Server motherboard upgrade advice.

Vinno

Vinno

Vinno

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11 May 2010
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1,696
Hello all,

I currently have a small home server on the go which I use for Plex and other storage. Nothing special.

The server itself is an old HP computer in a tiny little case running an i5 2500k and 32GB DDR3 RAM. I threw an 8TB drive in there and it serves it's purpose, and everything is lovely.

The problem I have is that it can only house 1 hard drive. It's got a proprietary motherboard and PSU - and the case is minuscule. I want to upgrade the storage by adding another drive but it's just impossible.

Fortunately, after the last upgrade for my main PC I have virtually a whole system sitting spare - I have everything except a motherboard.

The CPU I will be using is a Ryzen 3600X.

I was hoping for some advice on what motherboard I should be looking for to make the most out of this system. I was originally thinking to just get a B450 board like I have in my main PC. Or I could buy a board for the 2500k and continue using that? - I'm not massively clued in on that platform anymore though tbh so I'm not sure.

I would like it to be as cheap as possible and as up-gradable as possible should I want to continue adding drives.

Cheers!
 
Vinno said:
Hello all,

I currently have a small home server on the go which I use for Plex and other storage. Nothing special.

The server itself is an old HP computer in a tiny little case running an i5 2500k and 32GB DDR3 RAM. I threw an 8TB drive in there and it serves it's purpose, and everything is lovely.

The problem I have is that it can only house 1 hard drive. It's got a proprietary motherboard and PSU - and the case is minuscule. I want to upgrade the storage by adding another drive but it's just impossible.

Fortunately, after the last upgrade for my main PC I have virtually a whole system sitting spare - I have everything except a motherboard.

The CPU I will be using is a Ryzen 3600X.

I was hoping for some advice on what motherboard I should be looking for to make the most out of this system. I was originally thinking to just get a B450 board like I have in my main PC. Or I could buy a board for the 2500k and continue using that? - I'm not massively clued in on that platform anymore though tbh so I'm not sure.

I would like it to be as cheap as possible and as up-gradable as possible should I want to continue adding drives.

Cheers!
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If your server is being used solely for Plex and file storage I think it might be worth taking stock and seeing what parts would make the most sense for your built before buying any additional parts to go with your old CPU :)

For those workloads (Whilst you already have a CPU) you would be better with something like an N100 or even an N305 all in one board since that would have Intel QuickStep for transcoding and it would be super power efficient for your file server, this is similar to what I have with my media server running on a little NUC which then accesses a separate file server VM (Although you could just buy a cheap NAS with plenty of bays if you wanted)

Alternatively if buying a mini PC and a NAS is out of the question and you really want to re-use your CPU then I would look to get a budget board that has 6 SATA ports, a case like the Jonsbo N3 (Or other one to suit your HDD expansion plans) and a PSU that can power everything.

I was faced with a similar situation a few years back when I upgraded our PCs at home and in the end I just sold the old parts and wen with the NUC, NAS (And other bits that you wouldn't need for this sort of workload) as it made little sense to re-use the old CPU for media and file usage :)
 
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TechMinerUK said:
If your server is being used solely for Plex and file storage I think it might be worth taking stock and seeing what parts would make the most sense for your built before buying any additional parts to go with your old CPU :)

For those workloads (Whilst you already have a CPU) you would be better with something like an N100 or even an N305 all in one board since that would have Intel QuickStep for transcoding and it would be super power efficient for your file server, this is similar to what I have with my media server running on a little NUC which then accesses a separate file server VM (Although you could just buy a cheap NAS with plenty of bays if you wanted)

Alternatively if buying a mini PC and a NAS is out of the question and you really want to re-use your CPU then I would look to get a budget board that has 6 SATA ports, a case like the Jonsbo N3 (Or other one to suit your HDD expansion plans) and a PSU that can power everything.

I was faced with a similar situation a few years back when I upgraded our PCs at home and in the end I just sold the old parts and wen with the NUC, NAS (And other bits that you wouldn't need for this sort of workload) as it made little sense to re-use the old CPU for media and file usage :)
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Thanks for the reply!

It's funny you mention the N100. Yesterday my friend told me that he's got a N1505 for sale, with a Celeron and 16GB Ram? It's built inside a Fractal 304 case which looks really nice tbh. He said I can have it for £100 plus postage.

I'm guessing that this will be a better idea than setting up something with my 3600X?
 
Vinno said:
Thanks for the reply!

It's funny you mention the N100. Yesterday my friend told me that he's got a N1505 for sale, with a Celeron and 16GB Ram? It's built inside a Fractal 304 case which looks really nice tbh. He said I can have it for £100 plus postage.

I'm guessing that this will be a better idea than setting up something with my 3600X?
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So the N5105 is slightly older but if you can get that and a case for £100 that will be a cracking little file server/NAS and it should run a 4K stream (transcoded) as well :)
 
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The N1505 is an 11th gen Celeron, efficient and if you have a PlexPass, will do hardware transcoding upto 4K comfortably for 2 streams, assuming it has enough enough SATA ports for your needs, at £100 for a full low power and efficient system, I would snap it up. Your 3600 is only power efficient while doing nothing and the 2500K is ancient/inefficient. Also not sure where Techminer gets QuickStep from, presumably he means QuickSync?
 
Avalon said:
The N1505 is an 11th gen Celeron, efficient and if you have a PlexPass, will do hardware transcoding upto 4K comfortably for 2 streams, assuming it has enough enough SATA ports for your needs, at £100 for a full low power and efficient system, I would snap it up. Your 3600 is only power efficient while doing nothing and the 2500K is ancient/inefficient. Also not sure where Techminer gets QuickStep from, presumably he means QuickSync?
Click to expand...
QuickSync is exactly what I meant. I knew it had quick in it somewhere :D
 
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