Buy NAS or turning gaming PC into one

[Camouflage42]

Hello everyone, so I did months of research but still can’t decide what would be the best way to do.

 

Option A)

-I buy Synology NAS probably DS423+ or Asustor Lockerstor 4 gen 2, the MAIN use will be storing videos, doing PC backups and hosting Jellyfin server, so I can watch it on Sony X90K, 4K remuxes that is, the stuff I would play on my iPhone would be already in 1080p, 720p or even lower, so I don’t need ANY transcoding if I am not mistaken. But I would use subtitles from time to time, English, French and Slovenian. Also I am not planning to watch or acess stuff outside of house, so LAN exclusively. Would I need Nvidia Shield or Apple TV even for direct playing on TV?

 

Option B)

-Since I bought Xbox Series X, I don’t play games at all on PC and would buy new case which is soundproof because current one is horribly loud and would also need space for more HDDs and would even buy silicone sleaves for them so it will be even quieter. Pc spece are i7 9700k, 32gb ram, rtx 2080, the problem is that gpu alone draws 300w so its a no go for 24/7 run time, and I also want to use xbox only for gaming, not watching movies. Would buy NVME and install linux on and use it when I want to watch a movie, direct HDMI to TV, is PC “strongest” way to watch 4k content? Also I would still keep another SSD with Windows for retro games, like nes, snes, sims etc etc.
 

 

Budget is around 1500€ for all, maybe a touch more if Apple TV is great for LAN watching. 

Yes I complicated everything, sorry, but I am really lost and don’t want to throw bunch of money only to regret it at the end. Also sound is huge factor, quieter the better.

 

happy new year

[Needfuldoer]

I vote for buying a dedicated appliance, or building a low power whitebox NAS. That gaming PC is far more powerful (and power-hungry) than you need, and even if you don't play games it's still useful as a computer.

[Shimejii]

35 minutes ago, Camouflage42 said:

Hello everyone, so I did months of research but still can’t decide what would be the best way to do.

 

Option A)

-I buy Synology NAS probably DS423+ or Asustor Lockerstor 4 gen 2, the MAIN use will be storing videos, doing PC backups and hosting Jellyfin server, so I can watch it on Sony X90K, 4K remuxes that is, the stuff I would play on my iPhone would be already in 1080p, 720p or even lower, so I don’t need ANY transcoding if I am not mistaken. But I would use subtitles from time to time, English, French and Slovenian. Also I am not planning to watch or acess stuff outside of house, so LAN exclusively. Would I need Nvidia Shield or Apple TV even for direct playing on TV?

 

Option B)

-Since I bought Xbox Series X, I don’t play games at all on PC and would buy new case which is soundproof because current one is horribly loud and would also need space for more HDDs and would even buy silicone sleaves for them so it will be even quieter. Pc spece are i7 9700k, 32gb ram, rtx 2080, the problem is that gpu alone draws 300w so its a no go for 24/7 run time, and I also want to use xbox only for gaming, not watching movies. Would buy NVME and install linux on and use it when I want to watch a movie, direct HDMI to TV, is PC “strongest” way to watch 4k content? Also I would still keep another SSD with Windows for retro games, like nes, snes, sims etc etc.
 

 

Budget is around 1500€ for all, maybe a touch more if Apple TV is great for LAN watching. 

Yes I complicated everything, sorry, but I am really lost and don’t want to throw bunch of money only to regret it at the end. Also sound is huge factor, quieter the better.

 

happy new year

The gpu does not draw 300W alone. That is only drawing that wattage when UNDER a full load, if you are just making a NAS it will pretty much be running at the bare minimum wattage. If you really want hell you dont even need the GPU you can use the IGPU on the CPU. But since you want to use it for content and such i would say using the GPU is not a bad choice in the long run.

[Bersella AI]

I might recommend against Option B as it would never become as quiet & power-efficient as Option A. There is also Option C available indeed: building another computer. Since noise is counted as a significant consideration, you may want a build with spinners (hard drives & fans) as fewer or slower as possible, meaning a lower-tier processor & 1 or 2 hard drives with larger capacities would be preferred.

It is said that Seagate drives operate quieter than WD (albeit with slightly higher costs), and should be considered first.

I built my server with a used commercial PC, which perfectly met the requisitions above, with 2 hard drives & 2 fans installed, and can be referred to:

• Case/Motherboard/Power: HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF
• Processor: Pentium G4600
• RAM: 2x Samsung DDR4-2133 4GB
• Hard drives: Seagate Exos X16 (16TB), Seagate SkyHawk (4TB)
• Boot drive: Lenovo SL700 (128GB) (will soon be replaced with Optane)

[aggie113]

With no transcoding requirements I'd look to option A.  Be careful with Synology products as some of the current lineup are only happy with Synology branded hard drives.  You can run others, but it leads to some software annoyances in the NAS interface.  Also be sure to size your appliance properly.  The number of slots you get will dictate a hard ceiling for size.  Also, ideally you will want to account for some form of RAID which would take at least one drive's available space out of the equation.