Server Virgin - 2018 Home Server Project

[TheEnglishGasMan]

Hi There,

 

In 2018 - I've tasked myself with building a Home Media Server Setup and new Gaming PC (Hard Line watercooled - I'm a water cooling virgin). I have my SMA-8 ready for the gaming build but GPU's are still too expensive and I refuse to spend the bucks so I'm going ahead with the Server Build first .

 

Below is my current setup : 

 

 

This is what I'm thinking of moving to :

 

 

Thought process and assumptions : 

 

• Don't have to buy a LAN Switch in above setup; utilise current Router. 
• With PLEX Server Side installed on Media Server + Clients installed on other devices.
• 64GB DDR4 + Ryzen 1700X in NAS for Multi-Streaming 
• 10 Gbps Connection between Gaming PC (Main Use Machine) + Media Server for remote data maintenance / uploading. 

 

Would love your builds / feedback / constructive criticism and advice please! 

 

Thanks in advance

[themctipers]

i doubt you'll need a 1700x

try to go for a haswell i3 or something.. can always go up to a i7 4790k in the future if you really need it

 

[ProjectBox153]

For a NAS, you really don't need a 1700x. I'd look at an i3 and upgrade later. I'm running a Core 2 Duo I got for free and it will saturate my 1Gb/s link. 

[AshleyAshes]

Why would you need 10gbe for a media server? 

[Povilas1]

Why do yo need connection between NAS and main PC? Have you considered about using some kind of autodownloader in your NAS? Like Sonarr or Radarr? So you would not need to quickly move your content between your PC and NAS. In my nas server i have i3 processor and 2GB of DDR3 ram and it is plenty for 4x 1080p streams at a time with plex. I think that 8GB should be enougth even for 4x 4K streams. 

[Salv8 (sam)]

if it is just a storage server and it's not going to do anything else apart from stream video and store files, I would get a NAS box... cheap and simple.

if it's going to do more than that an old computer with a dual core and 4gb ram will do fine, just get more storage and a better PSU (if the old one is not that great, I would recommed it anyway even if it is a good PSU)

also I would never expect images from a first time server user, let alone ones with a professional look, you are doing pretty good for a first timer... 

[SMURG]

As others have already said, the 1700X is overkill even for multi-streaming. I run my plex server on a 10W 4-core Celeron J1900 with 8GB of RAM and it handles everything I throw at it. Remember, plex only needs to transcode if there are bandwidth limitations (not an issue for local playback) or if the client doesn't support the codec. Also remember that when it is transcoding the overhead is proportional to the difference in bitrate, so assuming your media collection isn't entirely made up of 20mbps 4k h.265 files the overhead isn't massive.

 

As for the 10gbps connections, how are you planning to utilise this? At the moment the issue for home users is that the disks you want for their high capacity aren't able to deliver the speeds to justify the cost of 10gbps, and the SSDs that could justify it are cost prohibitive in terms of capacity. I suppose it you have a big enough SSD cache on either side it might be worth it, but even then whats the benefit? Are you routinely moving hundreds of GB at a time between devices?