Homemedia sever and file sever

[Sirkingjamz]

So my idea is to have a pc that's just going to host my media files, just the game files and my central back up for all my laptops and desktops I have in my apt. Now I don't need the sever to be a vm or anything like that just a destination for me to install my games (as to save disk space and multiple installs/ and forget steam network share... I hate that thing) stream my videos and music and do a weekly back up to.
For the most part I figure a 4 core Intel could handle most the work (trans-coding video, streaming music, and host and store my back ups) 16gb of ram should do the trick and 3 x 3tb hdd and one 64gb ssd for os and cache. My question is these: is my plan possible and or ideal? Can I use that ssd as some fast ram? And could I get acesses to this remotely? Also what os should I use?

[Guest]

Would not recommend installing games to a server

[ArkTheYO]

never heard of using ssd as fast ram though!  though we your question is interesting and ill follow it on o learn more. Sorry for wasting ur time!

[dricha36]

6 hours ago, Sirkingjamz said:

So my idea is to have a pc that's just going to host my media files, just the game files and my central back up for all my laptops and desktops I have in my apt. Now I don't need the sever to be a vm or anything like that just a destination for me to install my games (as to save disk space and multiple installs/ and forget steam network share... I hate that thing) stream my videos and music and do a weekly back up to.
For the most part I figure a 4 core Intel could handle most the work (trans-coding video, streaming music, and host and store my back ups) 16gb of ram should do the trick and 3 x 3tb hdd and one 64gb ssd for os and cache. My question is these: is my plan possible and or ideal? Can I use that ssd as some fast ram? And could I get acesses to this remotely? Also what os should I use?

DEAR GOD NO. 

 

Installing games to a remote location is going to give you THE WORST possible experience. This doesn't really relate to bandwidth either - Even if you have a 10Gb link between the computer and the file server, the latency will make games unplayable (if they will even launch).

 

As for media server, transcoding, ect...    I think you're off to a great start here. I would highly recommend using unRAID (as featured in a number of LTT videos) as your host operating system. This will offer great protection against HDD failures, and provides a great platform for sharing files, and allows you to easily tack on a VM or two (or 50) for tasks. The easiest way to share media and transcode it is to add the pre-configured docker container for Plex media server. Plex is a GREAT suite for media! 

 

unRAID actually runs off of a USB drive, but will also allow you to easily assign the SSD as a cache for data (though you won't be able to use the SSD as RAM. This goes for any OS, though)

[Electronics Wizardy]

13 hours ago, dricha36 said:

DEAR GOD NO. 

 

Installing games to a remote location is going to give you THE WORST possible experience. This doesn't really relate to bandwidth either - Even if you have a 10Gb link between the computer and the file server, the latency will make games unplayable (if they will even launch).

 

As for media server, transcoding, ect...    I think you're off to a great start here. I would highly recommend using unRAID (as featured in a number of LTT videos) as your host operating system. This will offer great protection against HDD failures, and provides a great platform for sharing files, and allows you to easily tack on a VM or two (or 50) for tasks. The easiest way to share media and transcode it is to add the pre-configured docker container for Plex media server. Plex is a GREAT suite for media! 

 

unRAID actually runs off of a USB drive, but will also allow you to easily assign the SSD as a cache for data (though you won't be able to use the SSD as RAM. This goes for any OS, though)

Running games off a server is fine. Its faster than a normal 2.5/3.5 hdd in many cases.

[dricha36]

22 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Running games off a server is fine. Its faster than a normal 2.5/3.5 hdd in many cases.

I think the word "faster" is our source of disagreement here.  While yes, an array of HDDs could offer him better read speeds than a single HDD in his PC, the latency between his computer and the hard drives would kill him. His throughput would be fine (though not as high as a local SSD), but there's just no way the games could handle the latency (unless of course, he is using fiber connections between machines)

[Sirkingjamz]

guys all this has been very helpful!!!! i proceeded to make the machine with some salvaged old hdd's on my trial unraid account.... and i love it!!! Ultimately i didn't decide to install games on the nas, maybe when i have more hdd space and a cache sdd ill try it. but for now i have started backing up my desktop, made a VM (though i didnt think i needed one) and added some network drives to save "local" files. i feel really good about this! Now i just need to figure out a safe and secure way to access "FTP" i guess into my music and video files on the road with my phone that way i can free up some space on my phone lol, seeing how i have unlimited data and just about 4 batteries for my phone i feel this is a good idea. As far as it goes with the nas i need to also figure out how to get a media server up and running... I HATE PLEX... ill just put that there lol. im thinking with my VM i could run PS3 media server (its a very light java app that streams to everything) thats my best idea for local streaming. as for the people interested in real world numbers for fps, latency and overall general gameplay i will update this post to let you guys know, i think its still a very good idea to at least try. also ill need to buy a 10GB pci-e card for the server as well (unless i can find a cheap FX 83XX for my spare MB). but thank you guys for all the help and the future help as well. Thanks guys.

 

EDIT:

sorry forgot specs... everyone loves specs... my server is "weak" but it was free lol

M/B: Intel Corporation - DG41TX

CPU: Pentium® Dual-Core CPU E5700 @ 3.00GHz

HVM: Enabled

IOMMU: Disabled

Cache: 32 kB, 2048 kB

Memory: 8192 MB (max. installable capacity 8 GB)

Network: eth0: 100Mb/s - Full Duplex

Kernel: Linux 4.1.18-unRAID x86_64

System Status			GeneralCountersErrors
Load Statistics
CPU utilization	23%
CPU speed	core 0 / 1	1400 MHz	3000 MHz
Memory usage	64%
flash : log : docker	1%	2%	Not available

my parity is a 2TB WD green, disk 1 500gb disk 2 1TB

my airflow is very poor. im thinking of moving all my fans just to the hdd's. my cpu dosent seem to get hot what so ever and my hdd's are always heat warning... smh. well thats all i really have. thanks again guys!

 

[leadeater]

On 5/27/2016 at 5:08 PM, dricha36 said:

DEAR GOD NO. 

 

Installing games to a remote location is going to give you THE WORST possible experience. This doesn't really relate to bandwidth either - Even if you have a 10Gb link between the computer and the file server, the latency will make games unplayable (if they will even launch).

 

I have my entire Steam library on my server, 112 installed of 249 totaling 1.2TB. Yes I do have 10Gb and the array that this data sits on is all SSD but that is by choice not need.

 

1Gb network latency is vastly lower than a standard HDD, sub millisecond vs 8ms-60ms+ depending on I/O request size. Yes SFP+ (including copper DAC) is lower latency than 10GBase-T copper but that is still in the same realms as SATA SSD, not NVMe however. SSD latency can be as high as 2ms which is one of the reasons why they still have DRAM cache in them.

 

 

However all I am saying is it is possible to install games on a server but it certainly is not that simple to do and achieve good performance. There are many factors; jumbo frames, protocol choice, server hardware specs etc. It's very hard to go wrong with just installing an HDD/SSD locally in to your desktop but it is very easy to get network storage wrong.