Looking for advice on a DIY Home Server Build

[Blairfriesen94]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm looking into building my own home server and I want it to do (what feels like) quite a few things. And before anyone mentions it, I'm not expecting it to be cheap.

 

Form factor isn't a huge deal whether it's rack mounted or built into a case. I eventually plan on upgrading my home network such as running Ethernet directly to rooms I need it in, and some access points around the house so I may eventually be getting a server rack anyway just for sake of keeping things neat and tidy.

 

Here's what I would like it to be able to do:

 

-Stream media to any device inside and outside the home network
-Server side transcoding for devices with limited codec support
-Host game servers to run 24/7
-Auto download torrents via RSS feed
-Manually add and manage torrents
-Detect file types, rename files based on a specified uniformed format, and organize into folders and create folders if required folders don't exist
-Cloud storage service accessable from outside of home network and maybe be able to split into multiple users
-VPN connectable
-auto back up for multiple computers deticating about 6tb

 

I'm also happy to hear any other ideas that you guys figure might benefit me.

 

Thanks for your help in advance!

[Blairfriesen94]

I would like it to be highly automated and remote management would be very handy considering I spend a lot of time away from home for work.

[That_PC_Kid]

What is your budget? 

[BDunkz]

19 minutes ago, That_PC_Kid said:

What is your budget? 

Op said he is not to fussed on price 

[Jerped]

54 minutes ago, Blairfriesen94 said:

Hey everyone,

 

I'm looking into building my own home server and I want it to do (what feels like) quite a few things. And before anyone mentions it, I'm not expecting it to be cheap.

 

Form factor isn't a huge deal whether it's rack mounted or built into a case. I eventually plan on upgrading my home network such as running Ethernet directly to rooms I need it in, and some access points around the house so I may eventually be getting a server rack anyway just for sake of keeping things neat and tidy.

 

Here's what I would like it to be able to do:

 

-Stream media to any device inside and outside the home network
-Server side transcoding for devices with limited codec support
-Host game servers to run 24/7
-Auto download torrents via RSS feed
-Manually add and manage torrents
-Detect file types, rename files based on a specified uniformed format, and organize into folders and create folders if required folders don't exist
-Cloud storage service accessable from outside of home network and maybe be able to split into multiple users
-VPN connectable
-auto back up for multiple computers deticating about 6tb

 

I'm also happy to hear any other ideas that you guys figure might benefit me.

 

Thanks for your help in advance!

Have you checked into the used server market first? Yes it's bigger, yes it's louder, yes it's hungrier on power, but honestly you can get really good performance into a used DELL or Supermicro server. I don't personally recommend a used HP server as they tend to use "proprietary" HDD firmware and is a pain to maintain. 

Depending on where you live, deals can be pretty good too.I myself bought a used Dell R510 server for around 800CAD (dual quad core+hyperthreading, 32Gb RAM and 12x300Gb 15k SAS drive). It's a small spec, but I have many different gaming servers running on it as well as some back for my gaming rig and a media server.

Building a new PC with the same specs, but less hard drives, would have cost around 1500CAD. It's definitely worth looking.

 

Another advantage of servers is redundancy. You get the security of redundant power supply, CPU, many drives if put in RAID, .....

 

For OS I sadly don't have any specific recommendation. I'm more on the hardware side of things hahahahahah

[leadeater]

Used servers easily the best way to go, fan modding etc can be done to make them quieter. Find one that uses 3.5" disk bays though else you'll be limited in mass storage size or suffering much higher cost for disks.

[Blairfriesen94]

16 hours ago, Jerped said:

Have you checked into the used server market first? Yes it's bigger, yes it's louder, yes it's hungrier on power, but honestly you can get really good performance into a used DELL or Supermicro server. I don't personally recommend a used HP server as they tend to use "proprietary" HDD firmware and is a pain to maintain. 

Depending on where you live, deals can be pretty good too.I myself bought a used Dell R510 server for around 800CAD (dual quad core+hyperthreading, 32Gb RAM and 12x300Gb 15k SAS drive). It's a small spec, but I have many different gaming servers running on it as well as some back for my gaming rig and a media server.

