Home infrastructure

[mrkwkns]

Hey,

 

First off i hope i'm posting in the right (sub)forum...
I'm in need of some infrastructural help. At the moment i have a NAS, laptop and a desktop pc in my network. Specs below:

 

Desktop:

CPU: Intel 6600k

GPU: RX480

Memory: 16gb DDR4

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170N-WIFI

Harddrive: M.2 Samsung 256gb

Case: Ncase M1

 

Laptop:

HP Probook 6550b with an SSD and 6gb memory

 

NAS:

Qnap TS-251 with 8gb memory

3tb WD Red Pro and 500gb WD drives

 

I'm using the NAS for file storage (important personal files and tvshows), webhosting, Sonarr and SabNZBd.
The laptop is running Plex server because the NAS is too weak to transcode. I was thinking about leaving my desktop pc on 24/7 instead of the NAS and the laptop.

I could run a virtual machine with Plex. webhosting and Sonarr. Is this a smart thing to do? I would also like to play some games now and then on the desktop, is this going to interfere with the virtual machine?

 

What are your thoughts about this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Qi_Forever]

I'm very interested in a set-up similar to yours.  

 

Electricity is quite expensive and a important factor for me.  So my NAS/server would have to be low power draw (PSU calculator site).

 

Personally I would not be comfortable leaving my workstation/gaming pc on 24/7, its a beast.  Although I'm sure it would be very reliable and not that noisy (even with 5 fans 800 rpm).

 

I used to store all my Movies,TV shows and Game downloads on a External USB3 drive attached to an Nvidia Shield Pro.  However transferring the files over my 1Gig router was tediously slow.  Hence the server/NAS interest.

 

Even did a bit of digging on 10Gb network cards, total overkill to be honest.  I even have a SSD hot swap dock.

 

 I just do not know what the best option is. I think I'm just lazy haha.

 

Like your self I could store everything on the main PC and simply transfer when I want to watch stuff via Shield or other device.

 

Sorry if this not a helpful post

[mrkwkns]

Not a helpful post Qi_Forever but it's nice to see i'm not the only one facing this "problem".

I really like my Qnap NAS, maybe that's an option for you?

 

I'd like to run:

Plex server

Webhosting

Sonarr

SabNZBd

File storage (if i could access this via the internet that would be cool)

 

What is my best option?

[GDRRiley]

grab an old server something like R710 or build a pc with a ryzen 1400 for the 8 threads. 

[Qi_Forever]

Yeah I forgot about my old X79 system that is gathering dust in the corner.  I wonder how well I could control its power draw. 

 

Sorry again mrkwkns I should have started my own thread.

[jkirkcaldy]

I wouldn't use your desktop and leave it on 24/7. 

 

The Pros for this system:

-You only have to worry about one system

-only one computer powered on vs 3

-Powerful CPU for plex transcoding.

 

Cons:

-this system will consume a lot of power being left on 24/7 because it is powering the CPU and GPU

-your website/plex/server is offline if you have to restart your computer (you often need to restart a gaming pc for installs/crashes/diagnostics)

-I'm not sure how well certain CPU intensive games will handle sharing CPU resources with a VM or two.

 

I would perhaps build out low powered server from used parts on ebay. you don't mention anything about what your requirements are for plex so I'm going to assume maybe 1-2 transcodes simultaneously, nor do you mention what you use for a webserver?

I built my first plex server for £250 without drives. It was a Pentium CPU with no GPU.

 

If you pay for a plex-pass you can download and install the hardware transcoding preview that uses the built in gpu on the CPU to transcode meaning you can get more power from a less powerful chip. 

 

 

Getting an R710 is a good shout as you can do everything you need on one box that you can leave running 24/7 with a separate vm for webhosting on linux and plex on whatever you are comfortable with. 

 

You should check out Nextcloud for file storage, lets you host your own cloud storage with desktop clients and mobile apps like dropbox or google drive etc. but is quite advanced to setup. 

 

 

 

[mrkwkns]

On 20-8-2017 at 4:16 PM, Qi_Forever said:

Yeah I forgot about my old X79 system that is gathering dust in the corner.  I wonder how well I could control its power draw. 

 

Sorry again mrkwkns I should have started my own thread.

Don't worry about it  We're here to help each other.

8 hours ago, jkirkcaldy said:

I wouldn't use your desktop and leave it on 24/7. 

 

The Pros for this system:

-You only have to worry about one system

-only one computer powered on vs 3

-Powerful CPU for plex transcoding.

 

Cons:

-this system will consume a lot of power being left on 24/7 because it is powering the CPU and GPU

-your website/plex/server is offline if you have to restart your computer (you often need to restart a gaming pc for installs/crashes/diagnostics)

-I'm not sure how well certain CPU intensive games will handle sharing CPU resources with a VM or two.

 

I would perhaps build out low powered server from used parts on ebay. you don't mention anything about what your requirements are for plex so I'm going to assume maybe 1-2 transcodes simultaneously, nor do you mention what you use for a webserver?

I built my first plex server for £250 without drives. It was a Pentium CPU with no GPU.

 

If you pay for a plex-pass you can download and install the hardware transcoding preview that uses the built in gpu on the CPU to transcode meaning you can get more power from a less powerful chip. 

 

 

Getting an R710 is a good shout as you can do everything you need on one box that you can leave running 24/7 with a separate vm for webhosting on linux and plex on whatever you are comfortable with. 

 

You should check out Nextcloud for file storage, lets you host your own cloud storage with desktop clients and mobile apps like dropbox or google drive etc. but is quite advanced to setup. 

 

 

 

Thanks for your reply.

I went to the local computerstore and the clerk there told me the same.

Sell or repurpose the laptop and NAS. Buy an real dedicated server and i should be set for the future.

 

I have a lifetime Plex-pass so i could try to use the hardware transcoding on the NAS.

 

I'll look into the R710