home server advice ???

[septic slayer]

HI!!

i need advice for a "ultimate jack of all trades" home server

i would manly use it for:

plex server

game host (heavly modded minecraft )

file server

computer backups

vm host (5-10 users) like the 7  gamers 1 cpu (note they will just be used as basic computers i.e word proccesing and web browsing and not gaming)

and whole network add blocking

etc

 

if anybody has recomended parts list would apreciate it alot 

 

thanks in advance

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, septic slayer said:

vm host (5-10 users) like the 7  gamers 1 cpu (note they will just be used as basic computers i.e word proccesing and web browsing and not gaming)

 

ID realyl avoid this, just get users their own laptops, esp for simple tasks. CHeaper, more reliable, less to worry about.

 

Budget? How much storage do you need?

 

What form factor do you want? Rack mount or tower? New or used?

[septic slayer]

9 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

ID realyl avoid this, just get users their own laptops, esp for simple tasks. CHeaper, more reliable, less to worry about.

 

Budget? How much storage do you need?

 

What form factor do you want? Rack mount or tower? New or used?

$10k US

Tower or rack doesn't  matter  I have a rack (extra depth) 

[Electronics Wizardy]

10 minutes ago, septic slayer said:

$10k US

Tower or rack doesn't  matter  I have a rack (extra depth) 

Do you still want to do the thin client thing? Id really avoid it, esp if there not doing anything that needs much horse power.

 

HOw much storage do you need?

 

Id probably just get a used dell r730xd, and then add a few 12tb hdds for storage, and a few ssds for vms. Id run proxmox on it if it was me.

[septic slayer]

I currently use 72 tb off storage (filed) 

(In the form of 4 18 tb hdd's )

I will  still be using 4 vm's (for different OSs and retro emulation )

 

[Aragorn-]

The VM host is the tricky part, if your wanting physical consoles attached to those VM's (given you've referenced 7 gamers 1 cpu)

 

Finding a machine with sufficient PCIe slots for that is extremely difficult, which is why linus' build used pcie expansion boards etc (which are extremely expensive). Its also not trivial to pipe that console around the house. It very quickly gets to the point where your simply cheaper buying seperate PC's... For instance, a 100ft displayport cable, and a 100ft USB cable might cost you several hundred bucks alone.

 

Its not impossible ofcourse, and there are certain things that can help with slots (EG dual GPU cards like the NVS450 can appear as two separate devices but only use one slot) However there are still limitations and i suspect aiming for 5-10 is a big ask.

[Jameszy]

Well.. It doesnt seem like an awful task.. would these VM's be physically attached to the server like in linus's video? or would you be running thin clients at the end points? Thin clients would be far easier and for basic use.. completely fine.

 

The rest of the stuff is pretty easy, Plex.. you'd want a CPU that supports quicksync video for hardware transcoding.. 

 

A typical max spec consumer grade PC could handle the terminal server, plex, storage, and VM without too much issue...

 

if each VM where to have its own video card, etc.. need to find a mobo with enough slots, enough PCIE lanes to handle the video cards (well, you could get pcie 1x video cards) then you have the expense to dealing with long cable runs that may not deal with interference and signal degradation at those lengths.. unless everything is going to be within 16 or so feet of the server.