SFF PC/NAS/PLEX Server

Associate
Joined
4 May 2007
Posts
73
Location
West Yorkshire
Hi everyone
As the title says, trying to keep it simple, but wanting, ideally with ample HDD space( have 2x4tb I could use), that can sit at the back of the TV unit, also used as main PC. Saw a SFF case with caddy drives, but can't seem to find it now. Any advice on build, would be greatly appreciated, £500 budget.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,175
Generally you keep your server out the way and use a client in the lounge, they tend to be silent (ATV, FTV, Roku, Shield etc. but some people use a SmartTV or a games console), this generally leaves the annoyance of spinning fans and drives elsewhere and let’s you enjoy your media. Silverstone make an 8 bay set-up, an older HP microserver is a 4 bay option or numerous competitors and online marketplace’s will sell you a 4 bay case for an ITX board. 2x4TB is unlikely to last you that long though, data has a habit of growing exponentially.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
4 May 2007
Posts
73
Location
West Yorkshire
Generally you keep your server out the way and use a client in the lounge, they tend to be silent (ATV, FTV, Roku, Shield etc. but some people use a SmartTV or a games console), this generally leaves the annoyance of spinning fans and drives elsewhere and let’s you enjoy your media. Silverstone make an 8 bay set-up, an older HP microserver is a 4 bay option or numerous competitors and online marketplace’s will sell you a 4 bay case for an ITX board. 2x4TB is unlikely to last you that long though, data has a habit of growing exponentially.

Hi, sorry for late reply, managed to build up a UnRaid NAS with plex yesterday and working to a fashion, but it's in a full size tower and old spec bits, but think thats the way forward.
If I was to go with the Node 304 and socket 1200 with built in IGPU, what CPU, board and memory would you recommend in ITX, just a bit confusing matching everything up. Thanks.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2002
Posts
7,175
It's generally very easy to migrate hardware at a later date - it's not like you need to reinstall, just swap the USB to a new PC. I've not really paid much attention to the 10 series, but a basic (Coffee Lake) G4900 can run 20+ H264 1080p transcodes using HW, the likely answer is anything with two cores and a modest clock speed will easily do, you'll gain nothing significant in performance terms by going with a 10 series, it may be worth considering if the saving on something 8th gen would save you enough to justify? The issue with going ITX is you limit your SATA port count which can lead to having to use the only PCIe for an HBA. RAM wise it depends what you want to run, the lowest UnRAID box I have is 12GB, but I wouldn't be putting anything less than a single stick of 16GB in if building now, you can then add another later if needed, again it doesn't need to be anything fancy for a bunch of dockers.
 
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