Prospective NAS

[SmirbYrneh679]

Budget (including currency): $750 USD (may deviate by up to $50)

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: NAS, web server (planning to use virtualization to run both on the same machine)

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): 
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3RN4TM
My local Micro Center has bundle deals for AMD Zen 4 and 5 CPUs starting with the 7600X

 

[Dedayog]

29 minutes ago, SmirbYrneh679 said:

Budget (including currency): $750 USD (may deviate by up to $50)

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: NAS, web server (planning to use virtualization to run both on the same machine)

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): 
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3RN4TM
My local Micro Center has bundle deals for AMD Zen 4 and 5 CPUs starting with the 7600X

 

Is there anything else you'll use the server for?  Game servers at all?  

 

If just a NAS/Plex/Jellyfin type box you can get away with cheaper.  I started mine with a Ryzen 1600 and 8GB RAM.  This did file sharing and 3-4 concurrent Plex streams.  I bumped this to a 5600 + 16GB RAM due to upgrading some other machines.

 

I've since moved to a 5900XT ($199 at MC) + 64GB RAM for hosting game servers.

 

Also, if you do run Plex, maybe go Intel for iGPU transcoding.  You'll want a dedicated GPU if you go AMD I think.

 

Current server:

 

Plex: AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT 16c/32t - Gigabyte B550M AORUS Elite AX - TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan 64GB 3200CL16 - MSI 1050Ti 4GB - Crucial P3 Plus 500GB + TeamGroup MP44L 2TB (Game) + WD Red NAS 4TBx2 (Plex) - TP-Link AC1200 PCIe Wifi - EVGA SuperNova 650 P2 - ASUS Prime AP201

 

 

 

[voyager_]

What OS are you planning to run? It doesn't take much to run just a storage portion, web server will vary depending on use. You may need a GPU to boot, I had to add one to both my unraid servers to even get it to post. For storage you can always look into used drives, I just ordered two 10Tb HGST drives for $100 each on ebay with a 5 year warranty.

[Nord1ing]

Aoostar have 2 good solutio: wtr pro and max.

[SmirbYrneh679]

1 hour ago, Dedayog said:

Is there anything else you'll use the server for?  Game servers at all?  

 

If just a NAS/Plex/Jellyfin type box you can get away with cheaper.  I started mine with a Ryzen 1600 and 8GB RAM.  This did file sharing and 3-4 concurrent Plex streams.  I bumped this to a 5600 + 16GB RAM due to upgrading some other machines.

 

I've since moved to a 5900XT ($199 at MC) + 64GB RAM for hosting game servers.

 

Also, if you do run Plex, maybe go Intel for iGPU transcoding.  You'll want a dedicated GPU if you go AMD I think.

 

Current server:

 

Plex: AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT 16c/32t - Gigabyte B550M AORUS Elite AX - TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan 64GB 3200CL16 - MSI 1050Ti 4GB - Crucial P3 Plus 500GB + TeamGroup MP44L 2TB (Game) + WD Red NAS 4TBx2 (Plex) - TP-Link AC1200 PCIe Wifi - EVGA SuperNova 650 P2 - ASUS Prime AP201

 

 

 

I don't plan to run any games on this build at all, let alone a game server.
I'd say NAS (not Plex nor Jellyfin), mail server, and website hosting.

[SmirbYrneh679]

1 hour ago, voyager_ said:

What OS are you planning to run? It doesn't take much to run just a storage portion, web server will vary depending on use. You may need a GPU to boot, I had to add one to both my unraid servers to even get it to post. For storage you can always look into used drives, I just ordered two 10Tb HGST drives for $100 each on ebay with a 5 year warranty.

I'm eyeing XCP-ng for a level 1 hypervisor so that I can run multiple differently configured OSes (e.g. TrueNAS and Arch)

[Dedayog]

38 minutes ago, SmirbYrneh679 said:

I don't plan to run any games on this build at all, let alone a game server.
I'd say NAS (not Plex nor Jellyfin), mail server, and website hosting.

Then any of the minimal level bundles are vastly more than enough.  7600X bundle for $299 is great.

