating system (I'm inclined towards FreeNAS mainly it's free?) and also do suggest me if I'm forgetting anything? Thanks??

I am wondering that backup techniques are people using or what techniques are recommended for backing up a media server. Personally, I have a Plex media server with some 4TB of media files that I am looking to back up. Specifically, I'm only interested in strategies for backing up all the movies and tv series on it as I'm already backing up the Plex database and the OS separately. I am thinking any kind of hardware/software RAID/real-time file sync-ing would not be appropriate for large media files. I am considering a file sync-ing backup that runs every 24 hours or every couple of days (I am not adding files very often and changes to files are rare) and that syncs the media files from the main media hard drive to a secondary hard drive in the server would be the best option. I am very curious about this as these types of backups of movies quickly eat through a lot of available storage space. My server has 20TB of storage, but with all the 4K movies and now even 4K TV series out there, that media library can grow fairly quickly and hard drives don't seem to be getting any cheaper (rather the contrary). What backup techniques for media files are you guys using and what other options should I consider?

I am curious what hard drives and SSDs are people using on their home servers/NAS/video surveillance storage and generally for large home data storage. I am also wondering what redundancy techniques and software are people using on those servers/NAS/etc and on their personal devices that they are backing up to their home server. I know this topic is quite wide-ranging, but I felt it would not have made a lot of sense if I broke it in two or three different posts. Server Storage Devices Personally, I've started with some Seagate IronWolf 6TB hard drives and then jumped on Seagate Exos 10TB hard drives. I also have some SATA SSDs (Samsung 860) in the server that I have set in RAID 0 (through software) which I am using them to store and run my virtual machines from them. Server Redundancy Technique (RAID, FileSync-ing, Backups etc) Most of the data I have on the server is personal data, backups and media. I do not have surveillance footage on the server at this time, but I might have it in the future and I would to hear about how people who have that are dealing with it. For personal data (including projects, work, study etc), I keep it on my main laptop, on OneDrive (some 1TB available there and extremely cheap), on the server (syncs from OneDrive) and as backups (also on the same server, but on another drive than the OneDrive folder). For the backups themselves, I don't use any kind of protection (if they're gone, then they're gone, I'll just make new ones) but I do run additional backup plans that store backups locally on my other computers and laptops. So for a system backup, I would have a comprehensive backup plan that backs up the system multiple times per week and then keeps several chains of incremental backups that go back a couple of months and stores those backups on the server. At the same time, I would have a secondary backup plan for the same data that runs only once per week and only keeps one chain of incremental backups going back 4 weeks and stores those backups on the individual device (on a drive other than the system drive being backed up, naturally). For my media library, I wanted initially to go with a RAID 1 approach or some other hardware or software real-time disk mirroring approach, but I ended up using a file syncronisation/folder mirroring software called Bvckup 2. I use it to sync my media library and its backup (located on separate hard drives) every 24 hours (though the software can be used for real-time synchronisation as well). What I love about this software, besides the fact that it does delta copying and that it is very user friendly, is that I was able to set it up so that each time a file gets deleted from the main library, rather than being simply deleted from the backup library as well, the file gets marked for deletion and is moved into an archive where it automatically gets deleted 2 days later (it can be set for any period) unless restored. So new files get backed up no later than 24 hours (or immediately if I were to use real-time sync) and deleted files remain accessible for up to 3 days (2 days minimum plus the period between deleting the file and the daily sync task). Software for Backup of Server and Personal Devices In regards to back-up software, I am using Acronis True Image for my computers, Acronis Backup for my server and virtual machines (I know it's a bad choice, I wanted to use Veeam for my VMs, but it does not support VMWare Workstation, only Esxi) and, for my Android phone I am using a combination of OneDrive for my photos, OneSync for other small files (e.g. configuration files etc) I want on OneDrive (the OneDrive app does not allow automatic upload of files from my phone, except for photos and videos, so that's why I need OneSync) and Resilio Sync (basically Bvckup 2 but peer-to-peer based rather than local/LAN limited) for other backups (though mostly I use Resilio Sync for sync-ing movies between my Server and my phone because I don't want to pay for a Plex subscription for the "priviledge" of downloading files from my own server). What advice would others offer me on how to improve this set-up and what storage hardware and redundancy techniques and software are you using for your servers/NAS?

