1st Unraid Build

[BaronVonUber]

Budget (including currency): $1000-1400 Cdn (or less)

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Media, Photo storage

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

I'm looking at putting together a server for Unraid. This will be primarily for movies, music, and photo storage. Someone I work with recommended the Intel i5-12400 2.5 ghz to start with, but I'm open to suggestions. The budget may be a little more than needed, but the Cdn dollar sucks right now. Any feedback appreciated. 

[SorryBella]

If this is your first NAS build, consider learning on TrueNAS off the bat so you can take advantage of its modularity and flexibility on RAID array setup.

Regardless on your operating system of choice though, its best to start off on used office PC that you can find on your local e-waste center or on used marketplace, around i5 6th gen performance with 4 SATA Ports would be plentiful for your use case. From there, you can decide if you want more creature comforts like proper GPU support for transcodes, more SATA Ports, or even slapping on a Host Bus Adapter card so you can choke as many drives as the case can hold.