File server/Plex build vs. DS918+

Vaiels · January 18, 2019

Gday,

Moving to a rural town for University for this year so I've decided to build a little home server to access my files and media that'll live under the stairs at home while I'm away.

Primary uses will be hosting backups, running Plex, Sonnar, Radarr etc. and +/- VMs? If I can find a use for them.

Currently deciding between building my own Ryzen based tower (listed below) vs. the Synology DS918+

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($211.00 @ Amazon Australia)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-AX370M-Gaming 3 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($99.00 @ Umart)
Memory: Patriot - Viper Elite 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-2800 Memory ($89.78 @ Amazon Australia)
Storage: Western Digital - Green 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($33.00 @ Centre Com)
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 8 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($334.00 @ Amazon Australia)
Case: Silverstone - PS09B MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($45.00 @ Umart)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - 450 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($59.00 @ PLE Computers)
Total: $870.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-19 02:41 AEDT+1100

The DS918+ is around 660ish here in Australia so with the drive comes to about $100 more than building my own.

Key concerns for my server will be transcoding performance and power consumption.

I am planning on adding more drives down the line for redundancy and RAID, unsure of which RAID type though.

Alternatively, I could also just re purpose my current gaming rig (4770K, GTX970, 16gb ram) into a makeshift server as I will be leaving it at home (by just adding the NAS drives, maybe dual booting Linux?), however I am concerned about the power consumption with it running 24/7.

Very new to all of this server stuff so would love any and all advice.

Thanks!

Electronics Wizardy · January 18, 2019

Id just use your desktop if your leaving it home. Power shouldn't be that bad, that system won't pull that much, and you can save a few watts taking out the 970 if you want. Id probably just install plex and the other programs on windows and that should work fine.

Windows has storage spaces to make raid and storage pools, so id use that to easily add drives and allow for drive failure.

paddy-stone · January 18, 2019

Well, it's a toss-up... on the one hand you have the low power usage and simplicity of the Synology. And the other hand you have the expandability and versatility of the build it yourself PC/NAS. If you were to use your old PC you have a low cost entry into it, but as you mentioned it WILL be higher usage of power. Personally I would build a lower power PC, one with an AMD APU like the 2400g, that should be able to transcode one or 2 streams of 1080p at a time I would think... BUT IMO it'd be much better to make your media resolution and sound fit the device(s) you will be using so that it doesn't have to transcode. It would allow you to play more streams at once if required, and will save you more power usage if you do it that way.

As mentioned though, if power usage is a big factor, then a purpose built NAS like a synology will be much less power but not as expandable or versatile. You have to decide what is more important to YOU. Save money with your PC in the short term, or save money with a new build in the long term IMO.