First build- Home media server

[Bjewell53]

Budget (including currency): under $800 cad

Country: Canada

Workloads that it will be used for: staring as a files backup and Plex server (or emby/jelly), eventually probably adding outdoor camera surveillance 

Other details: building a home server to store my media and important back up files, eventually adding security recording.

 

I'm looking at:

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Black Mid Tower Case (FD-CA-DEF-R5-BK) - looks nice and accommodates plenty of drives

CPU: Intel Core i5-9600K Coffee Lake 6-Core/6-Thread Processor- plex and file back up doesn't require a ton of work.. also supposedly has great performance for blue iris (the software id like to expand to for surveillance.

MOBO: I have no idea and need help with this need to configure a way to hook up 6-8 hard drives

 

RAM: 1 stick of 8gb ram? (adding a second in the future when/if needed) not overly concerned about this,

 

Storage: I have 23TB of HDDs already soo... wont be buying any lol

 

power supply: haven't looked at this yet

 

so basically, looking for help with picking a motherboard, PS, and confirmation that my CPU is a sufficient choice 

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Bjewell53 said:

CPU: Intel Core i5-9600K Coffee Lake 6-Core/6-Thread Processor- plex and file back up doesn't require a ton of work.. also supposedly has great performance for blue iris (the software id like to expand to for surveillance.

Odd pick. Id go 10th gen if your getting a new system, otherwise, ryen is probably faster and cheaper. blue iris runs with a lots of threads, so the extra cores help.

 

How many cames? What res + framerate?

4 minutes ago, Bjewell53 said:

 

Storage: I have 23TB of HDDs already soo... wont be buying any lol

What capacties?  how many drives do you want to use at once?

[jj9987]

None of the workloads really need high single-core performance. That CPU is ok, but for server use, ehh - overkill. You could consider going Ryzen (and adding in some weak GPU for transcoding) to save money and/or get more cores. Really any motherboard will do (server hardware are usually required to be stable and therefore not overclocked, so you don't need too high quality power delivery on a motherboard).

 

How important is data? Have you thought about redundancy and backups? What about adding SSD cache? I'd recommend getting 16 GB of RAM (multiple incoming streams will likely benefit). What OS are you planning to run?

[Bjewell53]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Odd pick. Id go 10th gen if your getting a new system, otherwise, ryen is probably faster and cheaper. blue iris runs with a lots of threads, so the extra cores help.

 

How many cames? What res + framerate?

What capacties?  how many drives do you want to use at once?

the CPU choice was based on something claimed as good for blue iris. but I'm definitely open to changes, 

1-2 cameras, 1080p res, don't have a frame rate yet.

I plan to use my 4TB drive for camera recording.

I also have 6TBx2 and an 8TB drive id like to hook up. so 4HDD to start, but would like to have the ability to expand to use all 8 drive slots if I ever need

[Bjewell53]

5 minutes ago, jj9987 said:

None of the workloads really need high single-core performance. That CPU is ok, but for server use, ehh - overkill. You could consider going Ryzen (and adding in some weak GPU for transcoding) to save money and/or get more cores. Really any motherboard will do (server hardware are usually required to be stable and therefore not overclocked, so you don't need too high quality power delivery on a motherboard).

 

How important is data? Have you thought about redundancy and backups? What about adding SSD cache? I'd recommend getting 16 GB of RAM (multiple incoming streams will likely benefit). What OS are you planning to run?

Im very open to changing CPU/MOBO configs. it will be used like a server, however ill probably config it pretty much just a pc. for my media im not too worried if a drive died, it would suck.. but not life destroying. when adding surveillance in the future i would like to create a raid 1 setup

[Electronics Wizardy]

17 minutes ago, Bjewell53 said:

the CPU choice was based on something claimed as good for blue iris. but I'm definitely open to changes, 

1-2 cameras, 1080p res, don't have a frame rate yet.

I plan to use my 4TB drive for camera recording.

I also have 6TBx2 and an 8TB drive id like to hook up. so 4HDD to start, but would like to have the ability to expand to use all 8 drive slots if I ever need

For just 1-2 users, it should run on almost anythings. I can run that on my old dual 1366 system with less than half usage easily.

 

How much plex transcoding do you need?

 

What os do you plan to use?  How do you plan to setup the drives? Those mixed drive capacties will make raid a pain

 

Id probably just get something like a ryen 3600 here, or if you want cheaper, a 1600af or 2200g.

[Bjewell53]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

For just 1-2 users, it should run on almost anythings. I can run that on my old dual 1366 system with less than half usage easily.

 

How much plex transcoding do you need?

