Help me with my game server! Please.

Noirdrath · March 18, 2021

Hi everyone, This is my "first" real post here in a while, I have been lurking for a bit. >.>

I tend to search for answers here and use the info I find... But now I need more specific help.

So I have a box with:

Windows 10 Pro (Current update)
AMD Ryzen 1800x
Gigabyte x470 Aorus (GIGABYTE X470 AORUS Gaming 7 WIFI (AMD Ryzen AM4/ X470/ Intel Wave 2 WIFI/ M.2) Motherboard)
16GB Kingston DDR4-2134 (1067 MHz) RAM [Part Number: 9905678-043.A00G]
Areca ARC-1224
- 4x WDC WD60PURX-64T0ZY0
- 4x (EMPTY)
ADATA SX7000NP [238GB actual storage] (Game Servers are stored here)
ADATA SP550 [120GB Sata SSD for OS]
Nvidia GT 610 (Soon to be replaced with a AMD Radeon R9 380x) [For Transcoding in Plex Server]

This is a Multi purpose server. It is used for my personal Plex library, Game servers (Whatever is fun to host at the time, Minecraft/ARK/Valhiem/ECO), and Network Accessible Storage.

I want to Increase read write performance for the game servers that are running as well as add storage and a 10Gbe NIC.

I am looking for the right 2.5inch SSD's to fill out the other 4 available sata channels on my RAID controller. What is a good Cheap option to give the system a little boost? Or should I do Mechanical HDDs and increase storage? my other Array is already full Thanks a lot Plex and your DVR feature!

I am currently looking at a network upgrade with these components:

I need recommendations and advice. I have been shopping around for upgrades / Updates to my system both network and server and I really could use advice.

Should I be running a Hypervisor?

Should I keep it on Windows 10 Pro for ease of use?

Is there a good way to remote manage this server from my phone/desktop/laptop?

What is the best and most obvious upgrades I should look at?

What changes can I make to really make this server shine?

Thanks for your help in advance!

P.s. I am an advanced user, I have been doing this for MANY years.. Almost two decades, But I am getting tired and haven't been working in the networking/Admin field for a few years. I do have military training in Networking, so I do know the terminology, I'm just not up to date!

Edited March 18, 2021 by Noirdrath
Updated first statement for accuracy.

Master Disaster · March 18, 2021

44 minutes ago, Noirdrath said:

Hi everyone, This is my "first" real post here in a while, I have been lurking for a bit. >.>

I tend to search for answers here and use the info I find... But now I need more specific help.

So I have a box with:

Windows 10 Pro (Current update)

AMD Ryzen 1800x

Gigabyte x470 Aorus (GIGABYTE X470 AORUS Gaming 7 WIFI (AMD Ryzen AM4/ X470/ Intel Wave 2 WIFI/ M.2) Motherboard)

16GB Kingston DDR4-2134 (1067 MHz) RAM [Part Number: 9905678-043.A00G]

Areca ARC-1224

4x WDC WD60PURX-64T0ZY0

4x (EMPTY)

ADATA SX7000NP [238GB actual storage] (Game Servers are stored here)

ADATA SP550 [120GB Sata SSD for OS]

Nvidia GT 610 (Soon to be replaced with a AMD Radeon R9 380x) [For Transcoding in Plex Server]

This is a Multi purpose server. It is used for my personal Plex library, Game servers (Whatever is fun to host at the time, Minecraft/ARK/Valhiem/ECO), and Network Accessible Storage.

I want to Increase read write performance for the game servers that are running as well as add storage and a 10Gbe NIC.

I am looking for the right 2.5inch SSD's to fill out the other 4 available sata channels on my RAID controller. What is a good Cheap option to give the system a little boost? Or should I do Mechanical HDDs and increase storage? my other Array is already full Thanks a lot Plex and your DVR feature!

I am currently looking at a network upgrade with these components:

QNAP QHora-301W

Zyxel [XGS1210-12]

Intel Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X540T1

2x SFP+10GBASE-T Transceiver Copper RJ45 Module

I need recommendations and advice. I have been shopping around for upgrades / Updates to my system both network and server and I really could use advice.

Should I be running a Hypervisor?

Should I keep it on Windows 10 Pro for ease of use?

Is there a good way to remote manage this server from my phone/desktop/laptop?

What is the best and most obvious upgrades I should look at?

What changes can I make to really make this server shine?

Thanks for your help in advance!

P.s. I am an advanced user, I have been doing this for MANY years.. Almost two decades, But I am getting tired and haven't been working in the networking/Admin field for a few years. I do have military training in Networking, so I do know the terminology, I'm just not up to date!

1) Depends purely on what you want/need. For the use cases you mentioned I would say no, hypervisors add complexity to the networking side (since you need to create vlans, vswitches and subnets) and are great if you are looking to run multiple OSes on the same machine but unnecessary for general services. If you want to compartmentalise things look at docker.

2) Sure. Windows 10 is more than capable of handling the services you listed, Linux might be a better option but you can do it all with Windows and if that's what you're comfortable with then stick with it.

