Media / backup / Game server combo?

[JT86]

Budget (including currency): Anything within reason really but goal under $2000

Country: USA

 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Plex/Jellyfin server (have never run one looking to get one setup for friends/family). Average user load will probably be ~3-6 peak of maybe around 10. As well as backup server for photos/videos for me. 1 friend also stating he would like to be able to dump a copy of his nas for offsite storage in case of house fire. Then lastly be able to host occasional servers for games like: Ark, Velhiem, Terraria so on

 

Other: I do have an old dell powerdge t310 but i feel that will be a bit too old. Not against purchasing new hardware and getting something stable setup.

 

Looking for input on best options. At first i was looking at just getting a Synology NAS, but I feel it might not have the horse power to do all the above listed things.

 

Next idea was do the Nas for the storage and then just build out a decent system to add in the horsepower needed. But then unsure if nas is worth vs just having a solid tower that can hold a bunch of drives and setup Raid in that?

 

Thanks in advance, 

 

[ZetZet]

We just had a similar thread, transcoding is a waste of time for most things, having separate libraries for local (4K HDR) and streaming/mobile playback (1080p) is way easier than anything else. So you don't actually need performance from the server for media.

 

Not sure what games require, but you would probably need something like a recent 8 core CPU, I'd guess. Maybe Zen4 build?

[SupaKomputa]

9 minutes ago, JT86 said:

1 friend also stating he would like to be able to dump a copy of his nas for offsite storage in case of house fire

Honestly this is a great idea. You can just rent an old pc-server for like $30 a month all in internet and electric (including hardware failure) install ubuntu, run plex / jellyfish or any other linux softwares.

My favorite datacenter is Hetzner (try https://www.hetzner.com/sb), you can have a i7 6700 with SSD for 40 eur a month.

 

[Hairless Monkey]

7 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

you can have a i7 6700 with SSD for 40 eur a month.

40 eur per month seems pretty steep to me. In 6 months or less you've already paid enough to just outright buy that system.

[JT86]

 

Hmm its not a terrible idea, on the renting of a sever might look into that for just the offsite back up data.

 

But im wanting to have more personal control over things. Some of the friends are offering to chip in some money towards the hardware to get it setup.

 

With having 1gig up/down fiber i can host a decent setup for friends and family i feel.

 

I keep leaning towards just getting a good size tower (to handle drive space) and pop in some solid hardware just not sure what best bang for buck and target numbers on cpu / ram / if video card would be needed and such.

 

Tired of purchasing media on different platforms (amazon/vudu/ monthly streaming charges for hbo and such) when instead within our family we could purchse 1 copy of physical media and just like the old days of borrowing the dvd we would have it ripped to our shared media server. 

[JT86]

I wonder if step one i should just pick up the synology nas build it out with Jellyfin and start there as its cheap and easy to get going.

 

Then if it struggles to handle the amount of streams / need to host game servers cant be done on that.

 

At that point just build a system out drop the nas as being the media server host set up new system to be media / game server host. Then just mount the nas as drives for said server?

 

But at the end of the day it wouldnt it just be easier to start out with server/comp as it could have more horsepower from day 1 for not all that much more cost of starting with a good quality NAS?

 

Sorry I know I am a bit all over just looking for some feedback from people with more knowledge on this end of things. I have built and toyed with computers for years but just getting into the media server hosting side of things.

[Hairless Monkey]

2 minutes ago, JT86 said:

At that point just build a system out drop the nas as being the media server host set up new system to be media / game server host. Then just mount the nas as drives for said server?

This is what I did. I started with a Synology NAS with all my media and backups on it. I ran Plex on it. Then I built a server from some old and new parts (I7 6700, 48GB RAM, ~1.5TB solid state storage). Now I run Plex, Pi-hole, and Game servers on that system and the NAS is just storage space. As I run out of storage space on the Synology, I intend to add HDDs to the i7 system.

[JT86]

12 minutes ago, Hairless Monkey Boy said:

This is what I did. I started with a Synology NAS with all my media and backups on it. I ran Plex on it. Then I built a server from some old and new parts (I7 6700, 48GB RAM, ~1.5TB solid state storage). Now I run Plex, Pi-hole, and Game servers on that system and the NAS is just storage space. As I run out of storage space on the Synology, I intend to add HDDs to the i7 system.

Looking back do you wish you would of just started out with the full system over the NAS?

 

Goal is to avoid needing a ton of maintance within a first few years and instead start with a strong solid setup from day one. 

 

Cost is extremly flexible as i have a good budget on my own plus a few friends have offered to chip in some if need be.

[Dedayog]

Using an older machine as a server would be great, but with the prices dropping right now, why not build a Ryzen 5600 machine?  You don't need performance anything for this.   

 

40 Euro a month is ridiculous.  500 in a year would build the server outright with decent stuff.

[Hairless Monkey]

3 minutes ago, JT86 said:

Looking back do you wish you would of just started out with the full system over the NAS?

Not at all. I appreciate having both. The Synology NAS provide ease of use and easy setup and the custom system has greater flexibility. Leaving them separate allows me to more freely experiment with the server without risk. I have fun tinkering with both.

[JT86]

29 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Using an older machine as a server would be great, but with the prices dropping right now, why not build a Ryzen 5600 machine?  You don't need performance anything for this.   

 

40 Euro a month is ridiculous.  500 in a year would build the server outright with decent stuff.

Something along the lines like this?

 

Plenty of space to add in storage down the line or just in gerneral expansion.

 

[Dedayog]

2 hours ago, JT86 said:

Something along the lines like this?

 

Plenty of space to add in storage down the line or just in gerneral expansion.

 

No, the 5600 is much cheaper is essentially the same thing.  I guess if you want to blow $500 on a case, go for it.  But uhm, no.  Any number of cases support many drives, under $200.

 

Depending on the games you want to host that RAM may be necessary, but file servers and PLEX do great with 8GB RAM.

 

A $90 cpu cooler for a cpu that won't ever get hot?  No.

 

I may be way off base, bit you're building a game server not a gaming rig   See my sig for an overkill file server/Plex server.  It's how much of a game server you really need that you have to decide.

 

 

 

 

 

[Hairless Monkey]

2 hours ago, JT86 said:

Something along the lines like this?

 

Plenty of space to add in storage down the line or just in gerneral expansion.

 

That looks pretty good to me. I have a couple of notes, though.

 

You might want to choose a CPU with integrated graphics so you don't need a GPU. It just makes things easier.

That PSU is way more powerful than you need.

[SupaKomputa]

On 11/2/2022 at 11:52 PM, Dedayog said:

40 Euro a month is ridiculous.  500 in a year would build the server outright with decent stuff.

That's the cheapest on the market. Yeah you can bring your own pc to the datacenter, but it cost $45 a month for only the network and electricity, not to mention you have to maintain it yourself.

[Dedayog]

39 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

That's the cheapest on the market. Yeah you can bring your own pc to the datacenter, but it cost $45 a month for only the network and electricity, not to mention you have to maintain it yourself.

40 a month for the Server, network and electricity.  Or 45 for just the electricity.  I need to do that business model here!

 

How much is electricity there?  Here, I would just build a $500 server, throw it in my basement and rock on.