Setting up my first modern home server... Request for advice/suggestions/critiques.

[Swatch]

Hello LTT forums, can't believe this is the first time I've ventured here after following LTT casually since 2014/2015. Where have the years gone!?! (Answer: 3 kids, 2 jobs and a move)

 

I have a reliable old Win7 system that I've been reluctant to decommission for the past 3 years, but I've begun the process of converting that install of Win7 from a physical to a VM.  The time has come to retire it to the great virtualization in the sky (the cloud?), and I'm looking into rebuilding the system as a home server this holiday season.

 

System HW specs: 

• EVGA Z87 FTW
• i7-4790k
• MSI GeForce GTX970 (I actually have a second identical one as backup/bygone dream of SLI)
• 16Gb RAM

In an ideal world, here is what I want to use the server for:

• Set up a media server (PLEX or similar alternative?) to feed my music library & photos/videos to myself and my immediate family.
• Create a NAS (TrueNAS?) to replace my aging Buffalo Linkstation. Targeting 2-4 Tb of redundant, good performance.
• Run HomeAssistant to offload my smarthome features to a local management
• Basic webserver to allow me to prototype some website and homegrown Unity video game functionality.

But here's the rub... while I used to have some understanding of server management, and I have a history of working within command prompt and Linux environments, I'm feeling rather outclassed and overwhelmed these days trying to get up to speed. So I'm turning to you all here at the forums for some guidance on what paths I should take and how I can best become proficient again.

 

Some basic questions I have:

• Is it unreasonable to use the above hardware to do this? I feel like it's serviceable... not a monster... but serviceable. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
• Can I go Windows or is Linux required to achieve the above? I know Windows server capability has come a long way, and (in theory) it would likely be the simplest for me to manage hands-off, but I'm not afraid to walk through the land of Linux.
• What is the ideal storage solution/configuration I should put in this guy? I have various drives (SSD & HDD) available to me, but I'm willing to invest in up to 4 new drives of appropriate capacity to make this happen.
• Do I need to become familiar with Docker or other isolation/virtualization options to make this work?

I'm sure I'll have more questions, but I've typed enough.  Looking forward to what you guys throw back at me. Thanks in advance!

 

Sidenote: Ironically, the system I'm converting above is exactly the one that got me into LTT, as I used some of their reviews at the time to help me spec it out.

[Sjaakie]

11 minutes ago, Swatch said:

 

Some basic questions I have:

• Is it unreasonable to use the above hardware to do this? I feel like it's serviceable... not a monster... but serviceable. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
• Can I go Windows or is Linux required to achieve the above? I know Windows server capability has come a long way, and (in theory) it would likely be the simplest for me to manage hands-off, but I'm not afraid to walk through the land of Linux.
• What is the ideal storage solution/configuration I should put in this guy? I have various drives (SSD & HDD) available to me, but I'm willing to invest in up to 4 new drives of appropriate capacity to make this happen.
• Do I need to become familiar with Docker or other isolation/virtualization options to make this work?

 

 

The hardware is more than fast enough for a starter NAS! Don't know about unity though but all other functions will be no problem unless you want to transcode modern video files with plex. I think for HEVC you need a more recent gpu for instance. But if you use files that your clients can handle and have enough bandwidth you won't need transcoding.

 

If you have experience with Linux i'd use Linux.

 

Use an ssd for os and programs, hdds for storage. Unless you're willing to pay more to put it all on ssd's. Get a couple drives if you want to use raid for redundancy.

 

You don't need docker but it's nice to get into, makes it easier to deploy new programs / tinker around. VM's if you want to run multiple instances of os's / isolate functions more thoroughly.

 

For a starter home server i'd run linux with docker.

[Crunchy Dragon]

That system is plenty for a starter server.

 

Personally, I'm a huge fan of Proxmox and virtual machines, but bare metal Linux with Docker will be just fine. It's possible to run everything in Docker through Windows, I would say it really comes down to what you feel like running.

 

A lot of people I know like Jellyfin over Plex these days. I haven't cast my lot in with either one yet, but have used Plex in the past.