 

What os do you plan to use?  How do you plan to setup the drives? Those mixed drive capacties will make raid a pain

 

Id probably just get something like a ryen 3600 here, or if you want cheaper, a 1600af or 2200g.

with Blue Iris, if i went ryzen would I also need a little GPU?

 

2 in house plex streams and 2 remote streams would be the heaviest load. I kinda just plan to run windows 10, the built in raid1 system should suffice for recorded video. not very worried about making a raid for media

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, Bjewell53 said:

with Blue Iris, if i went ryzen would I also need a little GPU?

 

2 in house plex streams and 2 remote streams would be the heaviest load. I kinda just plan to run windows 10, the built in raid1 system should suffice for recorded video. not very worried about making a raid for media

Yea you would need a gpu unless you have a model with a igpu.

 

do you need transcoding for plex?

 

DOn't use disk management raid in windows it sucks, use storage spaces.

 

How overkill do you want it? Something like a 2400g is probably plenty here.

[Bjewell53]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea you would need a gpu unless you have a model with a igpu.

 

do you need transcoding for plex?

 

DOn't use disk management raid in windows it sucks, use storage spaces.

 

How overkill do you want it? Something like a 2400g is probably plenty here.

ya, a couple transcodes max. doesnt need to be way over kill, but id like room to play with

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Bjewell53 said:

ya, a couple transcodes max. doesnt need to be way over kill, but id like room to play with

what res? 

 

Probably go 3600 then, then get a cheap gpu for it. If you need more in the future, probalby want a gpu with hardware encoding.

[Bjewell53]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

what res? 

 

Probably go 3600 then, then get a cheap gpu for it. If you need more in the future, probalby want a gpu with hardware encoding.

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core/12-Thread 7nm Processor? that should be plenty.

 

MOBO and GPU suggestions?

 

criteria for MOBO is, gigabit Ethernet, 2 ram slots for 8-16bg? and able to get up to 8 drives attached

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Bjewell53 said:

GPU suggestions?

probabaly a gt710 or whataever is cheapest.

 

Here is a pretty good board, only 6 sata, but its cheaper to just get a pcie card if you need those last 2

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XJbCmG/msi-b450-a-pro-max-atx-am4-motherboard-b450-a-pro-max

 

Here is a cheaper option 

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hpRzK8/gigabyte-b450m-ds3h-micro-atx-am4-motherboard-b450m-ds3h

[Bjewell53]

10 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

probabaly a gt710 or whataever is cheapest.

 

Here is a pretty good board, only 6 sata, but its cheaper to just get a pcie card if you need those last 2

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XJbCmG/msi-b450-a-pro-max-atx-am4-motherboard-b450-a-pro-max

 

Here is a cheaper option 

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hpRzK8/gigabyte-b450m-ds3h-micro-atx-am4-motherboard-b450m-ds3h

 

so,

Case: Fractal design r5

motherboard: MSI PRO B450-A PRO MAX AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600

RAM: 1-2 8GB sticks

GPU: ?

PSU: ?

storage: already have

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Bjewell53 said:

 

so,

Case: Fractal design r5

motherboard: MSI PRO B450-A PRO MAX AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600

RAM: 1-2 8GB sticks

GPU: ?

PSU: ?

storage: already have

For psu, you won't need much power, so any 400+ quality psu is fine. I think there kinda hard to find now.

 

Get a cheap gpu unless you want to do gpu transcoding, gt710 is cheap and low power.

[Bjewell53]

30 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

For psu, you won't need much power, so any 400+ quality psu is fine. I think there kinda hard to find now.

 

Get a cheap gpu unless you want to do gpu transcoding, gt710 is cheap and low power.

Case: Fractal design r5

motherboard: MSI PRO B450-A PRO MAX AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600 + (stock cooler)

RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury Black Series16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200MHz

GPU: MSI GeForce GT 710

PSU: Corsair TX Series TX550M 550W 80 PLUS Gold Certified

storage: already have

 

anything, or any compatibility issues im missing?

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 minutes ago, Bjewell53 said:

Case: Fractal design r5

motherboard: MSI PRO B450-A PRO MAX AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600 + (stock cooler)

RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury Black Series16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200MHz

GPU: MSI GeForce GT 710

PSU: Corsair TX Series TX550M 550W 80 PLUS Gold Certified

storage: already have

 

anything, or any compatibility issues im missing?

thats looks good to me

[Bjewell53]

11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

thats looks good to me

after some pricing and reading, I think I may downgrade to the 2200g and ill probably skip the GPU for now until I am ready to set up the camera system. also makes the budget work alot easier lol