Storage solutions (gaming PC, backup, NAS, and Plex)

[MatthewSH]

Hey all, I'm so happy the forums exist. Makes research and such so much easier.

 

I have an issue. I have too many scattered drives. Just in my main PC I have an NVMe, like 3 SSDs, and a harddrive (that's starting to go bad). they're a mixture of 1tb, 500GB, 4tb, and 2tb. I'm also starting to run out of storage. Part of the problem is that my larger drives I also use as a backup solution in a way. I need to consolidate and simplify this setup as well as do upgrades overall. That doesn't include all the external harddrives, flashdrives, etc.  So I have 3 separate mini-projects for storage. With black friday coming up, sales are around the corner.

 

First project, the gaming PC storage.

For compatibility sake, I'm running a Ryzen 5 3600 on a B550 Gaming X mobo.

I'm ideally looking to go down to 1-2 drives. I know 1 super large NVMe is not ideal so I'm looking at 2. A larger NVMe (1-2tb min) for OS, primary games, programs that can't be installed elsewhere, and misc. I'm a developer so a lot of resources are built on the primary drive and I have no choice in the matter very easily so a bigger primary is fine by me. The secondary is where I need help. Getting all my backup crap off of it will be a huge plus and free up space, but I'd also like freedom to just have games downloaded and not be like "pinching" for space, also code repositories, etc. I was thinking 6-8tb minimum. I don't know how plausible this is with SSD without spending a crap ton of money. I just need something that will hold up. It will also be a temporary place for recordings before I move them off which leads me to my next mini-project.

 

Backup / Media storage (not plex).

This is more like like archiving and moving recordings off of. Maybe some video editing too. Maybe this is worth splitting into 2, one as an always online NAS and one as a more "glacier" storage solution that I only bring online as needed. I have 2 primary purposes.

1. Data backups. Now I do have web servers hosting stuff that I want to take offline since I only use maybe 1-2% of them, however because there's stuff to do with business on it I need to keep it stored. I can't have it just randomly corrupt and it probably will never be accessed again, but it needs to be kept. Also old computer backups, documents, photos, old security footage used in custody battles, etc. A lot of stuff that's important to keep, but will probably never get used again. This I may be able to have an "online as needed" solution for. This is definitely something where I need it mirrored/safe/whatever you call it.

2. Media storage / possible semi-regular usage. Basically I need something that as I record from OBS (and stream VODs) I need somewhere to store it. that's where a lot of my storage is today actually. This will definitely need to be a bit higher capacity. If possible I would love to storage my stream overlays elements, images, etc there too. So it will probably have daily usage over the network (unless it needs to be hardwired). Most of these aren't unloaded until I close out so it will need accessed, but not in high amounts. If it would work for using DaVinci Resolve editing that would be cool too, although I would assume if I have it mapped as a drive on my system pretty much all of this "just works." Ideally this is a mirrored/safe solution, but if I lose a VOD due to some hardware thing it's not the end of the world.

 

Plex / Jellyfin server

I just need something for my media. I want to keep this separate because this will be accessible outside the home to my personal devices only (although I need to design a new network setup, but that's a future project). I have about 4tb of storage today and that's will be actively removing stuff because I have a limit.

 

In terms of project priority. I would say I listed them in priority. I need to fix my gaming PC storage solution ASAP. It's a mess haha. Then I need a data backup solution (point 1 of the second project), etc.

 

Thank you everyone for your insight. I'm not the best with hardware solutions, I'm a software guy.

[Dedayog]

For #1, why do you need 6-8TB of space in a gaming machine?  Can you not have your work be on the server fully?  If you need to keep work on the main machine, obviously get 1or 2TB of SSD and then some nice fast HDD's for the work stuff.  If you need more than 2TB for games, you're playing too many at the same time

 

Plex/File server can just be a nice cheap machine.  See my sig for mine, it can handle 4+ streams at once.

 

Backup and media....  why not combine that into the Plex?  Backing up and Plex don't take a lot of resources, just drive space.  

 

Unless I'm missing something I would just do a Gaming machine and then a Plex/Media/File machine.

[MatthewSH]

1 hour ago, Dedayog said:

For #1, why do you need 6-8TB of space in a gaming machine?  Can you not have your work be on the server fully?  If you need to keep work on the main machine, obviously get 1or 2TB of SSD and then some nice fast HDD's for the work stuff.  If you need more than 2TB for games, you're playing too many at the same time

This is a fair point. I try to reduce the network traffic on my ISP in general to reduce potential throttling. To give you an idea, on a normal month I'm pushing about 1.2-1.4TB of data usage. 07-08 was a light month in all fairness. I was out of town a lot. Keep in mind, I don't download a lot of games or even update them often. This is just usage.

 

 

Hopefully this gives you context on why I try to avoid causing extra load on it. My poor network

It wouldn't just be for games, there's many things I didn't share that take up space. Tbh though, maybe 6-8TB is too much considering I'm planning on offloading a lot of that storage, so I'm thinking a 1-2tb main drive with a 4tb secondary.

 

1 hour ago, Dedayog said:

Backup and media....  why not combine that into the Plex?  Backing up and Plex don't take a lot of resources, just drive space.  

The more I think on it, the more I'm thinking of completely separate solutions for at least backup. Without going into too much detail, the backup I'd rather keep relatively offline unless I need it because some of the data is tax/IRS related, private backups, etc. So that, for me, is crucial to separate if possible. Will it be touched again? Probably not, but I'd rather keep it safe. If I could have something I could push files too, then shut down and leave on a shelf offline and powered down for 6 months until I need it again...that would be great.

Now I will agree, for the Plex server and the server I'm connected for video storage, recordings, etc. One could argue that I could have those on the same machine. Which I could agree with.