The do everything box [Need help]

[Đỗ Đức Huy]

With all the servers stuff that Linus have put up over the years,, I'm quite tempted to build a box for myself but I need some help in optimizing my build for the use case:

 

It will be a central NAS to all my media stuff.

It will be a router/ wifi access point so that internal network speed will not suck and I can have some mesure of control over my network.

It will be a seedbox so I don't have to use my main rig to download stuff.

 

So, what kind of hardware do I need to use? Software as well and if you can point to any tutorial on the matter it would be highly apreciated.

[tt2468]

On 2/2/2017 at 11:16 AM, Đỗ Đức Huy said:

With all the servers stuff that Linus have put up over the years,, I'm quite tempted to build a box for myself but I need some help in optimizing my build for the use case:

 

It will be a central NAS to all my media stuff.

It will be a router/ wifi access point so that internal network speed will not suck and I can have some mesure of control over my network.

It will be a seedbox so I don't have to use my main rig to download stuff.

 

So, what kind of hardware do I need to use? Software as well and if you can point to any tutorial on the matter it would be highly apreciated.

Do not make it into a router/AP. Get something like an edgerouter lite and a uap-ac-lr. You can get an r210 II off ebay for $200, and run a hypervisor off of it for your seed box and media server.

[Electronics Wizardy]

I'd make a router a separate box just so when you have to dork with the server the rest of the network doesn't go down with it. 

 

I'd use unify aps for wifi

 

For hardware I'd get a used dell c2100 if you don't mind the rack form factor.  

 

For os I'd run something like linux with kvm and run all the services in a separate vm. 

 

[DiamondShark286]

not to great with server parts but from what i can tell you will probably want a 10 gigabit network card. I also might be wrong about this but I think you need a separate device for networking(a switch/access point ect.).

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 minutes ago, Tb428 said:

not to great with server parts but from what i can tell you will probably want a 10 gigabit network card. I also might be wrong about this but I think you need a separate device for networking(a switch/access point ect.).

No need for 10gbe for most users. 

[Đỗ Đức Huy]

So the servers and the Router/AC point must be separate so that when I dork with it the network does not goes down? Good point.

So how does one build a NAS? For a resident of 3 people total with 6 devices total what would you think spec wise would be enough.

Thanks for all the inputs!

[SiriousArts]

2 hours ago, Đỗ Đức Huy said:

So the servers and the Router/AC point must be separate so that when I dork with it the network does not goes down? Good point.

So how does one build a NAS? For a resident of 3 people total with 6 devices total what would you think spec wise would be enough.

Thanks for all the inputs!

It depends on what you already have. (Any HDDs, RAM or other hardware you might be able to reuse)

Depending on your budget you could either get:
- A rather capable synology/QNAP NAS

- As it seems like you might want to play around with the box a bit more (using it as seedbox and later maybe other stuff) I would probably go with a DIY built system using 
-> FreeNAS or

-> UnRaid

 

In this case for hardware it again depends on your budget. Probably sth like this:
CPU: i3 (maybe i5)

RAM: 16GB (ECC -> especially for FreeNAS)

MoBo: Suitable for your CPU and RAM, preferably with an Intel Gig NIC, some SATA ports and pcie expansion capabilities

HDDs: Depending on how much space you need, Currently 4TB NAS Drives have the best Price/Performance (at least here in germany)

SSD: None for FreeNAS; 64-250GB as Cache for Unraid

A suitable Case and PSU (depending on how much space/power your system needs)

[samiscool51]

it's not great idea to have everything in one box

something like virtualization, yea thats ok

but mission critical devices like a router should be separate and not integrated into other devices

but i get what you are trying to say, a NAS and seed box would be good idea to integrate into one system

just make sure that the seed box has it's own network port to use otherwise you will have a network bottleneck when you are using both the NAS and seed box, i would run Ubuntu or other Linux distro for the seed box and give it

2 core's 4GB RAM and 25GB or more storage

also code name it the "Go Everywhere, Do Everything BOX" that sounds cooler