Home Server Build

Downsy · 24 Nov 2020 at 22:57

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.

Downsy · 25 Nov 2020 at 17:48

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.

Downsy · 25 Nov 2020 at 21:40

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?

Downsy · 26 Nov 2020 at 22:26

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.

Downsy · 28 Nov 2020 at 20:40

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?