[voyager_]

23 minutes ago, SmirbYrneh679 said:

I'm eyeing XCP-ng for a level 1 hypervisor so that I can run multiple differently configured OSes (e.g. TrueNAS and Arch)

When it comes to storage i would avoid virtualizing the OS, TrueNAS can run vm's without adding the additional risk and overhead of also having to virtualize the NAS portion of the computer. There is also a good argument for splitting this computer into two seperate devices since you want to use part of it to run web facing services. That's just my preference though, On my servers im running Unraid on the bare metal and virtualizing my ISO vm, Home assistant, plex, windows, etc.... and my other server acts as another backup and running a windows vm for my cameras. When it comes to storage I don't want to have to virtualize the OS and deal with passing through storage controllers, if you have an issue changing hardware configs can sometimes cause issues with a vm. Granted you only have two drives but it's something to consider for long term deployment. 

[cmndr]

Describe your use case. Most of the time a NAS barely needs CPU horsepower. 

Also NASes should generally be low power draw so not a huge need for something that costs $$$ and has high power draw. 
MS-01 is solid in my experience if you can get by with ONLY nvme m.2 drives (though you can also slap in a u.2 drive in lieue of one m.2 as well as a low height PCIe card)
 

[SmirbYrneh679]

45 minutes ago, cmndr said:

Describe your use case. Most of the time a NAS barely needs CPU horsepower. 

Also NASes should generally be low power draw so not a huge need for something that costs $$$ and has high power draw. 
MS-01 is solid in my experience if you can get by with ONLY nvme m.2 drives (though you can also slap in a u.2 drive in lieue of one m.2 as well as a low height PCIe card)
 

It's mostly a replacement for the suite of storage drives and cloud storage I currently have. I don't intend to video stream from my NAS, so Jellyfin/Plex isn't a priority.
I'm also planning to use this NAS for web hosting and as a mail server, hence the beefier components.

[cmndr]

Not sure how intensive web hosting is, but a lot of those other things... assumption is that an email server is fine. 

 

 

They'll basically run on ARM CPUs that are around 100x weaker than what you are looking at. 
There's an argument for faster CPUs for things like compression/decompression if you want faster data reads. 

Something like an intel n100/150 is likely several times faster than you need. 

 

---

 

I have my own addictions and overkill - think NAS with 96GB RAM and a 280GB optane L2ARC and an 8TB nvme drive to store stuff that would fit on one of my unused internal drives. 

[SmirbYrneh679]

5 hours ago, cmndr said:

Not sure how intensive web hosting is, but a lot of those other things... assumption is that an email server is fine. 

 

 

They'll basically run on ARM CPUs that are around 100x weaker than what you are looking at. 
There's an argument for faster CPUs for things like compression/decompression if you want faster data reads. 

Something like an intel n100/150 is likely several times faster than you need. 

 

---

 

I have my own addictions and overkill - think NAS with 96GB RAM and a 280GB optane L2ARC and an 8TB nvme drive to store stuff that would fit on one of my unused internal drives. 

I do have an all-in-one PC lying around with an intel i3 4th Gen and 6 GB RAM, will that work or is that nearing the already low line?

[Dedayog]

24 minutes ago, SmirbYrneh679 said:

I do have an all-in-one PC lying around with an intel i3 4th Gen and 6 GB RAM, will that work or is that nearing the already low line?

Hell no, it's good enough.  Give it a shot.

 

My nas was a Ryzen 1600 and 8gb originally.

[cmndr]

5 hours ago, SmirbYrneh679 said:

I do have an all-in-one PC lying around with an intel i3 4th Gen and 6 GB RAM, will that work or is that nearing the already low line?

From a performance perspective, it's fine. The only potential area of concern would be power draw but even then you're probably OK. 
From a minimal cost perspective, something like that with maybe one stick of RAM added in (e.g. 16GB DDR3 to get you to 20ishGB) would check a lot of boxes for a TRUENAS set up. For context my older NAS was about as performant CPU wise and was "fine" - the limit is going to be your network and NOT the CPU anyway. 


Depending on risk tollerance you might even be able to cut costs by going with used drives. 3x used 8ish TB HDDs probably cost less than 2. And the third can be a cold copy you keep unplugged at the other end of the house or ideally in some far off location. There's a bunch places out there like serverpartsdeals and so on. I would NOT do a refurbed single drive ever but RAID1/Z1 set ups are pretty robust.