Building a small home server

[DrMacintosh]

Hello all, I currently run a Plex server off a Raspberry Pi 4, it works great for in home streaming since I have some control over clients and their playback settings and can force local quality. However, my USB HDD for that server is getting full, I've got less than 400GB free so I'm thinking about building a home server with a capacity of at least 8TB. 

 

The way I see it, I have 3 pathways. 

• Buy a prebuilt NAS with dedicated hardware encoders/decoders such as the Asustor AS5304T ($459 USD before drives)
• Build a cheap Intel (with quicksync) based small form factor system (cost undetermined but probably equivalent to Mac Mini optoin)
• Buy a used Mac Mini, probably a 2018 or M1 based system, and couple it with a 4 bay USB HDD enclosure (between $500-$700 USD before drives)

 

From what I've seen, that Asustor is a fantastic plex server, and of course would make a great SMB file share server. So am I crazy for wanting to use a Mac Mini or build my own NAS when a system like the Asustor is so cheap? 

 

Thanks,

[Takumidesh]

the asustor has a celeron and 8gb of ram. If you only need to store files I guess it will be ok, but if you want to do transcoding with a CPU on plex that will be very tough.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Takumidesh said:

but if you want to do transcoding with a CPU on plex that will be very tough.

I believe that model of NAS has dedicated hardware encoder/decoders which claim to be able to do 10-bit 4K encoding/decoding. 

[Takumidesh]

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I believe that model of NAS has dedicated hardware encoder/decoders which claim to be able to do 10-bit 4K encoding/decoding. 

depending on how many streams you are trying to encode that may be perfect then! hard to say though without knowing.

as an aside. As an avid plex user I try to enforce to the best of my ability no transcodes, if you have the bandwidth for your remote clients, that is usually the way to go.
 

also I misread, that asustor has only 4gb of ram, plex recommends 2gb and an i3 minimum, but it would probably work.

[LIGISTX]

9 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Hello all, I currently run a Plex server off a Raspberry Pi 4, it works great for in home streaming since I have some control over clients and their playback settings and can force local quality. However, my USB HDD for that server is getting full, I've got less than 400GB free so I'm thinking about building a home server with a capacity of at least 8TB. 

 

The way I see it, I have 3 pathways. 

• Buy a prebuilt NAS with dedicated hardware encoders/decoders such as the Asustor AS5304T ($459 USD before drives)
• Build a cheap Intel (with quicksync) based small form factor system (cost undetermined but probably equivalent to Mac Mini optoin)
• Buy a used Mac Mini, probably a 2018 or M1 based system, and couple it with a 4 bay USB HDD enclosure (between $500-$700 USD before drives)

 

From what I've seen, that Asustor is a fantastic plex server, and of course would make a great SMB file share server. So am I crazy for wanting to use a Mac Mini or build my own NAS when a system like the Asustor is so cheap? 

 

Thanks,

If the r-pi works, why not just add a 8TB harddrive to it? I’m all for building servers…. I have a homelab. But if all you really need is more Plex storage, why not just give Plex more storage? It will be much cheaper and use less electricity then building a nas. 
 

Obviously, the nas will provide the ability to do more as far as potentially run some VM’s and play around with homelab stuff and what not, but if that isn’t needed, I like the just adding storage option. 

[Domrockt]

Considered one of those Intel NUC Systems or those HP Mini PCs? All of them will do.

[Needfuldoer]

I always prefer bringing drives in from the cold instead of making a pile of external drives connected with a rat's nest of USB cables. (Many external enclosures don't give the drives much cooling airflow, either.)

 

A Sandy Bridge or newer office PC with a couple high capacity drives in a mirror, and a Pascal-based Quadro card should do the job for you (and for about half the price of that Asustor).

[m9x3mos]

7 hours ago, Domrockt said:

Considered one of those Intel NUC Systems or those HP Mini PCs? All of them will do.

This can be a good option as well. I tested it with a Lenovo micro pc with a i5 6th gen and it worked pretty well. You can get those used pretty cheap on ebay. Then you can run windows if you want or stay with Linux. 

[DrMacintosh]

9 hours ago, Domrockt said:

Considered one of those Intel NUC Systems or those HP Mini PCs? All of them will do.

I have, but I currently have an offer on eBay to get a 16GB Core i3 (4C/4T) Mac Mini for $370 after shipping. It's a compelling price. 

[m9x3mos]

22 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I have, but I currently have an offer on eBay to get a 16GB Core i3 (4C/4T) Mac Mini for $370 after shipping. It's a compelling price. 

That's not a bad price if memory serves me right and you are a Mac person. I wouldn't just because a pc with the same spec would be about half the cost or less.