Home Server Question

[Kris V]

Dear LTT,

 

I'm looking for a solution to a home server question.

I would like to build a home server myself to do the following :

1. Nas storage (thinkin around 20TB to start)
2. Plex media server so i can stream video's inside and outside the house
3. Game server that should run ARK (for my 2 kids and friends)
4. Expanding size in future

I will try to explain the situations mentioned above a bit more. I would need a storage around 20tb to start with. This will include the files that should be loaded into the Plex media server (music/videos/etc).

The Plex media server will mainly be used inside our house but also outside. We have kids that have to move between 2 places every week because of co-parenting and they would love to acces their music and stuff all the time (anywhere they go). This also counts for the Ark game server i would like it to host on this server. For 1 week they are playing the game at home on their computers but they would also love to play the game in the week they are not home with me. So the server should be running 24/7 to make sure they don't miss a thing. This also counts for the nas or plex media server offcourse.

For expanding i would somehow like the possibilty of hot-swapping hard drives or something like plug and play to increase size easely without having to reinstall or lose data. At this point 20TB will get me a long way but in the future i guess this will increase to around 100TB.

 

For budget or anything i don't have anything in mind. I'm just wondering what would be the best solution all round so me and my kids can enjoy our data and games all the time wherever we are. I would like the solution to last for a decent amount of years (also upgradable if needed). I don't mind to spend some extra money to get something decent.

 

I really hope you guys can give me some tips or point me in the right direction so i can get started with this project.

If you have more questions please feel free to ask. All solution will be much appreciated.

 

I thank you in advance,

 

Kris V

[Mophead]

Pick up something like this: https://www.servercase.co.uk/shop/server-cases/rackmount/4u-chassis/4u-server-case-w-24x-35-hot-swappable-satasas-drive-bays-6gbs-minisas-sc-4324/ 

 

Get some decent hardware, ie Ryzen 5 / Ryzen 7, run unraid on it. There's some great videos on YT regarding unraid, worth checking them out. In a nutshell you can basically build a NAS where you just throw in hard drives as and when you need to, unraid also has support for docker containers natively, and full fat VMs if you want to run something that's not available as a docker image (pretty unlikely these days).