is this a good first timer server setup?

[Zohan2000]

have asked about this in the past but with black friday and cyber monday coming up i thought id ask again on these specs to see if they are good for a noob's server, the main goal with it is general backup of games,(games like skyrim, fallout, etc instead of relying on USB storage) files(videos and photos) and have movies and TV series, did see that jonsbo has a new case the N3 which looks way better than the N2 so thought about going with it but if theres another case thats got a small footprint, im open to suggestions and advice, heres the PCPartPicker link https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/B6bYWt

[Levent]

Nope. You really should aim for mATX instead of ITX and save yourself a shit ton of money.

• Blinged out motherboard
• Blinged out ram.
• HBA for just 2 disks??
• 750W PSU?

[Zohan2000]

31 minutes ago, Levent said:

Nope. You really should aim for mATX instead of ITX and save yourself a shit ton of money.

• Blinged out motherboard
• Blinged out ram.
• HBA for just 2 disks??
• 750W PSU?

its a starting build which ill add more HDDs in the future and the ram choice is cause ive already got it so might as well reuse it, im open to suggestions and changes

[LIGISTX]

2 hours ago, Zohan2000 said:

its a starting build which ill add more HDDs in the future and the ram choice is cause ive already got it so might as well reuse it, im open to suggestions and changes

I wouldn’t go itx unless you absolutely have to. It makes harddrives difficult, less expansion for PCIe devices which you may not realize you want now, but do in the future. I started with a bare metal NAS with just an HBA, now I have a fully virtualized system with 6 PCIe cards doing various different things. ITX really locks you in to very limited expandability, which is really not a great place to be for a homelab which this easily could turn into. 
 

Also, what OS do you plan to use? If truenas (which I recommend) you can’t affordably add storage layer. So just make sure you fully understand your needs and what limiting factors the OS you choose has. 
 

And you don’t need an HBA unless you go beyond the amount of drives you have SATA ports for, and you can always add an HBA later and move the drive to it then, so you can save money on that now. 

[Zohan2000]

51 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

I wouldn’t go itx unless you absolutely have to. It makes harddrives difficult, less expansion for PCIe devices which you may not realize you want now, but do in the future. I started with a bare metal NAS with just an HBA, now I have a fully virtualized system with 6 PCIe cards doing various different things. ITX really locks you in to very limited expandability, which is really not a great place to be for a homelab which this easily could turn into. 
 

Also, what OS do you plan to use? If truenas (which I recommend) you can’t affordably add storage layer. So just make sure you fully understand your needs and what limiting factors the OS you choose has. 
 

And you don’t need an HBA unless you go beyond the amount of drives you have SATA ports for, and you can always add an HBA later and move the drive to it then, so you can save money on that now. 

main reason for going itx was plainly space saving on my desk, if theres another case that uses matx or atx but is also quite small then im all ears for suggestions

[LIGISTX]

4 minutes ago, Zohan2000 said:

main reason for going itx was plainly space saving on my desk, if theres another case that uses matx or atx but is also quite small then im all ears for suggestions

Do you have any other place to store the NAS besides your desk? A closet, a basement, etc? 
 

Mine lives in a closet….

[Zohan2000]

8 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

Do you have any other place to store the NAS besides your desk? A closet, a basement, etc? 
 

Mine lives in a closet….

unfortunately no, on the desk next to my other computer is the best spot for it at the moment, i would say the floor but i dont want it to get caked in dust, a cube style case would be awesome, do wish the coolermaster stacker cases were still available lol

[LIGISTX]

1 minute ago, Zohan2000 said:

unfortunately no, on the desk next to my other computer is the best spot for it at the moment, i would say the floor but i dont want it to get caked in dust, a cube style case would be awesome, do wish the coolermaster stacker cases were still available lol

The floor is fine…. Mine is on the floor in a closet that’s next to a window that’s open probably 18 hours of the day. It certainly gets dust, but the filters do a good enough job of keeping the inside clean. 
 

Find a place where you can fit an ATX case is my recommendation. 

[Zohan2000]

a case like the fractal design node 804 or the r5 or r6 would be alright to use, would use the 804 but the HDDs hanging is a bit of a concern

[LIGISTX]

1 hour ago, Zohan2000 said:

a case like the fractal design node 804 or the r5 or r6 would be alright to use, would use the 804 but the HDDs hanging is a bit of a concern

R5 is solid, speaking from experience with the R4. 

