Game Server and NAS in one system, stupid or possible ?

Frownwarrior · December 27, 2019

Hey Guys.

I found a lot of posts here and online about similar projects but of course, never exactly about what I planing to do.

So thats why I open this Topic. To get good idears or maybe other ways to look at my project.

First off, the hardware:

CPU: i7 3770k

Mobo: Asus Saberthooth z87

RAM: HyperX Fury 4x 8GB

GPU: Asus GTX 760 (2GB) or. EVGA GTX 750 ti (SOC)

HDD: 2x WD RED 4TB, 1 WD GREEN 1 TB

SSD: 1x 128 GB Samsung EVO 850, 1x 128 GB Toshiba

Raid Card: Unknow what brand (I just got it from a friend that ripped it out from an old server), PCI-E, for 4 drives

Today:

At the moment, I use this system sometimes as a gaming server for games like ARK, Minecraft etc. We like to be flexible and don't run the servers 24/7. Its more like. " Hey lets play some MC!" - "Great let me start the server" and then we play for a few weeks and after that we don't play anymore for like a few months Thats why we don't rent game servers becasue ist just to expensive for our use. I installed Windows 10 as OS becasue it was easyer for me to Setup the game servers

on it and so. Twice a year, I host a little LAN-Party and often someone had no Laptop or PC, so that person just played on this Windows machine with us. (I would like to keep this option becasue it was in the past really handy)

Now I got on a sale 2x 4TB WD REDs and the raid card from my friend and in one of my old systems i found an basic SSD from like 2016. Also my girlfrind works in advertising company. And sometimes she has to transfer larg files (often over 100GB) to a customer. They usually use WeTransfer but even the "pro" is limite. So they buy an external SSD dirve and send it to the client. But some Clients cannot connect any drives to there PC (for safety reasons) and often they cannot connect to a FTP service.

Thats were this projects starts:

Want I want:

using my Hardware to run sone game servers wen needed and set up a NAS for 24/7 use.

What goles do I want to reach:

I want a simple way to Setup some game servers when needed.

I want to have a basic NAS that I can Expand when needed.

I want to be able to create easy logins, or access that is temporary so I can share media with friends or customers.$

I want a fast NAS for streaming 4K to all my outlets.

I want to have my NAS secured but but not too over the top (keep cost low)

My Questions:

How should I use my hardware to run a NAS. should i run a VM with Freenas on top of the Windows 10 OS ? how stable and usefull would this be ?

Or should I run unRaid and then 2 Vms. one for the gaming server part and one for the NAS ?

What is a good and easy to use NAS OS?

Waht do you guys think. I would love to "hear" what you have to say about it or what ideas you have.

I'm not an IT proffesional. I'm just interessted in it and want to learn something new and try Things out.

(another project with my friend is to set up a wireless network in our residential district, so far it runs really nicely ( over 100m with some 60Ghz Magic :D))

so I hope you understand my idea or what ever this is and sorry for my english, I tried to correct as many mistakes as I could.

-Fw

Windows7ge · December 27, 2019

If you need remote access to the NAS but want to use a Windows 10 OS you will probably be better off installing a hypervisor and virtualizing them as windows desktop doesn't have great SFTP functionality (unless you look into Windows server). I would recommend you checkout free alternatives to UnRAID but that depends on what GPUs you're passing though.

To have a File Server double as a gaming client is a little odd and if this NAS is going to be used for company's to transfer files I wouldn't advise it. That's not a good idea. Your gf could be liable if one of you hop on the gaming VM and crash the server when a client was trying to download files.

It's also generally not recommended to put FreeNAS in a VM. Though as a NAS OS it's fine and easy to use though it's hypervisor (Bhyve) is terrible. I wouldn't run your clients on it. A basic CLI file server like Debian server would get the job done fine.

Really these are two desires you should not mix. Build the company a transfer server and have your gaming server/rig separate.

Frownwarrior · December 27, 2019

Quote

To have a File Server double as a gaming client is a little odd and if this NAS is going to be used for company's to transfer files I wouldn't advise it. That's not a good idea. Your gf could be liable if one of you hop on the gaming VM and crash the server when a client was trying to download files.

you are right. its not a good idea to mix privat and buissnes but the buissnes side is actually only a...."thing" thats more like an add-on. Mostly we will use it privat for sharing media. The Company of my gf is planing to Change there infrastructure there for its just an Option to use "our" NAS as a temp. solustion. and it would be only like 1 or 2 up/dl per month or so. But yes you are right.

Quote

It's also generally not recommended to put FreeNAS in a VM. Though as a NAS OS it's fine and easy to use though it's hypervisor (Bhyve) is terrible. I wouldn't run your clients on it. A basic CLI file server like Debian server would get the job done fine.

Well FreeNas is just the one that pops up on Google the most. What is fine, becasue I hope to find a lot of tutorials and thing that can help me, when i hit a problem. I would like to have something like the OS of the synology NAS. with the GUi.(I just pref. GUis over comand lines :-))

Quote

Really these are two desires you should not mix. Build the company a transfer server and have your gaming server/rig separate.

I have the option to setup the NAS on an old H87 mobo with an ( I think) I5 4600 something. But it has only 1 PCIe 16x Slot (that I would use for the Raid Card) and only 2 RAM DIMMs. So max. RAM would be 16GB. I thought I read somewhere that FreeNAS Needs 1GB RAM / 1 TB diskspace or something. I would be limited for now but it should be okay i think ...