Home Server/NAS setup

[SnipeYa25]

Hi there STH,
Im trying to decide on an efficent Server/NAS setup for my home, I’ve been going around in circles and finaly I’ve decided I need to engage others with more experience than myself.

My goal is to host SMB shares, Plex, Sonar, Radar, Jellyseer and Home assistant OS. Currently im running all of these off my Desktop (AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 64GB, RTX3090) through HypeV. Needless to say this isnt energy efficent, uptime is an issue and I seem to be running into networking issues and I’m hoping to share these services with family once i sort out a more stable situation.

Im tossing up between a either a monolithic setup or mini pc + atx/matx machine with x4 3.5 sata drives. targeting around $1000-1500 AUD. Juggling Plex’s transcoding hardware requirements and the *arr’s needing to be VPN’d are the points that are confusing me about the whole setup.

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[i386]

"Efficient" could mean different things to different people; I think my server rack with 1x fileserver/nas, 1x ups, 2x switches (one for 1GBE/POE and one for 40GBE) at around 450Watt is efficient while others here in the forums try to shave off 2-3Watt from their 60Watt "nas"

Running/acquiring two systems can be more expensive than one beefy systems. I'm from germany and we have quite high power costs (compared to US) so buying (acquiring costs) + running costs for two systems were higher than one beefy server that does everything.

You mentioned "network issues", what are these issues exactly?

 

[louie1961]

Here's what I built. Something like this would suit your needs well. My set up draws 40 watts at idle with eight SATA SSDs installed. In your case, if you can forego the ECC RAM, you could switch to a Intel CPU and have better Plex transcoding with something like an Intel Core i3-14100. OR, you can stick with AMD, ditch the 10gbe networking (use the 2.5gbe NIC onboard the mobo) and include a small GPU like and an Intel Arc A310 off the secondary market. Plex transcoding doesn't need a lot of horsepower. In fact your workloads in general don't require much CPU power either. Without drives, my setup cost ~$800 USD to set up last fall. You can find things cheaper now


Gigabyte B550I Aorus Pro AX
AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 5650-GE
Nemix RAM 2X32GB DDR4 3200 ECC Uunbuffered
M.2 to SATA 6 port adapter, ASM1166
Noctua NH-L12Sx77 CPU fan
Corsair RM Series RM650
Fractal Design Node 304
10Gtek 10Gb PCI-E NIC

 

[gea]

For a "one for all server/NAS" a uATX AMD/Intel system with a current medium class CPU (4 core or more) with 32-64GB RAM is ok. ECC RAM is a plus but only AMD entry level systems support this on some mainboards. AMD cpus with graphic only support ECC in the Pro editions.

You should look for a system with at least 3xM.2 either onboard or via PCI-e adapter for a typical system with 1x bootdevice + data mirror. 2-4x sata is ok for larger hds as large m.2 are still expensive.

As OS base you can use Windows + Hyper-V as this has good virtualisation options andis the premium solution for SMB regarding ACL or performance with SMB Direct (requires Windows Server and rdma capable nics). A Windows NAS offers Storage Spaces to pool disks of any size or type and ZFS that is still beta but nearly ready, https://napp-it.org/doc/downloads/windows_nas_considerations.pdf

As an alternative you can use Proxmox. This is a Debian optimized for VM hosting with a comercial background. It is one of the rare Linux with ZFS out of the box. For SMB you can simply add SAMBA (or the faster ksmbd) with ACL support for a SMB always on solution or you can add a storage VM (not as resource efficient). Setup with or without extra web-gui: https://napp-it.org/doc/downloads/proxmox.pdf

For remote access, just enable Wireguard on your internet router or a gateway ex Glinet. Remote clients behave then exactly as when they were connected within your lan or wlan at home for any services incl SMB.

 

[louie1961]

If I was going to build an intel machine right now, I would go with something like this for your stated needs


ASUS ROG Strix B760-I $219
Intel Core i3-14100 $120
Crucial 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5 5600 $78
CPU cooler included with CPU $-
Corsair RM Series RM650 $90
Fractal Design Node 304 $100

Total $607

 

[SnipeYa25]

"Efficient" could mean different things to different people; I think my server rack with 1x fileserver/nas, 1x ups, 2x switches (one for 1GBE/POE and one for 40GBE) at around 450Watt is efficient while others here in the forums try to shave off 2-3Watt from their 60Watt "nas"

Running/acquiring two systems can be more expensive than one beefy systems. I'm from germany and we have quite high power costs (compared to US) so buying (acquiring costs) + running costs for two systems were higher than one beefy server that does everything.

You mentioned "network issues", what are these issues exactly?