I have following devices - 2 TB USB 3.0 Seagate External Harddrive - One Modem cum Router 150MBPS (https://www.tp-link.com/in/home-networking/wifi-router/tl-wr720n/) - One Modem cum Router 300MBPS (https://www.tp-link.com/in/home-networking/dsl-modem-router/td-w8960n/?utm_medium=select-local) - One android 8.1 smartphone (https://www.smartprix.com/mobiles/tenor-10-or-e-p1101vt2wbyg) - One android 4.4 smartphone (https://www.smartprix.com/mobiles/asus-zenfone-5-a501cg-8gb-p1101sg3oh23) I want to set up media server. So i can access media in the portable harddisk wirelessly via wifi with my other devices in home. So what should i do or buy to setup such requirement?

Hey y'all! So I recently decided that I want to finally backup all of my DVDs and Blu-Rays and make a Plex server for my house. I have built and set up close to a dozen computers for myself, friends, and family, but never a server. They've primarily been gaming/casual usage cases so that's kind of all I know. I am hoping to get some advice for building a small server pc to just stream within my house. At most there will be 4 simultaneous streams with a more realistic usage case of 2 streams at once. What are good processors for my scenario and would I need a GPU for encoding? And are there any other components that are essential for running a server? Thank you in advance!

I would like to find a useful home server solution for my first home. I was already looking into an UNRAID server solution for my ever expanding amount of scuba footage, 5TB and climbing, while digitizing my wife's DVD and blue ray collection onto a media server as well. I have found that more and more old dual xeon servers are dropping onto the used market for cheaper and cheaper. Would a SuperMicro 4U CSE-846 24 Bay SAS2 BP X9DRi-F/2x W/ 2x E5-2630Lv2 16GB IT MODE ($369.99+$68 shipping) be enough to start this process? I am planning to up the RAM to atleast 32GB and dropping in an MSI 1070 when I upgrade to use as a render node for Premiere Pro and After Effects. Any ideas or info would be greatly apreciated.

Hello everyone, I need advise as to which NAS should I buy for my requirements. I have 2 computers and 2 smart TVs, I need a NAS that can act as a media server without the need of a third party app like PLEX, so I can save video files to it from my computers and watch on my TVs, both detect media servers but none have access to PLEX. I bought the WD My Cloud Home but it only works with PLEX so I returned it. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. PS. Sorry for my bad English

I am also thinking of getting a r410 with 2x 6 core cpu and 64gb ddr3 1333mhz ram ECC for me and my friends to host game servers on. I would also like to know if you could use a normal psu but i myself wouldn't need it. however to run all those VM's I recommend you go with 32gb 8 for Plex on ubuntu VM and 8gb for the rest, 8gb for Minecraft, Windows 10, and your media. should be perfect and the power consumption shouldn't really matter like you said at this point.

Hi guys, I've been working as a network engineer for the past 7 months and have finally been able to afford starting my home lab/media storage solution. So far I've got some Cisco equipment for my networking course at college and a few HP servers to play around with, one of which is currently pulling double duty as my media server with plex installed on Windows Server 2016. I've been planning to upgrade to 10G/bit and was wondering what the current best deal is for 10G NICs and a 4 or 8 port switch? I've tried a few Mellanox SFP+ cards with little success as well as the issue of working with SFP connections over standard ethernet. I'd really like to stick with ethernet so I can finish running network cable around my house. The only other solution I can find is the ASUS XG-C100C on Amazon for ~£90 and a small 10G switch for around £200. I'm also aware of drive limitations in terms of speed and have accounted for this already. All the SSDs! Any suggestions would be awesome, cheers, Jimmy.