Building a new PC with the same specs, but less hard drives, would have cost around 1500CAD. It's definitely worth looking.

 

Another advantage of servers is redundancy. You get the security of redundant power supply, CPU, many drives if put in RAID, .....

 

For OS I sadly don't have any specific recommendation. I'm more on the hardware side of things hahahahahah

I have not looked into it but that sounds like a great idea, I'm definitely going to see what I can find in my area. Do you have any ideas on what kind of hardware would be required for what I'm looking to do? I already have an idea of what I want for storage drives but everything else im not too sure. Like processor, ram, motherboard, psu.

 

If I'm looking into used then I probably can't get to picky there but I may or may not need to upgrade some hardware and I'd like to look for stuff around the ball park of what I need in order to minimize the amount of hardware I need to upgrade.

[Blairfriesen94]

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

Used servers easily the best way to go, fan modding etc can be done to make them quieter. Find one that uses 3.5" disk bays though else you'll be limited in mass storage size or suffering much higher cost for disks.

Yeah, I totally agree. I'm actually hoping to use some higher capacity Seagate Ironwolf drives.

[Jerped]

4 hours ago, Blairfriesen94 said:

I have not looked into it but that sounds like a great idea, I'm definitely going to see what I can find in my area. Do you have any ideas on what kind of hardware would be required for what I'm looking to do? I already have an idea of what I want for storage drives but everything else im not too sure. Like processor, ram, motherboard, psu.

 

If I'm looking into used then I probably can't get to picky there but I may or may not need to upgrade some hardware and I'd like to look for stuff around the ball park of what I need in order to minimize the amount of hardware I need to upgrade.

You can have a look at this: https://www.theserverstore.com/content/supermicro-6027r-e1r12n-superstorage-server

 

I would recommend you checking for this specific config (you can choose the parts on the right side of the screen)

2x Xeon-2660 eight core

32Gb RAM minimum, you can put more if you want  but 32 for game servers, media transcoding, ..... is a minimum I'd say.

Controller, choose an LSI card. Adaptec is cheap compared ^^".

You can add hard drives if you want, otherwise they ship the server with the Trays so you can put your own in it. it's compatible with 3.5" drives.

 

I chose you a 2U server as it's a good size for a home server and you have some good customization options (like putting a graphics card if you want.). You can check their section for desktop servers, but I think the deals they offer is better for the Rack servers.

 

[bobhays]

On 7/22/2017 at 11:21 PM, Blairfriesen94 said:

Hey everyone,

 

I'm looking into building my own home server and I want it to do (what feels like) quite a few things. And before anyone mentions it, I'm not expecting it to be cheap.

 

Form factor isn't a huge deal whether it's rack mounted or built into a case. I eventually plan on upgrading my home network such as running Ethernet directly to rooms I need it in, and some access points around the house so I may eventually be getting a server rack anyway just for sake of keeping things neat and tidy.

 

Here's what I would like it to be able to do:

 

-Stream media to any device inside and outside the home network
-Server side transcoding for devices with limited codec support
-Host game servers to run 24/7
-Auto download torrents via RSS feed
-Manually add and manage torrents
-Detect file types, rename files based on a specified uniformed format, and organize into folders and create folders if required folders don't exist
-Cloud storage service accessable from outside of home network and maybe be able to split into multiple users
-VPN connectable
-auto back up for multiple computers deticating about 6tb

 

I'm also happy to hear any other ideas that you guys figure might benefit me.

 

Thanks for your help in advance!

everyone is recommending hardware but for the software side I suggest FreeNAS. With the plex plugin you can handle the media and server side transcode. I've never hosted game servers so I'm not sure how to go about that. There are torrent plugins for FreeNAS that you could probably set up with the RSS feed, using the Transmission plug-in you can do manual torrents. OwnCloud/NexCloud will work for you cloud needs and they have multiple users. For back ups you'd need to set that up on the client side, but you can just store them on your NAS.

 

The only things I'm not sure about is the game server, VPN, and automated file organization. I'm sure you can figure out the VPN and file organization but I'm not so certain about the game server.

