Home Server Build

[Downsy]

Hello All,
I've currently got an old HP N54L 2.2Ghz i3 4 GB 4TB running Xpenology DSM 5.2 which I'm struggling to update to allow me to get back on running Plex. Though not wanting to throw in the towel with trying to update, I'm thinking of a more modern replacement which would allow me to run Plex and maybe a small Minecraft server for my son.
I tend to back up documents on a regular basis manually to a portable drive to give me an amount of replication of important files.
I had originally looked at picking up a Dell T40, but a little put off by some of the reviews I was seeing, but to me it seemed pretty ok, though a little limited in the number of drives it could take.
Could anyone suggest any alternatives? I'm happy with off the shelf or self build. Looking at £450 tops.
Many thanks.

 

[Avalon]

I'd start by not using pirated software, the N54L didn't use an intel CPU (that was Gen9), it has AMD Turion II, which is pretty low power/end in this day and age, but still great for NAS/basic home server duties, it's not an ideal Plex server as it can't transcode to save it's life. I would consider something like FreeNAS if high IO is important (ZFS isn't my personal idea of fun), but realistically UnRAID is probably a better option if you want easy expandable storage going forward and the ability to have multiple drive redundancy.

 

[Downsy]

Thanks, yes, looking to move away from Xpenology. I've looked at FreeNAS tutorials and it looks reasonably sensible learning slope, is UnRAID much different? Next job is to decide on the hardware.

 

[TangoEchoAlpha]

Thanks, yes, looking to move away from Xpenology. I've looked at FreeNAS tutorials and it looks reasonably sensible learning slope, is UnRAID much different? Next job is to decide on the hardware.

Unraid is very powerful, I've been running it for quite some time, pleased with it. Run Plex on mine in a Docker container, I believe a Docker container is available for Minecraft.

Well worth having a look at the Unraid website and having a go with their free trial. The only observation I would make is that Unraid really benefits from a bit more memory and a SSD for use as a cache drive, to prevent writes to the array constantly. Everything written to my array is written to the cache NVME and then moved over to the main array overnight, daily. Works a treat.

 

[Downsy]

Sounds good, I'm trying to learn the sever lingo at the moment, jails and dockers and the like. If I was to build a server from components, should standard motherboard, ram, etc be suitable or do I need to be looking at server specific hardware?

 

[Avalon]

Desktop hardware is fine, it’s not like you have a rack full of them and need IPMI etc. and ECC is more ‘nice to have’ than something that is required at this level.

 

[Downsy]

Downloaded and started to play with TrueNAS tonight. Getting a bit lost on setting up accounts and groups and shares etc. Off to stare at Youtube for a bit. Currently using my old PC, i5-2300 4GB for testing things out.

 

[Vimes]

Not really a great help but..
We are still happy with our venerable N54L. It works fine as a media server for both Kodi and Plex. Also tried Jellyfin and that is good.
I suppose it depends on what you want and also if you have the players using the right hardware etc to avoid any transcoding.
Yup the N54L couldn't trascode much at all but we don't need to as even 4k material is direct played.

I could be way wrong here but couldn't one of the new Rasp Pi's run a Minecraft server....

Seems cheap enough.

 

[Armageus]

Another option is to keep the n54l purely as a Nas which it is still more than capable of, and add one of the tiny desktop machines as a Plex server.

Have a look at Dell optiplex micro, Lenovo tiny, or hp desktop mini. All can be had with decent intel chips which support transcoding, have low power consumption and are an ideal form factor to a microserver

 

[Downsy]

Thank you for the advice everyone. I managed to pick up a small form factor box with an i5 6500, 16GB, 512GB SSD, 1TB HDD last night to use as a server. I've installed TrueNAS for testing and I'm starting to play around getting used to the OS. If anyone knows some good tutorials which can help?

 

[Avalon]

YouTube should have what you need, also have a look at UnRAID videos, each has its strengths and generally home users want to buy whatever drives are best value at the time and are less focused on outright IOPS for the array or can use a SSD to accommodate those specific uses, that’s where UnRAID wins. If you prefer ZFS and have the need for it and can deal with the drive requirements and expansion issues, then one of the *NAS derivatives is a decent shout.