LAN party setup - NAS + steam cache + game server

[HulkTheHero]

Hello everyone,

 

great that there are still active forums existing. I have been lurking for a while now but never signed up. With having my own small project / question now I finally pulled the trigger and signed up.

Hopefully this topic is in the right subforum - if not please let me know so I can change that.

 

I am a bit of a beginner when it comes to networks, servers and linux but I have been playing with the thought of setting up a server for both myself and for (mainly) our small sized LAN parties that we regularly host.

I googled a lot but couldn't really find anything relevant so I hope that you might be able to help me out.

 

For the last LAN I setup my old laptop as a server (windows server) and just used it for a CS:GO / Teamspeak server. However now I would upgrade and setup something with a bit more functionality.

What I have in mind is the following: Ideally I want to build a Server that can be used as a network storage for the games we play, work as a steam cache so we don't overload our slow internet connection and host the few games we are playing. But also I would like to have two operating systems installed so that if the server is not needed it could be used by a third party as a PC to play old games.

 

Now these are the questions / challenges that I am facing:

 

• Is this even possible to have this kind of "hybrid" setup or should it be a dedicated server?
• Can it run multiple things (like mentioned above - network storage, cache and game server?)
• should I buy consumer parts or dedicated server parts for processor and RAM? Budget is somewhat irrelevant but I want to buy the things used and generally aim to achieve good value
  • Any recommendations for used parts that offer good value?
• What OS should I use? Since I have no real knowledge apart from a lot of searches on google and yt videos is there someone that can walk me a bit through the process?
• Am I missing something completely?

 

I have a few months until we start with our next LAN but I am really pumped to learn more about the topic and setup something myself so I would really appreciate it if someone would share his wisdom with me.

If you need to know anything else or if I should clarify something please let me know and I gladly take the time to rephrase.

 

Thanks in advance

Cheers

[Mira Yurizaki]

If you're just wanting it to keep Steam games and transfer them over to the client machines when needed, you can do this. If you want to have the client machines act as if they're running from the network storage, you can do that too (though it may be rather slow depending on the number of clients).

[HulkTheHero]

Thanks Mira!

I don't want the clients to run the games from the network. Ideally I want the clients to check before they want to update if it's not in the cache server already and if so pull it from there.

Additionally I also want to have a network storage where people can store installation files, musik, pictures, whatever. And I also would like to run some servers (CS:GO / Teamspeak / UT e.g.). Is this possible to have it all run simultaniously? Does this require a powerful setup?

And is it possible to run two operating systems on it so if the server is not needed it could be used as a normal windows pc e.g.?

[HulkTheHero]

No one else an idea on how to setup something like this?

[MysticalGnome]

Most of this should be more than doable on a normal PC, an 8-core i9 9900K or maybe the upcoming Ryzen 7 3800X would probably be fine I think.

I would go with at least 16GB RAM and maybe more if you want to run them simultaneous.
I also think you should be able to play some older games on it while the game servers are running but this depends on the titles you want top run.

A more important thing I think would be network connectivity, if you are going to host a steam cache and you have more than 6 PC's downloading at the same time i would opt for a 10Gb NIC and a switch with one 10Gb port and the rest of the ports Gigabit this would greatly increase throughput and prevent latency during gaming because somebody is clogging the line when they upload files to your share.

As for the OS, Windows 8 or higher would be fine although some old games may not run on it.

 

I take it you found this already but I'll add it none the less:

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

On 6/13/2019 at 5:24 PM, HulkTheHero said:

Thanks Mira!

I don't want the clients to run the games from the network. Ideally I want the clients to check before they want to update if it's not in the cache server already and if so pull it from there.

Additionally I also want to have a network storage where people can store installation files, musik, pictures, whatever. And I also would like to run some servers (CS:GO / Teamspeak / UT e.g.). Is this possible to have it all run simultaniously? Does this require a powerful setup?

And is it possible to run two operating systems on it so if the server is not needed it could be used as a normal windows pc e.g.?

You probably want to setup vms for this. Id just run something like proxmox on the host and run it all in vms for each task.

 

Whats your budget? how much storage do you need? Id just get a used server like a r720 here.