Home server under 500

[p_orsk]

Hi guys. I decided to build a home server in the near future. In the past few years I used a Banana pi (2 core, 1GB ram) for experimenting, but now I want something more powerful.

The budget is around 500 Euro.

The server will server around 5-7 person, me my family, maybe my gf and some of my friends. So we are not talking about many users.

 

I plan to use the server for:

• Plex media server (max. few concurrent 1080p stream)

• Torrent server

• NextCloud

• NAS

• Backup for about 3-4 PC

• VPN (?)

• Other small dev services for own purposes (Web server, Gitlab Runner, etc.)

 

Currently I have a 120GB SSD which I plan to use as the drive for the OS. Right now I only have a 750GB HDD what is not too much. I think at the beginning a 2-3TB Red or Ironwolf HDD will be enough, I can buy more later if it is necessary.

 

What build do you guys recommend? The biggest dilemma for me is the CPU and Motherboard combo. The i3 8100 and the Ryzen 5 2600 looks great, but I am not sure which one would be the right choice. Also it needs to be silent, because it will be placed in my room. So a quite power supply and cooler would be nice.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id go 8100 as there is a igpu built in, and it uses less power, and you don't need the cpu power here.

 

What os are you running? Id run a hypervisor and run everything in its own vm here. Focus on ram, not cpu.

 

 

[p_orsk]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id go 8100 as there is a igpu built in, and it uses less power, and you don't need the cpu power here.

 

What os are you running? Id run a hypervisor and run everything in its own vm here. Focus on ram, not cpu.

 

 

Good point.

I'm plan to use Linux and I want to create a Docker image for every one of the services. Usually I use Windows, but as a programmer I often use Linux as well, so I'm familiar with the console window and dockerization.

[InMiseryWeSeekPancakes]

         You can get an Xeon x5660 ( 6c/12t ) for around $20.00 USD / 17.63 Euro,

It uses one of the classic lga 1366 socket motherboards and those are also additionally cheap. 

   I made this build not to long ago...

 

      

   CPU: x2 Intel Xeon x5660 @4.0GHZ ( overclocked )

   RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600MHZ NON ECC RAM

   MB: SuperMicro X8DTL-IF Dual LGA1366 ( you can find them everywhere on ebay and there ridiculously cheap )  

   GPU: Onboard IGPU 

   STORAGE: 3TB Western Digital Blue 7200rpm, 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm

   COOLING: Noctua NH-D9DX i4 3U 92mm SSO2

 

  This cost me around $400.00 USD and if you ever find yourself needing a gpu for whatever reason you have 100 dollars to spare for such, 

Linux would probably be good for a server, I personally use kali but it's your choice. 

[InMiseryWeSeekPancakes]

          But you would probably want to spend that extra 100 bucks on ram, also some tasks could be valued with some cpu backbone but @Electronics Wizardy has a good point, I would spend alot of that money on ram. 

[p_orsk]

13 hours ago, InMiseryWeSeekPancakes said:

         You can get an Xeon x5660 ( 6c/12t ) for around $20.00 USD / 17.63 Euro,

It uses one of the classic lga 1366 socket motherboards and those are also additionally cheap. 

   I made this build not to long ago...

 

      

   CPU: x2 Intel Xeon x5660 @4.0GHZ ( overclocked )

   RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600MHZ NON ECC RAM

   MB: SuperMicro X8DTL-IF Dual LGA1366 ( you can find them everywhere on ebay and there ridiculously cheap )  

   GPU: Onboard IGPU 

   STORAGE: 3TB Western Digital Blue 7200rpm, 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm

   COOLING: Noctua NH-D9DX i4 3U 92mm SSO2

 

  This cost me around $400.00 USD and if you ever find yourself needing a gpu for whatever reason you have 100 dollars to spare for such, 

Linux would probably be good for a server, I personally use kali but it's your choice. 

And what about the power consumption? How many this setup draw on idle? And under load?

The server probably will sit in idle most of the time, so it wouldn't be nice to use hundreds of watts in idle.

The new i3-i5 Coffe Lake processors idles around 5-9W.

Also someone recommended me the Dell R710 server, its pretty similar what you wrote, but I'm a bit afraid to use such old components. Probably they were used 24/7 for many many years. 

[AbsoluteFool]

5 hours ago, p_orsk said:

And what about the power consumption? How many this setup draw on idle? And under load?

The server probably will sit in idle most of the time, so it wouldn't be nice to use hundreds of watts in idle.

The new i3-i5 Coffe Lake processors idles around 5-9W.

Also someone recommended me the Dell R710 server, its pretty similar what you wrote, but I'm a bit afraid to use such old components. Probably they were used 24/7 for many many years. 

Servers are made to run 24/7 for decages. You really risk nothing on investing into a server. I still run servers that are as far back as 2003, and they still work great. Hillarious to think about tho

[InMiseryWeSeekPancakes]

        Yeah, I've been using that setup for ages and it runs completely fine, on idle it probably draws just as much as a high end system on idle, and regular usage is basically fine, no proprietary wall outlet's, a standard 750/650w 80+ psu works like a charm.  

      I even became generous and I put a gtx 280 1 gb and overclocked it to 770mhz and 1340mhz memory clock, that shows to prove how much headroom I had for overclocking despite the "MASSIVE power consumption", if your running a much bigger server such as something like Linus's or even bigger than quite frankly, power consumption would probably be an issue. 

 

     You might think thermal's might be an issue than right? Nope... .

I literally only have 1 200m fan and my 2 cpu cooler's. I mean it's perfect for what I do, I have it sitting 24/7 since I have my own website hoster, my own email client, I have dozens of game servers and my own nas and I have a backup for all the pc's I have in my house, I have several hypervisors and a bunch of other stuff   

[ShadowDev]

I have a better way of spending 500 euro on a server
go on ebay and buy a 100 euro rack server (get a 2 cpu system, most already have a raid card in them. also make sure they have the psu's in them), sell the cpus in it (you can get an extra 5 - 10 euro)
spend 10 - 20 euro on new good cpus (make sure they fit the system) - (by new good I mean some good trash from ebay, 6 - 10 cores each)
spend 100 on new ram (you can get 128gb+ ddr3)
spend the rest on drives and any extras you want


(yes I know this is an old thread but people are still finding it and using the outdated info here)

ebay example server: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265211124145

[SansVarnic]

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Do not revive old topics.