First ever server build plan

[Crunchy Dragon]

Hello,

 

I'm doing some research for my first ever server build plan and wondered what all I'd need for a dependable server. I'm likely going to use FreeNAS, but beyond that I'm totally lost. I'm planning a file/media server for my family. What goes into building a server? Are there any specialized components I'll need?

 

What kind of hardware should I get?

 

Thanks in advance for any replies, I'm totally out of my depth on this

[ProjectBox153]

I just use a free Core 2 Duo and FreeNAS. It gets about 100-120MB/s over ethernet. 

[leadeater]

It's mostly just like a normal PC, depends more on your storage requirements and other factors like noise and space as to what's recommended to do. I will say get a workstation or server optimized motherboard though, from the likes of supermicro, that play nice with SAS cards. You can get a few issues with gaming focused motherboards not properly handling multiple SAS cards if you need that.

[Crunchy Dragon]

6 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It's mostly just like a normal PC, depends more on your storage requirements and other factors like noise and space as to what's recommended to do. I will say get a workstation or server optimized motherboard though, from the likes of supermicro, that play nice with SAS cards. You can get a few issues with gaming focused motherboards not properly handling multiple SAS cards if you need that.

Current plan is to use SATA rather than SAS, likely will grab a few WD Red drives.

[Crunchy Dragon]

8 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

I just use a free Core 2 Duo and FreeNAS. It gets about 100-120MB/s over ethernet. 

Any chance I could get the same performance from an Athlon 64?

 

I probably wouldn't be able to find a Core 2 Duo for free in my area, might end up going with a Core i5 or possibly even a Xeon on the LGA 1150 socket.

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Current plan is to use SATA rather than SAS, likely will grab a few WD Red drives.

How many drives you looking at? Most people only use SAS HBA's to split out to 4 SATA connections per port, they are super cheap on ebay. Only something you have to think about if you're using more drives than there are SATA connectors on the motherboard.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

How many drives you looking at? Most people only use SAS HBA's to split out to 4 SATA connections per port, they are super cheap on ebay. Only something you have to think about if you're using more drives than there are SATA connectors on the motherboard.

I probably won't use more than 4 drives, possibly expanding to 6 or 8 a few years down the road. Most (modern)motherboards with a SATA connection at all have at least 4, so I'm not concerned about needing SAS, although I'll definitely look into that in the future if I have to.

[ProjectBox153]

3 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Any chance I could get the same performance from an Athlon 64?

 

I probably wouldn't be able to find a Core 2 Duo for free in my area, might end up going with a Core i5 or possibly even a Xeon on the LGA 1150 socket.

Really? No free or cheap C2Ds in your area? I’m shocked. I don’t know about the Athlon. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, Jamiec1130 said:

Really? No free or cheap C2Ds in your area?

I mean I'm getting an iMac for free, and that has a 10 year old C2D in it.

 

There are a few Dell Optiplexes on my Craigslist listings, but I personally wouldn't pay for that since I'll only use the CPU and maybe RAM from.

[paddy-stone]

You CAN use consumer parts very easily, and very cheaply... the biggest cost right now is the RAM, so unless you actually need a lot of it, just keep it low, you can get away with 4GB for freeNAS easily, despite what many people think. If it's just for family backup and serving, no transcoding serving needed, then a g4560 and cheap mobo is fine.

I recently started using an HBA SAS card as was mentioned by @leadeater above.. they are IMO much more useful than you think, especially if you might need to have those drives ina  smaller case, the breakout cables SAS->4 sata connections are worth it alone for me as it saves on cables cluttering the build (my personal pet peeve) - I got the 9211-8i card for around £40 brand new from ebay.. and as the name suggests has 8 SATA connections via 2x breakout cables.

 

If you want to go this route, I would suggest something along the lines of this

NAS 

Component		Selection	Price
CPU		Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor	$58.79	Buy
Motherboard		ASRock - B250M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$64.89	Buy
Memory		Crucial - Ballistix Sport LT 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	$51.98	Buy
Storage		Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$124.89	Buy
		Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$124.89	Buy
		Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$124.89	Buy
		Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$124.89	Buy
Case		Fractal Design - Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case	$94.99	Buy
Power Supply		SeaSonic - S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	$34.90	Buy
Total:			$805.11

 

Plus the SAS card below or similar... not my listing BTW

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LSI-9211-8i-Internal-SAS-SATA-6Gbps-8-Ports-HBA-PCI-E-RAID-Controller-Card/142280748330?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 

You could go for a cheaper 6th series board if you have a CPU to upgrade BIOS if needed? that could save you upto around $20

CPU cooler needed? if you don't like the heat/whine of the intel coolers, you could co for a cryorig c7, they are actually pretty good coolers... or go with a CM masterliquid 240 lite for around $10+ dollars more... these are VERY good coolers IMO, especially for the price being so close to a cheap end air cooler.

PSU just chose a half decent cheap one, although personally I would probably go with a higher end one because I am paranoid when it comes to PSUs, especially after havign a so called "good" one from bequiet being so crap (it's a long story). So I now pretty much stick to EVGA p2/g2/g3 models... especially helpful as the cables are inter-changeable keeping it in brand.

 

You could also just go with an HP proliant microserver if they can be found cheaply where you live... here in the UK they come up regularly like 4 times per year, where they ahve HP cashback deals, so afetr cashback they work out at a little over £100 is all, excluding drives.. they are a GREAT purchase for a cheap NAS/server build.

