Looking for suggestions for an awesome home lab

[zachoooo]

Hey everyone,

 

I've been looking for some suggestions, past experience, and insight on a server build that I've been wanting to do. I am on a budget, but I still want to get great performance. I'm looking for the best price to performance. Here are my goals for what I will host on my home server setup:

1. Web Server for my portfolio (low traffic)
2. Plex Media Server
3. Plex Player
4. Music Streaming Server
5. Torrent Client
6. Torrent Manager (i.e. Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr)
7. Lots of storage capacity for tv shows/movies/anime
8. Steam w/ Big Picture (for tv/couch gaming)
9. Anything else like game servers, cs projects, file hosting, image hosting, personal pastebin, etc.

Here is the solution that I've come up with:

1. Networking
   1. Ubiquiti Security Gateway Pro
   2. Ubiquiti Unifi Switch 24 Port w/ POE
   3. Ubiquiti Unifi AC Lite or LR
   4. 400Mbps internet
   5. Static IP
2. Server Hardware
   1. Storage Server (Possibly a storinator, but those are pretty expensive so I may just find some cheap used server with 3.5" bays)
      1. FreeNas OS
      2. ~10Tb of storage with room to expand as needed
      3. ~1Tb of fast ssd storage
   2. Main Server
      1. ESXi
      2. VMs with all my services running (plex, torrents, webserver, etc)
      3. Fast SSD storage for VM file systems
      4. Uses storage server as NAS
   3. Media/Gaming Server
      1. Windows 10
      2. Some old GPU (i.e. Nvidia GTX 780Ti)
      3. Fast SSD storage for OS and games
      4. Connected to TV, not in server rack
   4. UPS in case of power outage
   5. Some server rack, 15U?

I was hoping to build the servers if possible, but I know that would likely be much more expensive so I may end up just upgrading a used server.

 

If anyone has any past experiences or suggestions with setting this up please let me know. This will likely end up costing me a lot of money so I want to do everything right so that I have plenty of performance and room to expand in the future if my needs increase.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id get used server, something like a r720 for the vms would work well. Also the drac gives esxi a good amount more hardware monitoring and there officially supported by esxi.

 

Id probably just get a older supermicro or dell for the nas, get something like a r510 here. 10tb really sin't that much, something like 4x8tb drives should be fine here.

 

Is the NAS storing the files for the esxi box? Id store all the files on a nfs share and use 10gbe to connect the storage, and boot the esxi box from a usb stick.

 

 

 

 

 

[zachoooo]

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id get used server, something like a r720 for the vms would work well. Also the drac gives esxi a good amount more hardware monitoring and there officially supported by esxi.

 

Id probably just get a older supermicro or dell for the nas, get something like a r510 here. 10tb really sin't that much, something like 4x8tb drives should be fine here.

 

Is the NAS storing the files for the esxi box? Id store all the files on a nfs share and use 10gbe to connect the storage, and boot the esxi box from a usb stick.

The NAS would just be storing bulk files. I was planning on having the ESXi box just use a small spare SSD for the main drive.

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, zachoooo said:

The NAS would just be storing bulk files. I was planning on having the ESXi box just use a small spare SSD for the main drive.

Id personally just do the network storage for vms on the nas, makes it easier to work with.

 

If the nas is just storing bulk files, then why the 1tb of ssd?

[Jarsky]

On 4/1/2019 at 11:37 AM, zachoooo said:

The NAS would just be storing bulk files. I was planning on having the ESXi box just use a small spare SSD for the main drive.

 

I have a home lab with 2 x Dell R710's and a Dell R610. 

Personally I boot ESXi on them from SDcard (or you could do with USB) and then i have a few 500GB Samsung 850 EVO's in RAID, which i then make the VMFS Datastore for holding the VM's & Pagefiles/swap. Then I mount a drive to them from network storage for the Apps drive/partition. 

 

I have a Ubiquiti USG, Unifi Switch and Unifi AP's as well. If you're spending all that extra $$$ on going for the USG Pro4 and the 24 Port Unifi switch, then you'd probably want to spend a bit extra on the Unifi nanoHD rather than the AC-Lite...its a far better AP. 

 

Personally for my home theatre I have an ITX HTPC build which is an i3 7100, has a GTX960. I have a media remote connected to it for using with Kodi, and a bluetooth receiver for my xbo/ps4 controllers to use for "console" like gaming using Steam Big Picture