Build Recommendations for Plex server, Local CCTV footage storage, Lightroom catalogue storage and general data hoarding purposes ?

[jedistinson]

Budget (including currency): $1500-2000 (USD)

Country: USA

programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

I'm looking forward to build a home server for a few needs that I have been having. Mainly I need a NAS to act as a central storage for Lightroom catalog (multi pc access), Plex server to store 1080p and 4k movies (not sure how transcoding power plays into this need), and to act as a storage location for home CCTV footage (not a fan of cloud storage subscriptions).

I'm decently comfortable with pc building but this will be the first attempt at a DIY NAS solution. I've set aside an higher end budget ($1500-2000) for the the NAS excluding storage cost. I want to get some insight into

1. if one home server can fit all these needs ? what OS would support these ?

2. what kind of processor, mobo setup should I go for ?

3. any general advise, helpful resources for a first time builder ?

 

 

[Donut417]

41 minutes ago, jedistinson said:

not sure how transcoding power plays into this need)

Transcoding 4K requires a lot of power. Its suggested that you dont transcode 4K. Transcoding lower resolutions is a lot easier and the suggestions I have seen online is to have 4K and 1080p options for your content, this way if you need to transcode, you can choose the lower resolution version which should be easier. The more streams you need transcoded at once the more power you need. Transcoding can happen via the CPU but hardware transcoding by using a GPU can help a lot as well. Nvidia cards do well and intel iGPU's via quick sync do well. I have heard some newer AMD cards can also transcode but have heard its limited to Windows only. But for a little context my i5 3570K has transcoded up to 3 1080 and 720p streams. 

 

The best advice for Plex I can suggest is to make sure your videos are in a format that most of your devices can use, this way you can limit transcodes. With no transcoding Plex will run on a potato. 

 

As far as your other questions Im not the guy to ask. I do know there are some NAS specific OS's like Free NAS and TrueNAS but Im no expert on those. 

[BiotechBen]

50 minutes ago, jedistinson said:

Budget (including currency): $1500-2000 (USD)

Country: USA

programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

I'm looking forward to build a home server for a few needs that I have been having. Mainly I need a NAS to act as a central storage for Lightroom catalog (multi pc access), Plex server to store 1080p and 4k movies (not sure how transcoding power plays into this need), and to act as a storage location for home CCTV footage (not a fan of cloud storage subscriptions).

I'm decently comfortable with pc building but this will be the first attempt at a DIY NAS solution. I've set aside an higher end budget ($1500-2000) for the the NAS excluding storage cost. I want to get some insight into

1. if one home server can fit all these needs ? what OS would support these ?

2. what kind of processor, mobo setup should I go for ?

3. any general advise, helpful resources for a first time builder ?

 

 

Well, good news for the Plex server and NAS is that it doesn't need super high end hardware, encoder depends on how many streams you want to be able to support and if you are transcoding or doing direct stream. Like @Donut417 said, would be best to have a 1080p AND a 4K version which is why there's an extra drive so you can run in raid 0 for more performance and space. 

 

would suggest having separate partitioned drives for the NAS, OS, and Surveillance.

 

For the CCTV, I'd go with 1 or 2 surveillance drives just for reliability sake, they're rated for 24/7 writes. 

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/BNvHrD

Went with 12600K because more E cores to offload simpler background tasks to. Case also has expansion opportunities for more drives.

 

[jedistinson]

6 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

The best advice for Plex I can suggest is to make sure your videos are in a format that most of your devices can use, this way you can limit transcodes. With no transcoding Plex will run on a potato

This seems a cheaper alternative to buying a GPU. I plan to keep the NAS in a small form factor case.

 

7 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

But for a little context my i5 3570K has transcoded up to 3 1080 and 720p streams

Its rare that I will run multiple streams as its for my personal use (single user) only.

In terms of picking processor and motherboard socket generation, Since AMD and intel both essentially discontinued/moved on to newer platforms. Is it advisable to go with newer platform so I have an upgrade path (but i worry that newer ones have higher TDP ) ? Or since this is a NAS setup will sticking with older generations still have plenty more head room for upgrades down the path ? Which processor would be a decent workhorse while being power efficient enough to run 24/7

[jedistinson]

17 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Well, good news for the Plex server and NAS is that it doesn't need super high end hardware, encoder depends on how many streams you want to be able to support

My concern was do i need my hardware to have any kind of virtualization power because of potentially needing multiple OS's based  on the variety apps I need to run.

 

 

19 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/BNvHrD

why did you add a dedicated gpu ? This is what I gathered so far from my little research
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/H3b7Zw

[Donut417]

20 minutes ago, jedistinson said:

My concern was do i need my hardware to have any kind of virtualization power because of potentially needing multiple OS's based  on the variety apps I need to run.

If I were you Id look in to how you want to accomplish this software wise. I mean like I said there are a few NAS OS's out there. The one catch I see however is many use ZFS and ZFS is fucking expensive drive wise. Thats part of the reason I choose to buy a QNAP NAS and just use some old PC hardware for the Plex software to live on to transcode, but all my movies and shows are on the prebuilt NAS. 

 

31 minutes ago, jedistinson said:

ts rare that I will run multiple streams as its for my personal use (single user) only.

In terms of picking processor and motherboard socket generation, Since AMD and intel both essentially discontinued/moved on to newer platforms. Is it advisable to go with newer platform so I have an upgrade path (but i worry that newer ones have higher TDP ) ? Or since this is a NAS setup will sticking with older generations still have plenty more head room for upgrades down the path ? Which processor would be a decent workhorse while being power efficient enough to run 24/7

I was just using my system which was my old gaming machine as more of an example. If you dont transcode with Plex it wont need a lot of power, however you still need enough CPU power to handle the other tasks. I personally would go with newer hardware if you dont have any older hardware laying around. In my case, I ended up installing Ubuntu on my old gaming rig and making it a Plex server because this hardware no longer wanted to work well with Windows 10. So I build a new gaming system that did work better with Windows 10. 

 

The issue is I have no experience with surveillance systems or with building NAS's, So I really cant comment on what exact hardware you will need for those tasks. I just have a bit of experience dealing with Plex. 

 

OH one other thing. If you end up needing to do hardware based transcodes in Plex, you will need a Plex pass. The Plex pass is either done based on a subscription OR you can pay like $119 one time fee for a life time license. The Plex pass also allows access to the DVR/Live TV functionally, I have a HDhomerun connected to my home network and it supplies my Plex server with Live OTA TV, I can watch/record up to 4 things at once. 

[BiotechBen]

36 minutes ago, jedistinson said:

why did you add a dedicated gpu ? This is what I gathered so far from my little research

Oops, forgot to take that out.