[Crunchy Dragon]

2 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

-snip-

Thanks for all the information! How well does FreeNAS play with media? I saw on their website that they have Plex plugin, but like I said, I'm completely new to all of this.

[paddy-stone]

4 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Thanks for all the information! How well does FreeNAS play with media? I saw on their website that they have Plex plugin, but like I said, I'm completely new to all of this.

Freenas works very well with media, especially if it's just serving the media, no matter the player really. Even a g4560 should be able to handle multiple 1080p streams if the devices being streamed to can play the files codecs natively and in the same resolution that the original files are. I use plex fine, in fact I did a test the other day on my  main PC, where I had a VM of freenas, using just 4 cores and 4GB/8GB ram and the data source was only a USB HDD... my CPU is a 1700 @3.75Ghz currently and when limited to 4 cores it's probably not that disimilar to a g4560 I would think. Anyway, so I managed to play a 4K stream (natively to a 4K box), a 4K stream (transcoding to 1080p on a tablet), and a 1080p (natively to a 1080p phone), all at the same time from just that USB HDD on a VM of freenas... and they were flawless, I left them going for 90 mins to see if there would be any buffering issues etc, and there were none.. in fact on the freenas reporting the CPU usage only did a quick "peak" at the start of the transcoding stream, and then went back to almost nothing for usage. I was VERY impressed by such low hardware requirements, especially from a bus limited USB drive too.

For 4K streams I generally try to steer clear of using plex, as it can be finicky especially for me with sound codecs weirdly.. Generally for me 4K with AAC audio is fine, it plays it natively on my main playback device, but with AC3 audio it can be hit and miss, sometimes will play it fine, others not. Anything 5.1/7.1 true HD will almost certainly glitch out on me right now... I only have a stereo 2 channel setup right now as my soundbar doesn't fit where I would want it. KODI on the other hand plays EVERYTHING flawlessly, no matter the codec.. and no transcoding required.

Sorry for the wall of text, it's a complicated issue with freenas and plex, and plex in general with media that needs transcoding as plex (free version at least) only uses x264 transcoding IIRC.. so not the greatest in terms of versatility right now.

I generally use plex for my TV shows, and most movies... and if I have problems I just swithc over to using KODI... you don't need any setup server side to use kodi, it just serves it so can use more streams and is just more versatile basically. Plex has some good features though, such as continue play on other devices, so if I start watching a movie on my tablet, and then get home for instance, it has saved where I left it with no input from me... and can just continue play on my main player on the TV. Any device that you are logged into with plex can do this, and it's the best feature for me.

 

What player would you be using mostly? if it's a fairly new PC with a recent chipset, or pretty much any android 4k box, you should be good to go with very little setup.

Basically just install freenas on the server/NAS, make sure the permissions are good for access.. don't worry about transferring much media until you have this done. Check that you can access media and the server directly from pc/phone etc. Then download the plex plugin.. bear in mind that plex will need certain access to your files (permissions), then copy accross some files for testing with plex. Once that's sorted you can setup plex further by pointing it to your media, this sounds worse than it is.. it's actually rather simple after you've done it several times, lol. On your devices, what I would do is have Kodi AND plex, just to save your sanity when you want to watch something and plex is being a bitch.. it's simple to just switch it to kodi and play the offending title. Kodi requires some setup, but not too much, as long as you can point it at the shares it's pretty smooth sailing.

 

OK, well sorry for that... I have a tendency to ramble, but wanted to give an accurate description also

If you ever need any help I'd be happy to try and help you.. I'm not an expert, but I HAVE had a fair bit of experience in the pitfalls, LOL

 

[Psittac]

I'm in the process of learning all of this myself, but thought I'd give feedback from what I've learned so far.  Also I'll start by plugging the youtube channel that I get all of my plex info from (I don't mention other creators here, but linus doesn't cover plex much).  Byte My Bits.

 

How many people might be using your media server at a time

are they all local or are they remote IE: over the internet

Will you need any transcoding IE reduced resolution or format.

What are the clients that will be viewing content (hardware and software)

 

Plex Can run on the cpu from something like a synology NAS which I believe is comparable to an intel atom cpu (don't quote me on that).

If you are simply running as a file server locally IE DLNA and no transcoding, then you will need very little for power.  If you have no pieces that you wish to use in this build you may want to at least look into a synology NAS, the price looks steep at first but when you consider the convenience of a small simple all in one setup it can be worth a lot.  The web interface for using a synology is freaking great.

I have plex running on a 5820k right now and I run 2 of the cores F@H all the time with no issues transcoding to a mobile format for my sister remotely.  The G4560 is a fine cpu but remember it is dual core and hyper threaded.  It should be just fine for regular streaming.  Like I said I'm new to this and mostly all I've done is some disc ripping and having my sister log on from her tablet to download, throw in occasional uses here locally and that's all I've done with it.

 

An interesting side fact: My friend has a dell server and found that running a 4k plex file to his xbox pegged all 12 cores, then he got an nvidia shield and it didn't scratch the cpu.

 

I would look at DLNA hosting to further your knowledge.  I set up a synology DLNA server for my uncles music collection.  He is legally blind but loads up his cd collection on his AV reciever.  Again I have little experience with it but I'm pretty sure all it involves is handing over files from server to client (can do audio and video I think).  If that's all you need then cpu won't be a concern.