3) Loads. You can use RDC, Team Viewer or RealVNC for remote administration. VPN is the best option if you need local file access from a remote machine.

4) In your case I'd suggest mechanical over SSD. SSDs are great for rapid file access in small chunks but for storage and retrieval you won't really see any improvement. If you buy a 10G NIC you'll also need CAT6 cabling.

5) Sounds like it already fulfils all of your requirements, as long as you're happy its doing its job.

Noirdrath · March 18, 2021

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

1) Depends purely on what you want/need. For the use cases you mentioned I would say no, hypervisors add complexity to the networking side (since you need to create vlans, vswitches and subnets) and are great if you are looking to run multiple OSes on the same machine but unnecessary for general services. If you want to compartmentalise things look at docker.

2) Sure. Windows 10 is more than capable of handling the services you listed, Linux might be a better option but you can do it all with Windows and if that's what you're comfortable with then stick with it.

3) Loads. You can use RDC, Team Viewer or RealVNC for remote administration. VPN is the best option if you need local file access from a remote machine.

4) In your case I'd suggest mechanical over SSD. SSDs are great for rapid file access in small chunks but for storage and retrieval you won't really see any improvement. If you buy a 10G NIC you'll also need CAT6 cabling.

5) Sounds like it already fulfils all of your requirements, as long as you're happy its doing its job.

Ok, Thank you I had the same feeling, that it was serving my needs.

However I do have an issue with it shutting down occasionally for no apparent reason. Nothing in the System logs leads me to think it's anything obvious. So as far as I can tell it just locks up and shutsdown. For me this is my main issue because I can't restart or power up my server remotely.

I think there is a thing called a remote KVM that allows you to access the server from outside as if you were physically there to press the reset button and have access to get into the bios. Have you any experience with that?

And yes I am using remote desktop as well as Teamviewer for fallback if I am remote and RDP isn't responding as RDP can be finicky.

Also I just ordered the parts for the network upgrade, 10Gbe NIC for the server as well. And I am using cat-7 and cat-8 in my house. Cabling is the least expensive part of the network.

I am considering a NVME adaptor board to add additional NVME drives. But my concern is that I wont have enough PCIe Lanes to support it.

I would love to run Linux for some of the game servers I host, but sadly I struggle with file sharing via Linux and that has always sent me running back to Windows due to the ease of sharing a network share / drive / folder.

I also have a HP Proliant G6 with SFF HDD bays and I would like to set it up with drives and make it a network share maybe use FreeNAS and ZFS? But I have no idea what kind of drives to look for in the 2.5inch size and I would also like to make sure they are affordable and not prohibitively expensive. Do you have any recommendations?

Electronics Wizardy · March 19, 2021

On 3/18/2021 at 1:45 AM, Noirdrath said:

(Soon to be replaced with a AMD Radeon R9 380x) [For Transcoding in Plex Server]

Don't use a amd card for transcoding, the quality is much worse than the nvidia cards. Something like a 710 would even be a better pick.

On 3/18/2021 at 3:47 AM, Noirdrath said:

I think there is a thing called a remote KVM that allows you to access the server from outside as if you were physically there to press the reset button and have access to get into the bios. Have you any experience with that?

And yes I am using remote desktop as well as Teamviewer for fallback if I am remote and RDP isn't responding as RDP can be finicky.

Ive used those before, they work well. But you really want it to be build into the board. So you would want a serverboard like the asrock rack x470/x570 for support

On 3/18/2021 at 3:47 AM, Noirdrath said:

Also I just ordered the parts for the network upgrade, 10Gbe NIC for the server as well. And I am using cat-7 and cat-8 in my house. Cabling is the least expensive part of the network.

If your gonna run cable, run conduit so you can easily upgrade the cable. I'd personally run fiber as its capable of much higher speeds and often cheaper cables

On 3/18/2021 at 3:47 AM, Noirdrath said:

am considering a NVME adaptor board to add additional NVME drives. But my concern is that I wont have enough PCIe Lanes to support it.

What adapter, how many drives? Check the manual for how many lanes your slots have to use.

On 3/18/2021 at 3:47 AM, Noirdrath said:

I would love to run Linux for some of the game servers I host, but sadly I struggle with file sharing via Linux and that has always sent me running back to Windows due to the ease of sharing a network share / drive / folder.

Samba is pretty easy, and uses the same network sharing protocols thatwindows uses. I can set it up on a linux box in like 5 minutes.

On 3/18/2021 at 3:47 AM, Noirdrath said:

I also have a HP Proliant G6 with SFF HDD bays and I would like to set it up with drives and make it a network share maybe use FreeNAS and ZFS? But I have no idea what kind of drives to look for in the 2.5inch size and I would also like to make sure they are affordable and not prohibitively expensive. Do you have any recommendations?

2.5in hdds all suck, so id stay away from those, and get a case with 3.5 in drives.

Id run a hypervisor like proxmox on the harware if you can. It works well, but still lets you run windows on top of it.