New server (but not server hardware)

[justpoet]

Hey all.  Hoping for some links to go research more.

 

I currently have a couple old dual Xeon systems acting as servers.  They used to do a ton of stuff, but now are basically ssh machines with a bunch of storage for holding backups in multiple locations, as well as DNS caches and local servers.  They are dying (RAM corruption, board rot, etc), but so far have been able to keep themselves going ok for their modest use, but using more and more power (one is using significantly more power than it did a year and a half ago, while doing less work).

 

I was thinking about something like an intel NUC and a nice cooled external drive enclosure for a couple large capacity spinning HDs, but would prefer to go the AMD side if something similar exists (both for cost and because I think that's more future proof right now than an i3 would be in the NUCs), or even something I can do as a tiny single case to make it even easier to leave set up in a corner.  While the primary use won't change, I'd also like one of them to start doing more again:

Web serving of both dynamic and blog type content (several sites of mine, modest traffic, but not insignificant)

Calendar serving (just my wife and I)

Mail serving (just my wife and I)

If possible be able to do real time HD encoding with ease (I either want to put a TV card in it or use something like HD HomeRun and then allow myself to attach to it at a different location, so I can get all the Over The Air channels from both locations while at home…bidirectional internet speeds are not a major issue, the slow connection has 50 meg up bandwidth).

 

One box can be larger/louder/etc for the sake of cheap.  The other (the one I'd like to do more things) is the challenge since it is the one that should minimize size, noise, and especially power use.

 

Can something like the NUC handle all of that, or does the live HD video encoding break the low end i3?  Is there a similar AMD based option that I haven't seen while searching quickly?

I expect to be running and maintaining linux on them as matching servers, and the NUCs appear to be limited as far as both future upgradability and needing to come with Windows that I'd rather not pay for a license of in there.

 

Not looking to ever use them for gaming, and most of the time they'll probably be headless without a monitor, though I would prefer to be able to plug a monitor in for basic local troubleshooting should the need arise.

[jake9000]

You definitely aren't going to like transcoding on an i3.That said, there are more powerful NUCs there, they sell i5 and i7 variants too. If you only want to transcode a single stream, a NUC8i5BEK will probably meet your needs. If you want multiple streams, go for the NUC8i7BEH instead.