Help need suggestions for affordable legacy server - home share

[Whiplash_TM]

I'm finally putting together a central server for all of my data hoarding, media and backups, but I am just overwhelmed with options and need some help picking where to start from.  I'm following Linus' idea of buying an older server, but I don't actually know enough about the legacy hardware to know if I'm looking at a good deal or not.  I keep getting buried googling things like old processor performance benchmarks and trying to figure out if that HD controller even supports 8TB drives.  The video was Reliable Data Storage on the Cheap (2017).  I'd like to do something similar.  If anyone has a minute to point me in the direction of some good deals that have enough horsepower, I'd really appreciate it!

 

I'm intending to use DrivePool & SnapRAID with Backblaze for cloud backup.

 

The server will be used for:

- backup server for OS X, Windows and iOS devices

- Photos

- Videos (I'd like to be able to leave the files on the server and edit projects directly.  Been watching Linus talk about that setup for the media group and I really like the idea.  I've always had to migrate files and juggle drives when I've done editing in the past.  I really like the idea of all the video just going to one place and then editing your project in place.)

- Drive images (disk images of various operating systems in known good states)

- VM images (might look into virtualization server at some point)

- possible backup of security DVR footage - path to cloud backup

- Archive of projects and assets (Photoshop, Video editing, 3D projects)

- Plex Server

- Music Server

- Installer Server

 

Here's a list of hardware that could go in this machine.  I bought the 8TB drives specifically for this build.

- 5x Barracuda 8TB drives

- 2x 3TB SAS drives (accidental purchase.  If there's a machine that fits the bill that has a card that can use them, great, if not, they were cheap.  I'll find a use for them someday)

- 2x 5TB usb 3.0

- 1x 2TB SSD usb 3.0

- 2x 2TB usb 2.0/Firewire/eSata

- 1x 3TB SATA III

- 2x 1TB SATA II

- 1x 1TB SSD usb 3.0

- 4x 500 GB usb 3.0

- 2x (one usb 3.0 and one 3.1) drive toaster enclosures https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B019DNBU7G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

- I do have a rack so if a rack mount is better value for money, I have a home for it

 

That's the long and the short of it.  I'd really appreciate any suggestions you have because I have just been spinning my wheels.  Thanks!

 

[WereCatf]

34 minutes ago, Whiplash_TM said:

I'd really appreciate any suggestions you have because I have just been spinning my wheels

You don't need a beefy machine for storing files on and sharing them and such. The only two things you mention that need more grunt are Plex and running virtual-machines on the server itself, but even Plex can be made to run on pretty measly CPUs if you buy e.g. a GTX1050 and the Plex Pass, so it can make use of the GTX for encoding and decoding of video. I just bought a used, old AMD A8-6600K APU, mobo and 8GB RAM for 40€ and it makes perfectly well for a backup-server and the likes without ever breaking a sweat, for example.

 

If you got a GTX1050 for Plex, the thing you'd be left with would be making sure you have enough grunt for virtualization. The problem with virtualization is that you didn't specify what you'd virtualize; did you plan on running e.g. games in virtual-machines? That'd immediately raise hardware-specs quite a lot. On the other hand, just some Linux or Windows VMs without that heavy apps running, lots of RAM would be useful. Personally, if I had the money, I'd probably look at getting a Ryzen 5 3600 and 32GB RAM and not bother with a used PC. At the moment I have a Xeon E3-1230V3 from 2013 running as my heavy-duty server, running various kinds of services and VMs, and the 16GB RAM I have is getting pretty crowded. I don't have any extra headroom left for more VMs on it, either.

[kompetenzbolzen]

I use an IBM x3650 m2, tho m3 and m4 are now getting affordable too.

Most fo them come with an LSI RAID controller, but only have 2.5" bays.

They have a dual socket board with enough memory slots and lots of PCIe. Mine has 2 Gbit ethernet ports with a proprietary expansion to 4 (which you can get really cheap)

Also the Dell Poweredge R line and HP ProLiants (DL380 maybe?) from a few years back should reasonably cheap on ebay .

 

Edit: Newer x3650s might be lenovo branded

Edited August 30, 2019 by kompetenzbolzen

[Whiplash_TM]

Thanks! Werecatf & kompetenzbolzen 

I'm not really sure where I want to go with virtualization.  Not games, definitely not games.  I like the idea of having multiple VMs over multiple systems for regression or compatibility reasons.  I was doing some network troubleshooting yesterday and I have some awesome tools that only work in earlier versions of OS X, for instance.  It would have been nice to just have a VM I could run of an older OS to use them.  Mostly tinkering until I think of something I specifically want to do.  I do like having clean systems and systems in particular known states, which is probably more what I'd use it for.  Like a sandbox environment to isolate an application install, or software effects on performance,  tuning...  I've worked at a couple places that used VMs for desktops, and it was kind of handy to be able to log into your desktop on whatever machine was in front of you.  Apple used to have netboot too, haven't looked into it in a while so not sure if that's still a thing.

I could see things like performance testing, network monitoring type stuff having a vm run headless.  If I really got back into video a render farm on the server might be snazzy.

 

[Donut417]

6 hours ago, Whiplash_TM said:

Plex Server

Been using Plex for 6 months. If you do your homework and check all the clients you plan on using with Plex and format your videos in the format those clients will be able to read then you shouldn't transcode. I have an i5 3570K, 16 Gigs or Ram, HD7950 and a 500 Gig SSD in my server. I use software transocding only because the hardware acceleration option states it can reduce quality. I have no issues doing multiple streams. Most of my content however is DVD quality with a touch of 1080 and 720p content from OTA broadcasts. I know I do transcoding because the OTA broadcasts are MPEG2 and my Firestick doesn't support MPEG2 from what I have read. That being said, Plex can run on Intel based NAS's, hell my NAS that has a crappy Celeron CPU can run Plex. I wouldn't want to transcode on it, but it should  work. 

[WereCatf]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

I use software transocding only because the hardware acceleration option states it can reduce quality.

All transcoding does reduce quality, including software-based.

[Donut417]

12 hours ago, WereCatf said:

All transcoding does reduce quality, including software-based.

That may be. But the way they worded the setting, it might cause more reduction in quality. Dont really want that with low quality content to begin with.