Home server plans

[Jonm1911]

So I'm approximately 6 months from getting out of the Army (US). I'm planning for some upgrades when I get out, as I'll be moving into my own place again and starting my Master's in Cyber Security. My current computer is, well, old. One of the original i7's, but it still does what I need, as I don't game on PC anymore. Anyway, I want to move all my storage off the main machine first. These drives are small and old, and I want to setup a dedicated solution for storage. I was thinking about building a NAS, but realized that I'll want to run PLEX on the machine, so I wouldn't need two devices up and running 24/7.

 

So the plan is to buy/build a server that will act as storage for movies, music, files, etc. More than likely I will be running Linux, but I haven't nailed that down for sure. While I'm not looking to buy right now, I've been starting to plan. What I'm trying to decide, is should I buy a used rack mount server or go with something a little more consumer grade, with say an i3 chip. 

Pros for the used rack server is that anything running dual Xeons is going to absolutely provide above and beyond what I could need. They're relatively cheap, there's a dual E5620/48gb of memory for under $250 on Ebay. Cons, that thing is going to guzzle power. Also, I don't have need for, nor do I really want, a rack to house it. So I could either buy a small 8-9u rack or take everything out and put it in a tower case.

 

Pros for an i3 or similar based system, its smaller and more compact than a rack mounted server, definitely going to draw less power, more in line with my needs. Cons, may actually cost more than a used rack server, unless I can really find a deal. Would probably have to buy a new case anyway, so that may be a draw. 

 

I know this is kinda scattered, but I'm just brainstorming at this point, hoping some of you with more experience can help me out a little. I guess if I was smart, I'd just use my current i7 machine, but finding memory and components for this thing might be near impossible haha. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id probably go with a i3 system. You don't need the extra cpu or ram of the dual xeon servers.

 

Id probably get something like a i3 6100 or a pentium, 16gb of ram, a 16gb usb stick for boot, a few hdds in raid 5(probably with zfs on linux)

[Pixel5]

if you want something that works out of the box without much effort you should check out synology, if you rather want to tinker around and set stuff up on your own you should pretty much know what you are doing anyways.

[NelizMastr]

I bought an HP ProLiant MicroServer G8 ($200). Swapped out the Celeron for an i3-3220 (got one for $20) and added 16GB RAM. Runs ESXi 6.5 like a dream and currently has a DC, WDS server, AppV standalone server working great, a file server for legacy clients and two regular desktop clients. Still has 9GB RAM free and because the entire environment is mostly idle, just about 300-400MHz of CPU used.

 

In other words, unless you want to have a lot of users, you're basically never going to need beefy quad core CPUs. RAM and storage are the important factors here. Custom builds will yield more upgradability and 4 RAM slots would be preferred as you can go beyond the 16GB limit I have. Don't bother with a rack server. It's just burning power doing barely anything most of the time.

[Mikensan]

Honestly unless there's something about a rackmount or xeon processor that you specifically want, I'd just use your i7 (assuming it's a 920) for your NAS. Very very capable processor. The series of xeons you're looking at, are essentially the exact same arch as the i7 920s (nehalem or whatever). So if you've got a budget for a server possibly roll it into a new desktop? A modern i5 will outperform the i7 920 gaming wise by quite a bit. Or wait for the new AMD zen to come out, supposed to be pretty fast (and hopefully price:performance is good). You should be using DDR3 ram which overall is pretty cheap and not hard to find currently - shouldn't need any other components than maybe a HBA card if you need more SATA ports (or want SATA 3).

 

Food for thought anywho.

 

Otherwise it's like you said, you can get very nice servers on ebay for $200-$500. I currently own a Dell R610, Dell C1100, and an IBM X3650 m3. Love them. My favorite is the R610 because I got the X5650 or X5670, can't remember - total badass core (and the aesthetics are pretty smexy). The rest are L5520.

 

I know for a fact if you do get a Dell you can go to their website and under downloads get up to about version 6 for ESXI (R610/R710) which will include all of the Dell drivers. You'll still need a license (free or paid) but it runs a lot better (go figure) with their image.

[Jonm1911]

Thanks everyone for the advice. Pretty much what I was thinking, anything running a Xeon chip, while cool to play with, is going to be way more than I need.

 

So I had to go back through my order history, this is an i7 950. Motherboard is limited to 24gb, but I think that would be enough. So now I have to decide if I want to use my current machine and upgrade or find something with an i3 and, well, upgrade. Either way I'll be buying new drives, probably be buying more RAM, a dual 10Gbps NIC and a LSI 9211-8i. 

 

Currently toying with some Linux installs in Hyper-V to see what I want to use. Also as I have no experience setting up a Linux machine as a server, I can gain some knowledge before I actually start this thing. If anyone has any other suggestions, just let me know. 

[Mikensan]

24gb definitely enough to get you going. Search ebay/CL or whatever for some old DDR3 that matches what you have. In theory you coulddddd install Server 2016, Hyper-V, then use it as a desktop until you get your personal rig built.