Media server and backup

[willmaz0]

Hello
I need help with a project I want to do. The idea is to have a PC for backup and a media server.
What parts do you recommend?

 

[Eigenvektor]

You should mention the budget you have and how much data you need to back up.

 

You shouldn't need anything special, primarily a board with good network and tons of storage. If you want to transcode, get a GPU, otherwise an iGPU should be more than enough

[Needfuldoer]

A good starting point would be an old office PC with a mirrored pair of large hard drives and an SSD to boot from and store your media server's database on.

 

 

How much data are you planning to store, and what's your budget?

 

Remember, RAID is not a backup. RAID is insurance against having to restore from your backups. You'll still want to make backups to something like a couple external drives you can leave unplugged when you're not actively using them.

[Dr. Will0hlep]

As others have said, this really depends...

 

How much data are you storing?

What devices will be streaming from your media server? (Just computers? or are there also TVs, Phones, Tablets?)

Do you need access to the data from anywhere?

Do you need fast access to the data?

What is your budget?

Is there any other homelabs type stuff you might end up wanting to do?

[Dedayog]

45 minutes ago, willmaz0 said:

Hello
I need help with a project I want to do. The idea is to have a PC for backup and a media server.
What parts do you recommend?

 

Is this still relevant?

 

 

[willmaz0]

Hi, thank´s

My ideia is full tower pc , i want something reliable for the long term use. It´s just for me to use for some HDD raid config and for media watch. My budget is 1000 EUR, HDD not incluid in the budget.

i will use this to stream for me tv, pc and phone.

I will only acess the data in house.

For now i will buy 4 or 5, 18 or 20 tb HDD, later i will add more.

My problem right now is the parts for the computer, like motherboard, cpu, etc, what parts and brands you recomend.

The ram i think has to be ecc, but not sure.

Software i dont know the best option is true nas or unraid, or proxmox.

Any help is Welcome!

 

@Dr. Will0hlep @Eigenvektor @Needfuldoer

[willmaz0]

3 hours ago, Dedayog said:

Is this still relevant?

 

 

It´s been to long for that!

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, willmaz0 said:

Hi, thank´s

My ideia is full tower pc , i want something reliable for the long term use. It´s just for me to use for some HDD raid config and for media watch. My budget is 1000 EUR, HDD not incluid in the budget.

i will use this to stream for me tv, pc and phone.

I will only acess the data in house.

For now i will buy 4 or 5, 18 or 20 tb HDD, later i will add more.

My problem right now is the parts for the computer, like motherboard, cpu, etc, what parts and brands you recomend.

The ram i think has to be ecc, but not sure.

Software i dont know the best option is true nas or unraid, or proxmox.

Any help is Welcome!

 

@Dr. Will0hlep @Eigenvektor @Needfuldoer

You don't need more than an Intel 12400 to run an overkill nas/Plex.

 

So if you told us what you plan on doing with it, we can narrow in.

 

Otherwise a $500 budget without drives is enough.

 

 

[willmaz0]

8 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

You don't need more than an Intel 12400 to run an overkill nas/Plex.

 

So if you told us what you plan on doing with it, we can narrow in.

 

Otherwise a $500 budget without drives is enough.

 

 

I want to do like a plex server( or something similar) and mass storage HDD with some raid involve.

You talk about intel, but amd it´s not a good option? And ecc ram it´s not a must have?

[Dr. Will0hlep]

2 minutes ago, willmaz0 said:

I want to do like a plex server( or something similar) and mass storage HDD with some raid involve.

You talk about intel, but amd it´s not a good option? And ecc ram it´s not a must have?

ECC ram would make sense if it was absolutely critical to avoid crashes. If all you want is a media server, normal ram will be completely fine.

 

As for AMD vs Intel, if you go AMD you'll need a discrete GPU to do the transcoding needed to stream to TVs. With Intel you get an iGPU built in.

 

1 hour ago, willmaz0 said:

Software i dont know the best option is true nas or unraid, or proxmox.

So Proxmox is a OS designed for running VMs. It is very good if you want to run other things on the NAS at the same time, but if all you want is an SMB share and Plex/Jellyfin, it is overkill.

 

Unraid is a very good option with lots of nice to have features. However, Unraid isn't free.

 

I'd probably suggest TrueNAS Scale unless you have any extra more complicated fans.

 

1 hour ago, willmaz0 said:

For now i will buy 4 or 5, 18 or 20 tb HDD, later i will add more.

Okay, so firstly, a few big drives is alot better than loads of small drives, so nice pick.

 

That said, you'll want to run them in raid with some redundancy so make sure you've factored that in. Keep in mind, Raid is not a backup. It doesn't protect you against most kinds of failures or attacks. It only protects you against drive failures, and even then it is only cancelling out the increased chance of a drive failure that you have when you have lots of drives.