[Swatch]

@Crunchy DragonPROXMOX is interesting, but perhaps a bit too professional for my purposes here.  Is there any real downside to running everything in Docker through Windows?  I have to admit, my appetite for Linux often dies down after a few months of working in it and I always feel like I'm relearning things over and over, so if there's no downside to Windows, I'd probably lazy-default into it.

 

 

Anyway, by my (possibly flawed) understanding, TrueNAS and HomeAssistant both have OS implementations, as well as a version that runs within another OS (what's this called?).  Does it make any sense to run one OS or the other OS and then can I run the other programs within those? Or am I supposed to run those OS's within separate Docker containers? 

 

And if its preferred to run the individual programs within docker containers, then what is the preferred/suggested OS to run underneath it all? And out of curiosity, how do different docker containers share top level resources?

[Swatch]

Ok, so after a bit of LMGTFM (Let Me Google That For Myself), the following appears to be the primary suggestions...

 

1. Proxmox with VMs for HA, TrueNAS , and another 'general purpose' OS that runs Docker to handle the media server and other servers?
2. TrueNAS Scale with HA and other apps running in containers or as their own VMs
3. Windows running Docker or VirtualBox with all of the above.

Is there any reason I should runaway from one of those options?

[Bersella AI]

2 hours ago, Swatch said:

Ok, so after a bit of LMGTFM (Let Me Google That For Myself), the following appears to be the primary suggestions...

 

1. Proxmox with VMs for HA, TrueNAS , and another 'general purpose' OS that runs Docker to handle the media server and other servers?
2. TrueNAS Scale with HA and other apps running in containers or as their own VMs
3. Windows running Docker or VirtualBox with all of the above.

Is there any reason I should runaway from one of those options?

Among these options, TrueNAS Scale would seem to be the easiest way to start with, as it serves as a native NAS with other functions available by just installing apps, avoiding any complications such as management of VMs or issues with Docker in Windows.

 

This build would be a good start for a home lab, but it's questionable in some regards:

• If you intend to make transcoding in Plex, then unfortunately, the GTX 970 GPU would not be capable of 4K HEVC decoding and would waste your power. You may need to replace it with a more recent GPU starting from GTX 1050 or Quadro P400.
• Having an SSD for booting would be the first consideration in regard of storage. Since you already have hard drives as well, check out their capacities and ask yourself whether they would be sufficient for future use. There have already been lots of 4K contents that may not be missed out, but require a lot of storage.
  You may also consider which types of files to be stored. For re-downloadable media, a RAID disk array may not be required, and Just a Bunch of Disks (JBoD) can be implemented to arrange all drives as a single pool. For critical & valued data, however, you may consider other options like a RAID 1 (Mirrored) array, another pool for redundancy, and a cloud backup.

In any case, these software would be handled by this machine pretty well, but would have pros & cons. It depends on your choice, but remember: just have fun with it, do not panic.

[88pockets]

22 hours ago, Swatch said:

Ok, so after a bit of LMGTFM (Let Me Google That For Myself), the following appears to be the primary suggestions...

 

1. Proxmox with VMs for HA, TrueNAS , and another 'general purpose' OS that runs Docker to handle the media server and other servers?
2. TrueNAS Scale with HA and other apps running in containers or as their own VMs
3. Windows running Docker or VirtualBox with all of the above.

Is there any reason I should runaway from one of those options?

Check out unRAID, especially as a novice to homelabbing, i think unRAID is far and away the best choice.  LTT has covered it quite a bit and youtubers SpaceInvaderOne and Ibracorp have tutorials on so many great things you can do with unRAID.  There is imho the best NAS options for a server you want to grow with as you can add one drive at a time if you so choice, where as you will need to add a full vdev if you want to expand a ZFS pool.  The community applications tab that you can install as a plugin, offers a store front for docker applications.  unRAID also supports virtualization with hardware passthrough that is much easier to learn then installing a VFIO setup on a linux distro yourself.  The only downside is that it is not free, but they offer a trial and I even got an extension to the trial.  It is really great software and will serve as a jumping off point into more and more technologies.  It is powerful software, but also approachable.  Plus there is a lot of great content on YouTube to teach you everything you will need to know.