[BDunkz]

3 hours ago, bobhays said:

've never hosted game

Basically create a vm and load the data on to a drive and run it in game hoster or some os like that. I don't think its around any more but there should be ones like it

[Zender]

On 25-7-2017 at 10:12 AM, BDunkz said:

Basically create a vm and load the data on to a drive and run it in game hoster or some os like that. I don't think its around any more but there should be ones like it

Headless stuff like gameservers generally run much better using containers, less overhead, better performance, lower power usage, etc. Its a few percent, but it really helps hosting more stuff on your hardware.

 

And the lower power consumption due to lower cpu usage and better idling save serious energy costs. This also lowers the amount of cooling noise.

 

There are enough containers types available that are easy to use, a lot of people use docker these days, but I prefer lxc/lxd over docker because docker isn't that secure. I'm using an ubuntu LTS server (16.04).  Much better security and you litterally only need to paste three commando's to set it up and one to log into the game server (and one to open a port on your host... lxd).

 

Edit: forgot to mention: experimenting with a host that runs the 6 monthly release of ubuntu (currently 17.04) and using lxd's with ubuntu 16.04 LTS so I don't have to maintain them. Noticing lower power usage using 17.04, probably due to the newer kernel+drivers. Funny thing is that the 16.04 containers are benefitting from that. 

[jkirkcaldy]

My server usage is almost identical to this so this is what I'm using.

On 23/07/2017 at 7:21 AM, Blairfriesen94 said:

-Stream media to any device inside and outside the home network
-Server side transcoding for devices with limited codec support
-Host game servers to run 24/7
-Auto download torrents via RSS feed
-Manually add and manage torrents
-Detect file types, rename files based on a specified uniformed format, and organize into folders and create folders if required folders don't exist
-Cloud storage service accessable from outside of home network and maybe be able to split into multiple users
-VPN connectable

CPU: i7 3770

MOBO: Gigabyte z77-udh5

RAM: 32GB (can't remember what ram)

PSU: some random 850w (needs replacing with something more efficient/reliable)

Case: Logic Case SC-4316 (4u rackmount)

OS HDD: Crucial 250gb ssd

Storage HDD: random assortment of drives that I am slowly replacing with more nas specific drives. around 35TB total raw storage.

OS: Windows Server 2012r2

RAID: FlexRaid Transparent raid. 

 

I use plex for my media server, this does all of what your requirements are for serving your media and transcoding it on the fly for different devices with different codec support. 

 

OS is windows so if the game runs on windows - it will probably work on this too - you could always use a hyper-v VM or some other vm to host it on another os if needs be. 

 

not too sure what the policy on the forum is about talking about torrenting and piracy probably not a good idea, but there are a couple of automated systems that you can implement with remote access to add and search whilst away from your server. DM me for more info. 

 

I use filebot to run a script on my downloads folder to check for new files and rename and move into the correct folders for plex as plex is pretty strict about the file structure and file naming if you want it to work properly. 

 

Cloud storage - I use nextcloud running in a linux vm using a shared folder on the server for it's storage. This basically works like dropbox or other cloud providers, i.e. multiple users, desktop and mobile clients, file sharing etc etc.  All accessible outside of the house but for it to work properly you are going to want a web domain and a ssl certificate. 

 

VPN, i actually don't bother with a vpn, I did but tbh the internet at my home isn't good enough to bother. And the whole reason I use a vpn is to stop my isp logging all of my web traffic so it would kind of defeat the purpose. But it's fairly easy to get set up.

 

I use crashplan to backup my computers to the server and then I backup the server (minus plex media which is about 15TB now) to crashplan's servers, probably about 1TB of important documents and the computer backups. Os drive is backed up to an internal drive to protect against a drive failure, that's about it. 

 

I also just set up a second linux vm using ubuntu server to cache all my steam downloads as well as the games my flatmates download too (we play a lot of similar games so makes sense to do this.) so the game/update downloads to the server and the client at the same time then the next time it needs to be downloaded it comes from my server rather than over the net. 

 

 

 

The whole thing runs at about 160w average, but it's never idle really. it's always doing something. 

[duelistjp]

for about $1000 i got a used 36 bay supermicro on ebay dual xeon with 128gb ram. get an ssd for the boot drive and just get 8tb wd easystores from best buy when they are on sale.  you can shuck those easily