Help me build a home server

[nmiles]

Greetings,

 

Bare with me, as I am super noob when it comes to home servers. This is my first attempt at possibly building one. I've spent a lot of time doing research. Simply put, I've gone back and forth whether I should buy a used server, or build one using consumer parts. I'm still not sure what I should do. I'm leaning towards building one using consumer parts. My concern is longevity though, as I'd want it to run nearly 24/7, and I know consumer parts are not designed to do that. My only drawback to buying a used server is they seem to be much more expensive, and I don't have a rack so I'd probably go with a tower server. Noise level is also something I'm keeping in mind. I want it to be as silent as possible because it will be living in my bedroom.

 

My budget is around $700-$800.

 

Some things I'd like to  do:

- pfsense

- NAS (currently have no NAS solution, but is something i want to get going)

- plex (probably not immediately, but maybe something i'd dabble into in the future)

- game servers (Minecraft, Terraria. probably no more than ~5-8 people at a time)

- Learning. I want to use it to learn linux and various other server things. I have some raspberry pis, but i want a machine that's a bit more practical that can host all of my needs.

 

Here is a little pcpartpicker list of a build that i think would work as a server (?) [The case is pricey, but i like the sound dampening idea]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 2700 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor	$149.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard	$114.99 @ B&H
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$138.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$49.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$49.99 @ Amazon
Case	Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case	$129.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA G3 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$92.98 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$746.92
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$726.92
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-02-07 19:40 EST-0500

 

 

P.S. I'm fully expecting to be educated in this thread. I have no idea if what im wanting is realistic or not. Thanks in advance

 

[Jumballi]

Add an ssd for ssd caching. Maybe consider nas drives instead of general consumer level ones, it might not affect you at what you want to do, but I’ve heard from some people that they regret getting the barracuda over the IronWolf.

[nmiles]

2 minutes ago, Jumballi said:

Add an ssd for ssd caching. Maybe consider nas drives instead of general consumer level ones, it might not affect you at what you want to do, but I’ve heard from some people that they regret getting the barracuda over the IronWolf.

Ah, forgot to mention, I do have a 500 gb SSD I will be installing an OS on

[Jumballi]

6 minutes ago, nmiles said:

Ah, forgot to mention, I do have a 500 gb SSD I will be installing an OS on

Don’t quote me on this, but I think the ssd that’s used for caching is separate from the one used for OS.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, nmiles said:

plex

Plex is a wild card. Because depending on how you use Plex depends on what you need to run Plex. If your just doing direct play, then videos wont require much power to run, BUT if you end up having to transcode, depending on resolution and the amount of streams you may need a lot of power. 

 

Also, the 2600 does not have a GPU built in. So you still need a GPU. The other thing you have to decide is an OS or if your going to do some kind of virtualization. 

[nmiles]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Plex is a wild card. Because depending on how you use Plex depends on what you need to run Plex. If your just doing direct play, then videos wont require much power to run, BUT if you end up having to transcode, depending on resolution and the amount of streams you may need a lot of power. 

 

Also, the 2600 does not have a GPU built in. So you still need a GPU. The other thing you have to decide is an OS or if your going to do some kind of virtualization. 

My plan is to do virtualization with proxmox or something similar

[Dutch_Master]

Enterprise-grade servers are notoriously noisy (especially the rack-versions) and there's not much you can do unless you're prepared to invest heavily in water-cooling the thing. My suggestion is to swap the proc for a slightly cheaper one (the upcoming Ryzen 5 1600AF) and invest a bit more in server-grade disks. WD Red and the aforementioned IronWolf or the Toshiba X300 series are good alternatives, as these are designed for 24/7 use. Also, consider a better chipset, like the X570. The MSI X570-A PRO is more expensive, but has a better feature set. Whether or not this entices you to switch is entirely your choice

[nmiles]

4 hours ago, Dutch_Master said:

Enterprise-grade servers are notoriously noisy (especially the rack-versions) and there's not much you can do unless you're prepared to invest heavily in water-cooling the thing. My suggestion is to swap the proc for a slightly cheaper one (the upcoming Ryzen 5 1600AF) and invest a bit more in server-grade disks. WD Red and the aforementioned IronWolf or the Toshiba X300 series are good alternatives, as these are designed for 24/7 use. Also, consider a better chipset, like the X570. The MSI X570-A PRO is more expensive, but has a better feature set. Whether or not this entices you to switch is entirely your choice

Thanks for your input. I'll definitely be looking at going with better HDDs

[Donut417]

23 minutes ago, nmiles said:

Thanks for your input. I'll definitely be looking at going with better HDDs

WD Easy store externals are supposely WD Reds with a white label. You would have to shuck them but thats how many people get larger drives for a cheaper cost. 

 

17 hours ago, nmiles said:

. I want to use it to learn linux and various other server things.

Ubuntu is a great choice. The Desktop version that is, the server version has no GUI. So unless your profiecent in the CLI, Id do a desktop verison. I use Ubutnu on my Plex server. Its pretty solid. 

[nmiles]

5 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Ubuntu is a great choice. The Desktop version that is, the server version has no GUI. So unless your profiecent in the CLI, Id do a desktop verison. I use Ubutnu on my Plex server. Its pretty solid. 

Is it possible to use ubuntu server and install a gui? I read somewhere that they're pretty much the same, just that ubuntu server doesn't have GUI and comes with some server packages.

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, nmiles said:

Is it possible to use ubuntu server and install a gui? I read somewhere that they're pretty much the same, just that ubuntu server doesn't have GUI and comes with some server packages.

You install the server packages in the desktop version.