"shave off 2-3Watt from their 60Watt" - I think im in this camp haha

I was thinking 35-65watt TDP CPU, I like the look of newer i5 400T varients but sourcing is a little tricky here in Australia.

As for the networking issues, My VM's seem to drop off DHCP from time to time, My smb user breaks dispite being set to not expire and my biggest headache is that a few times a week my partners PC stops being able to "see" my desktop requiring me to reboot mine so she can use plex (this is my biggest issue because I want solid uptime before I can share with family who will stop using stuff if its flakey).

For a "one for all server/NAS" a uATX AMD/Intel system with a current medium class CPU (4 core or more) with 32-64GB RAM is ok. ECC RAM is a plus but only AMD entry level systems support this on some mainboards. AMD cpus with graphic only support ECC in the Pro editions.

You should look for a system with at least 3xM.2 either onboard or via PCI-e adapter for a typical system with 1x bootdevice + data mirror. 2-4x sata is ok for larger hds as large m.2 are still expensive.

As OS base you can use Windows + Hyper-V as this has good virtualisation options andis the premium solution for SMB regarding ACL or performance with SMB Direct (requires Windows Server and rdma capable nics). A Windows NAS offers Storage Spaces to pool disks of any size or type and ZFS that is still beta but nearly ready, https://napp-it.org/doc/downloads/windows_nas_considerations.pdf

As an alternative you can use Proxmox. This is a Debian optimized for VM hosting with a comercial background. It is one of the rare Linux with ZFS out of the box. For SMB you can simply add SAMBA (or the faster ksmbd) with ACL support for a SMB always on solution or you can add a storage VM (not as resource efficient). Setup with or without extra web-gui: https://napp-it.org/doc/downloads/proxmox.pdf

For remote access, just enable Wireguard on your internet router or a gateway ex Glinet. Remote clients behave then exactly as when they were connected within your lan or wlan at home for any services incl SMB.

Not a big fan of windows for servers, Was looking at some varient of debian for the host OS, Which i think locks me into Intel CPU's if i want Plex hardware transcode to work...
I'm also not in need of anything fancy file system wise, My idea was 1tb m.2 for the OS/VM/software, then my current 8tb (full) sata and potentily a 20tb Exos (found somewhere selling them cheap) so i can consolidate some old 1tb drives i have floating around. So i was thinking JBOD. The vast majority of my data doesn't "need" to be backed up and the stuff that does I'll be setting up some sort of cloud backup.

Here's what I built. Something like this would suit your needs well. My set up draws 40 watts at idle with eight SATA SSDs installed. In your case, if you can forego the ECC RAM, you could switch to a Intel CPU and have better Plex transcoding with something like an Intel Core i3-14100. OR, you can stick with AMD, ditch the 10gbe networking (use the 2.5gbe NIC onboard the mobo) and include a small GPU like and an Intel Arc A310 off the secondary market. Plex transcoding doesn't need a lot of horsepower. In fact your workloads in general don't require much CPU power either. Without drives, my setup cost ~$800 USD to set up last fall. You can find things cheaper now

Gigabyte B550I Aorus Pro AX
AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 5650-GE
Nemix RAM 2X32GB DDR4 3200 ECC Uunbuffered
M.2 to SATA 6 port adapter, ASM1166
Noctua NH-L12Sx77 CPU fan
Corsair RM Series RM650
Fractal Design Node 304
10Gtek 10Gb PCI-E NIC

This is very much in the relm of what i was thinking (without the Arc GPU), My understanding is that running linux plex would have no hope of using the AMD igpu though right? (Which is frustraiting because my windows desktop is happily using the iqpu for plex)

If I was going to build an intel machine right now, I would go with something like this for your stated needs

ASUS ROG Strix B760-I $219
Intel Core i3-14100 $120
Crucial 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5 5600 $78
CPU cooler included with CPU $-
Corsair RM Series RM650 $90
Fractal Design Node 304 $100

Total $607

Swap the i3 out with a i5 14400 (Would love the 14400T but have no idea where to get one) and this is what i've had in my shopping cart for the last few days...

 

[louie1961]

Ebay is going to be your best source for an i5-14500T

I5-14500t for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for I5-14500t at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

But honestly, for the workloads you described, it is overkill. Yes I know its a 35 watt TDP processor, but realistically most processors in the same class (i.e., 14500 non-T model) is going to have just about the same idle power draw. But you really don'tneed that many cores for what you want to do.

 

[SlowmoDK]

All of OP requirements, fits very well on a sub 300$ N305 NAS board like this

Slap a 32/48 GB ram stick in there and you're off to the races

Even the N100 makes a great little Plex server, but with 8cores and a slightly better IGPU, the N305 has more that enough horsepower for Arrs, Plex and anything else you wanna throw at it