Spec me a home server...

StevieP · 11 Aug 2020 at 18:47

A mate of mine is looking to build his own server to replace his NAS and use as a media server, NAS and game server machine.

I've pointed him towards Unraid as the OS as I've found it to be superb but my server was a 2nd hand Gen 8 HP Microserver which you don't seem to be able to get hold of anymore!

I guess what I'm asking is what sort of specs and case should he be looking at to accomplish what he's after?

Any suggestions?

benjii · 11 Aug 2020 at 21:48

What sort of media server? If it just has to play video files natively then that's pretty basic, but if it's going to use something like madVR or do transcoding, then that requires beefier hardware.

StevieP · 12 Aug 2020 at 20:41

I don't think he needs it to do an awful lot in terms of media streams etc - just quick enough to do the basics and host a few game servers!

Sparx · 12 Aug 2020 at 21:18

What sort of game servers? Dependent on the game and # of users (back in the day I was interested in running BF2 servers etc) they can be hard on CPU/RAM etc...

Didn't know people bothered with hosting local game servers these days still, thought they were all P2P/Dev owned ones.

StevieP · 13 Aug 2020 at 10:12

We started playing 7 Days to Die on my server and it's been great fun - being able to maintain a persistent world that we can all just jump in and out of has been a game changer imo!

I think he quite fancies hosting a 7DtD server and maybe Ark Survival and a couple of other survival/crafting games!

decto · 13 Aug 2020 at 23:13

7D2D isn't all that demanding though is better on an SSD when hosted as it seem to hammer drive access. I ran 3 docker instances on unraid with minecraft, other games and Plex etc on a 4C4T E3-1225 V3 without any issue. Instances only lightly loaded as a small number of us switched between the different maps.

I'd avoid bleeding edge hardware, but any Intel quad core with IGP post Ivy bridge should be fine. The more recent the more capable the transcode.
For more recent I'd be looking at quad core intel B365 (for PCI-E lanes) or better with IGP so you can transcode most media with little CPU load.

Currently upgrading to a 10C 20T E5-2660 V3, not the most recent CPU but lots of PCI-E, SATA etc which will allow me to host a couple of VM's with steam streaming instances for the kids so they can play basic game on older laptops.
I have all the gear ready to go but upgrades and games tend to be a winter nights thing so not getting much attention right now.

I see more people going AMD and Unraid for the price / core, just factor in you'll need a PCI-E slot for a GPU if you want transcoding so make sure you keep enough PCI-E to support a SATA / HBA card when you need to expand from the likely 6 ports you get on a sensibly priced motherboard.

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