Home server suggestions/question!

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26 May 2008
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I am interested in building/buying a server (I think), depending on feedback.

A bit of context first, I have recently installed Ethernet cabling around my 1900 circa house, like an exoskeleton really. All the wires come up the outside of the house into the loft and down into an internal cupboard. I have a patch box, connecting to a Netgear switch. I have an Orbi mesh system (also used as router although thinking about Pfsense/opensense) with wired backhaul, various game devices, nvidia shield, tvs, PCs (linux and windows 10), Android mobiles etc. I run a Synology 918+ NAS as backup, plex server and I have been experimenting with Nextcloud over the weekend.

Generally I have been on a privacy kick lately getting off the larger corps, although after taking a bit more notice, I note Synology also has trackers on their mobiles apps, and they seem to be looking into collecting more data via the NAS. So I was wondering about running Nextcloud, with end to end encryption, instead of using the Synology propriety software. I then began to think about whether the NAS has enough power to what I want it to do and I started to think about building a headless dedicated machine.

Previously I did run a i7 nuc headless with windows 10, as a Roon machine, but it was a bit of faf to maintain although that is probably my novice abilities!

So I was thinking of possible stuff to run
  • NextCloud
  • Plex media server - replacing NAS
  • Pihole - replacing pi3b??
  • Opensense - Maybe, not sure on this...
  • Roon server (on VM?)
Anyway, does this sound the sort of scenario where a dedicated machine/server might work (I can send the NAS back to backup duties exclusively)? If so, what sort of machine should I be looking at? And, what software should I run on it?

The internal cupboard is not exactly ideal as a location though, its not used as a cupboard as its the back of a shower!! I might need to find a new location. No-where obvious comes to mind in my house, perhaps loft (hot in summer, cold in winter), or under the stairs (20-22c most of the year around, but not much ventilation). So heat might be an issue and needs to be considered.

Happy for any thoughts or suggestions. Thank you!
 
Thank you for the replies!

Yes. How fast is your connection, will you be transcoding and do you have PlexPass, what’s the budget?

My line is 80 meg (fibre to the cabinet, copper to the home), but I am out in the country, so not likely to get any faster!

I do have a PlexPass account. And probably a yes to transcoding.

Budget, nothing set so far, but I don't mind spending on it as it looks like it will become quite central. Say, £500 - £1000.

One thing that jumps out as needing further consideration here is virtualising your firewall. Firstly you will need to be passing the NIC ports direct to the VM, so need a host capable of this, virtualising your security has security considerations in itself, but the more obvious practical issue is much simpler:

I was wondering about a separate router anyway running PFsense or opensense. Right now its a orbi router. Sounds like I should just keep the router separate for the reasons you describe.

As a die hard long time Windows user with a mediocre level of technical hardware/networking knowledge (and nothing previously with Linux), I found Unraid and its WebUI really easy to use. The only thing I don't run off it is my *sense router for the reasons that @Avalon advises.

Thank you that is good to know! I am somewhat mediocre too!!

Unraid, looks very interesting, I will go and have a read.

Any thoughts on hardware?
 
Thanks for all the replies, lots and lots to think about.

I have been having a look at parts based on this discussion. I am happy to build, I have put together my own desktop PCs but never a sever. Anyway, predictably I am over budget and I have not yet read into the compatibility of these parts in depth. Any thoughts on where I should look to cut costs??

Processor
Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz - £299.99
Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - £179.99

Motherboard
X570-A Pro (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset Motherboard - £159.95
Asrock X570M Pro4 (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset mATX Motherboard - £179.99

PSU
Corsair - RM Series RM650 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020194-UK) - £87.95

Ram
Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK32GX4M2D3_ - £149.99
Kingston - HyperX Fury 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit - £169.99

Case
Be Quiet Pure Base 500 Midi Tower Case - Black - £69.95

Hard drives

SSD - Samsung - 970 EVO Plus 500GB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive - £89.99
HDD - WD 8TB Red Pro 7200rpm 256MB Cache Internal NAS Hard Drive (8003FFBX) - £259.99 x2 = £519.98

Unraid - £120 - Pro

Its around £1400+ with the cheaper parts, where there is a choice. I could look around for a cheaper motherboard and probably ram.

Anyway, other things not on the list are a dedicated GPU, do I need one? raid controller? cooling - air, water? Anything else I have forgotten? Thanks!
 
Thanks again for the replies. This has given me lots to think about and I have been doing just that over the weekend. Mainly thinking could I shuffle or re-purpose any current kit, like my desktop PC (transferring old nvidia 970card from PC), or a i7 NUC currently used an exclusive Roon core (music server), my current NAS. I realised that I would be duplicating functionality with an Unraid box and my existing Synology DS918+ NAS. Therefore I could de-commission the NAS and pull the hard drives. I have three 8tb WD Pro drives (probably where that choice came from earlier) in there currently, and these could go into the Unraid machine and I could sell the NAS. The new Unraid machine could go into my server cupboard (attached to my ups), and I could back-up my PC, phone, tablets to the Unraid machine - as mentioned, I like the idea of Nextcloud to do this aspect.

I would still like to backup the Unraid machine to some off-site cloud service, I currently use a Synology service but I know there are lots of others.

So, I think I have moved away from idea of a the Unraid machine running anything to do with my router, I would keep that seperate. Ditto for the pihole setup on a rpi3b.

I am currently thinking -
  • Nextcloud server (possibly running on ubuntu server or similar) to backup desktop machine, tablet, phones, laptop (especially photos)
  • Plex media server
  • Roon server - maybe, I could then sell the NUC??
I know it has been mentioned that I have gone high in terms of spec, I always like to plan for stuff I have not thought of yet, so always go over spec.
 
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