New unRAID Build Advice

[CeePeeBee]

Hi all,

 

I dabbled with unRAID in the last 6 months on an old N54L Microserver and I was blown away with it's versatility. I ended up moving all of my docs, photos, and personal videos to it, delivering music and photo media servers from it with only Plex being used on an old I7 Win10 machine I have.

 

Fast forward and I'm ready to consolidate it and a few other services, into a new unRAID build. There is so much choice, I'm enlisting your expert help (hopefully). have a few pre-requisites:

• up to 5 concurrent Plex stream, but mostly Direct Play (1080p), however I want to dabble in 4K streams shortly (storage dependant)
• I will have around 20 or so dockers doing various other stuff, but nothing too taxing - the N54L manages it perfectly right now aside from Nextcloud (which is a dog)
• I want the new setup to be power efficient. I'm using the N54L, as well as the aforementioned Windows 10 machine which is sitting on an I7 2600k
• I want this in a small case (MicroATX perhaps) but I want a bunch of 3.5" caddies - I was looking at the Node 804 but it is pricey
• Noise is a bit of a factor so the less the better - I'm sure it'll be less than the N54L I'm dealing with in my office right now though (Win10 machine is in my loft/attic)

 

So, the ask is what components I should be looking for to give me the above and some headroom? I was looking at I5 10400, with the Plex requirements (iGPU, etc) in mind and headroom, but I'm after options. Budget wise, I'm trying to get all of this done and dusted for £1000 all in. This might include a couple more drives than I have now, but we'll see. I have 3 4TB Seagate drives sitting in my N54L, and a couple of mirrored Toshy N300 6TB drives in my Win10 machine so between all that I should have enough.

 

Thoughts, notes, assistance? Thanks!

[Future_Jacob]

with micro atx the most your going to get is 2x3.5" cages

[CeePeeBee]

3 minutes ago, Future_Jacob said:

with micro atx the most your going to get is 2x3.5" cages

apart from the Node 804 which has 8.

[Future_Jacob]

that front fan aint doing much 

[CeePeeBee]

2 minutes ago, Future_Jacob said:

that front fan aint doing much 

Okay, maybe I'll look for a mid-tower case then for more airflow - it's certainly not going to be seen anyway - it'll be stored.

 

Thoughts on other components?

[Future_Jacob]

you can get an 11400 for only a little bit  but apart from that no

[CeePeeBee]

Any other recommendations?