[willmaz0]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Will0hlep said:

ECC ram would make sense if it was absolutely critical to avoid crashes. If all you want is a media server, normal ram will be completely fine.

 

As for AMD vs Intel, if you go AMD you'll need a discrete GPU to do the transcoding needed to stream to TVs. With Intel you get an iGPU built in.

 

So Proxmox is a OS designed for running VMs. It is very good if you want to run other things on the NAS at the same time, but if all you want is an SMB share and Plex/Jellyfin, it is overkill.

 

Unraid is a very good option with lots of nice to have features. However, Unraid isn't free.

 

I'd probably suggest TrueNAS Scale unless you have any extra more complicated fans.

 

Okay, so firstly, a few big drives is alot better than loads of small drives, so nice pick.

 

That said, you'll want to run them in raid with some redundancy so make sure you've factored that in. Keep in mind, Raid is not a backup. It doesn't protect you against most kinds of failures or attacks. It only protects you against drive failures, and even then it is only cancelling out the increased chance of a drive failure that you have when you have lots of drives.

Thanks for the explanation.
Which parts (CPU, RAM, motherboard, graphics card) do you recommend buying?

[willmaz0]

7 minutes ago, Dr. Will0hlep said:

I'd probably suggest TrueNAS Scale unless you have any extra more complicated fans.

 

Yeah, TrueNas looks like a good option, but i heard that is a bit complicated for beginners.

[Dr. Will0hlep]

5 minutes ago, willmaz0 said:

Yeah, TrueNas looks like a good option, but i heard that is a bit complicated for beginners.

imo, they are all complicated for beginners.

 

They are all commercial solutions, stripped down for home users.

 

Proxmox adds a whole extra layer of complexity because even after you set it up, you still then need to setup a VM running either TrueNAS or UNraid on it.

 

UNraid (being paid software) is supposed to be a little simpler than TrueNAS.

Also, there is also HexOS, which is a paid skin for TrueNAS that makes it easier to use.

 

But, TrueNAS has the largest user base, and therefore is the easiest to get help with.

[willmaz0]

10 minutes ago, Dr. Will0hlep said:

imo, they are all complicated for beginners.

 

They are all commercial solutions, stripped down for home users.

 

Proxmox adds a whole extra layer of complexity because even after you set it up, you still then need to setup a VM running either TrueNAS or UNraid on it.

 

UNraid (being paid software) is supposed to be a little simpler than TrueNAS.

Also, there is also HexOS, which is a paid skin for TrueNAS that makes it easier to use.

 

But, TrueNAS has the largest user base, and therefore is the easiest to get help with.

thanks i will go with the TrueNas option.

For the build what you recommend!

[Dedayog]

3 hours ago, willmaz0 said:

I want to do like a plex server( or something similar) and mass storage HDD with some raid involve.

You talk about intel, but amd it´s not a good option? And ecc ram it´s not a must have?

Will you be using it to host game servers?  Run lots of vm?

[willmaz0]

5 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Will you be using it to host game servers?  Run lots of vm?

No games servers, and not a lot of vm´s.

[Dedayog]

2 minutes ago, willmaz0 said:

No games servers, and not a lot of vm´s.

Then a cheap power efficient Intel CPU is great.

 

Like that 12400 I mention.   Great igpu for transcoding.

 

12400

Random motherboard with a lot of sata ports

32gb DDR4 3200/16

1tb nvme boot cache drive

Any decent 450w+ PSU

Case that fits a lot of drives like fractal define r6

Big ass hdds

 

There's no set build that's perfect, tons of them will do the job.  

[willmaz0]

22 hours ago, Dedayog said:

Then a cheap power efficient Intel CPU is great.

 

Like that 12400 I mention.   Great igpu for transcoding.

 

12400

Random motherboard with a lot of sata ports

32gb DDR4 3200/16

1tb nvme boot cache drive

Any decent 450w+ PSU

Case that fits a lot of drives like fractal define r6

Big ass hdds

 

There's no set build that's perfect, tons of them will do the job.  

Thank you for the help, i will look in to that!

[gentlemanspot]

I use Proxmox, 

 

There is good script support  (i use the Plex LXC) 

https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/

 

I did run TrueNas inside Proxmox with hardware passthrough to HDD's 

 

i have since moved to a dedicated Truenas box and use proxmox form homelab stuff 

 

 

 

If you want all in one with less stress (I.e forplex + Filesever + *arrs) Truenas would be the best 

 

[willmaz0]

On 9/30/2025 at 4:15 AM, gentlemanspot said:

I use Proxmox, 

 

There is good script support  (i use the Plex LXC) 

https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/

 

I did run TrueNas inside Proxmox with hardware passthrough to HDD's 

 

i have since moved to a dedicated Truenas box and use proxmox form homelab stuff 

 

 

 

If you want all in one with less stress (I.e forplex + Filesever + *arrs) Truenas would be the best 

 

thanks 

For me the more simple the better.