[Bersella AI]

Some suggestions to save a couple of bucks:

1. For the processor, Core i3-12100 would be better in value, and nearly as fast as i3-13100.
2. This case comes with 8 slots for hard disks, and unless you have planned to install more than 4 drives, this would be less useful. Furthermore, adding more hard drives would make this build pretty loud and annoying, outweighing any attempt, including Noctua fans, to make it quiet. You may also need an M.2 to SATA riser card for additional ports.
   Alternatively, Jonsbo N2 could be considered as it comes with 5 docks, well matching the native 4 SATA ports from motherboard. (Don't mind how it looks first, just pick up what best meets your needs.)
3. Generally, IronWolf drives cost more than Exos or WD Ultrastar, due to royalty of additional services such as data recovery. Consider the latter if such services were not a concern.
4. This power supply would seem to be overkill, since such build with 4 3.5' spinners would never crunch more than 150W. Consider a smaller one such as Seasonic Focus SGX 500W.

Hope these would help you make decisions more wisely.

[Zohan2000]

what about the corsair c70? do have that case already with an old z87 build inside of it which ill take out and see if i can sell, can also use a seasonic focus plus 850w i already got for the PSU even though its a tad overkill, can also try and mod the side panel so its a solid piece instead of the acrylic window, buy some demciflex filters add noctua fans for good airflow

[Bersella AI]

On 11/17/2023 at 1:19 PM, Zohan2000 said:

what about the corsair c70? do have that case already with an old z87 build inside of it which ill take out and see if i can sell, can also use a seasonic focus plus 850w i already got for the PSU even though its a tad overkill, can also try and mod the side panel so its a solid piece instead of the acrylic window, buy some demciflex filters add noctua fans for good airflow

This is definitely a monster capable of an ATX board & at least 6 3.5-inch spinners... Pretty decent. Since you already have one, just reuse it. Also, this means the size of motherboard would be no longer a problem, and an ATX board with more PCIe slots could be considered.

[Zohan2000]

gonna put the project on hold for now till i can buy at least 2 10 TB drives, do have 2 250GB and 500GB SSDs and a 2TB HDD and will use one of the 250gb SSDs for the OS, hoping the black friday or cyber monday deals will help massively with pricing but i doubt it sadly, so far WD red plus drives are the cheapest option in AUS according to PCPartPicker and what ive been able to find online heres hoping they drop below $300AUS

[LIGISTX]

2 hours ago, Zohan2000 said:

gonna put the project on hold for now till i can buy at least 2 10 TB drives, do have 2 250GB and 500GB SSDs and a 2TB HDD and will use one of the 250gb SSDs for the OS, hoping the black friday or cyber monday deals will help massively with pricing but i doubt it sadly, so far WD red plus drives are the cheapest option in AUS according to PCPartPicker and what ive been able to find online heres hoping they drop below $300AUS

What OS are you going with..?

[Zohan2000]

1 hour ago, LIGISTX said:

What OS are you going with..?

which ever one allows me to add more storage down the line since HDDs are damn expensive lol

[LIGISTX]

48 minutes ago, Zohan2000 said:

which ever one allows me to add more storage down the line since HDDs are damn expensive lol

I’d try and plan your OS setup before you start buying stuff. 
 

Id look into unraid and potentially start messing around with it before you have drives, just to start getting your feet wet. Certainly can’t hurt. 

[Zohan2000]

4 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

I’d try and plan your OS setup before you start buying stuff. 
 

Id look into unraid and potentially start messing around with it before you have drives, just to start getting your feet wet. Certainly can’t hurt. 

Got enough hardware to give them a go, just gotta get off my rear to set things up lol, are there any other OS's besides unraid and truenas? 

[LIGISTX]

5 hours ago, Zohan2000 said:

Got enough hardware to give them a go, just gotta get off my rear to set things up lol, are there any other OS's besides unraid and truenas? 

There are lots of potential options. But those are the go to’s as they have lots of forum support, YouTube video tutorials etc. 

 

You can spin your own setup with any version of Linux pretty much, Ubuntu natively supports ZFS (which is what Truenas uses), can setup snapraid on Linux, opnmediavault is another OS option. 
 

Definitely look into all options so you know what’s possible, but I’d probably go with unraid for your use case. 

[m9x3mos]

On 11/16/2023 at 10:13 PM, LIGISTX said:

R5 is solid, speaking from experience with the R4. 

I second these cases.

I also have the r5.

It supports my 8 drives with vibration dampening, fans that blow right over the drives to keep them cool, the intake is fileted to prevent dust ingress, also the non tempered glass side panel has a fan as well to blow fresh air over my graphics card for plex, the hbd and 2.5 gb nic to keep them cool.