Spec me a server

Mitzy · 9 Apr 2022 at 12:52

Hey Peeps

So I currently rent a server for all my media needs which is for plex and media "acquisition", I pay £55 a month. Current specs that I know

Processor; E-2274G
RAM; 32GB
Storage; 32TB

Seems to be running Ubuntu with Swizzen interface.

So I've been looking at building my own but I just don't know where I should be looking, every time I have spec'd something up it's over £1600 so I figured I would turn to you guys for help because I am clearly doing something wrong.

My requirements are that the server is the same or better than my current specs and cost less than £1320, also needs to support HW transcoding and this machine would be serving remote users. Let me know if you need any more detail.

Tetras · 9 Apr 2022 at 13:54

Mitzy said:
Hey Peeps

So I currently rent a server for all my media needs which is for plex and media "acquisition", I pay £55 a month. Current specs that I know

Processor; E-2274G
RAM; 32GB
Storage; 32TB

Seems to be running Ubuntu with Swizzen interface.

So I've been looking at building my own but I just don't know where I should be looking, every time I have spec'd something up it's over £1600 so I figured I would turn to you guys for help because I am clearly doing something wrong.

My requirements are that the server is the same or better than my current specs and cost less than £1320, also needs to support HW transcoding and this machine would be serving remote users. Let me know if you need any more detail.

If it helps, that CPU is similar in performance to a 7700K, so even a 12400 would have a lot more computing power.

It is the storage I'd imagine is going to be expensive.

Mitzy · 9 Apr 2022 at 14:00

Tetras said:
If it helps, that CPU is similar in performance to a 7700K, so even a 12400 would have a lot more computing power.

It is the storage I'd imagine is going to be expensive.

It genuinely does help

I think I’m over spec’ing. The HDD costs is too damn high lol

Mitzy · 9 Apr 2022 at 14:04

So some general advice on ports, should I be looking at a card for SATA ports rather than relying on mobo?

Tetras · 9 Apr 2022 at 14:20

Mitzy said:
So some general advice on ports, should I be looking at a card for SATA ports rather than relying on mobo?

You're probably best off asking this type of question in a NAS/server context, but the general rule of thumb is: unless you need fast storage for your server (e.g. if it is mainly for archiving purposes and rarely accessed) then a HDD is fine and a lot cheaper per TB. Then if there is more frequently accessed data that needs the speed, you could set up a SSD cache, possibly with an algorithm to move it between the two.

If you can use the primary motherboard ports then it is usually better than having an expansion card, but getting more than 6 directly from the chipset can be difficult on a consumer motherboard. You can get 8 on a workstation board.

If you buy an expansion card, I've heard you have to be careful what you buy, because some of them are very unreliable.

The larger, cheaper SSDs are usually QLC, which is going to be faster than a HDD for reads, but has much lower endurance than TLC. I don't know if what you're doing (a media server?) would have issues with QLC, but I'd imagine you don't write to the drives very often, so the endurance wouldn't be a problem?

The advantage that rented servers of this type have is that they can pool your data, so that might well be virtual storage rather than all installed within the server. Do you actually use all that storage? I think they're going to eat at least half your budget even if they're HDDs.

Mitzy · 9 Apr 2022 at 14:42

Thank you for such a detailed reply. I'm definitely looking at mechanical drives, I guess due to budget I'm going to have to stick with 4 x 8TB and then a small m.2 for boot. This won't be used for anything other than media. Unfortunately I do see me needing that space, up until recently I had only 8TB of storage, since increasing I'm up to 10TB used. If I was serving just me it would probably be less but with all the TV shows it adds up pretty quickly.

Do you think an i5 would be okay?
I'll drop the sata expansion card seeing as I'm sticking to 4 sata drives for now
I'll drop the ram down to 16GB

What would you recommend for a power supply, I wouldn't need much would I?

Here's my current server stats / usage (don't know if this is useful) it's dedicated not virtual

Mitzy · 9 Apr 2022 at 14:54

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i5-10400F 2.90GHz (Comet Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-680-IN) = £119.99
1 x Asus Prime H510M-K (Socket LGA 1200) Micro ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6GK-AS) = £79.99
1 x be quiet! Pure Power 11 500W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply (SKU: CA-12X-BQ) = £62.99
1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (SKU: MY-0AK-TG) = £49.99
4 x Seagate 8TB Barracuda HDD 5400RPM 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (ST8000DM004) (SKU: HD-39Z-SE) = £169.99

Total: £1,004.03 (includes delivery: £11.10)

Semple · 9 Apr 2022 at 14:59

Have you looked at ram usage when it's under heavier load. Using less than a quarter of ram, a third of the storage is going to be rather expensive.

Mitzy · 9 Apr 2022 at 15:08

Semple said:
Have you looked at ram usage when it's under heavier load. Using less than a quarter of ram, a third of the storage is going to be rather expensive.

Funny you mention, I have never seen the ram usage spike ever, it's fairly consistent.

Here's it's transcoding a 4k movie, it's around 60Gb

ram

BongoHunter · 9 Apr 2022 at 15:10

Not sure if it helps - but Seagate 18TB drives can be had for £275 at the moment (ST18000NM000J)

robj20 · 9 Apr 2022 at 15:13

Can't a decent NAS do everything you want. I don't do much transcoding but sure my Asustor Nimbuster does all that you need.
I do plan to get a QNAP at some point, more for playing with that anything, and using at to do everything from routing to Plex server, and just use my NAS as storage.

Mitzy · 9 Apr 2022 at 15:18

robj20 said:
Can't a decent NAS do everything you want. I don't do much transcoding but sure my Asustor Nimbuster does all that you need.
I do plan to get a QNAP at some point, more for playing with that anything, and using at to do everything from routing to Plex server, and just use my NAS as storage.

I don't know, what would you recommend?

BongoHunter said:
Not sure if it helps - but Seagate 18TB drives can be had for £275 at the moment (ST18000NM000J)

Thank you for that, works out cheaper and more storage!

andy_mk3 · 9 Apr 2022 at 15:22

Also remember any modern Intel cpu with quicksync will reduce your need for cpu power vastly, and will eat up 4k transcodes with ease.

robj20 · 9 Apr 2022 at 15:27

Mitzy said:
I don't know, what would you recommend?

Thank you for that, works out cheaper and more storage!

I prefer the NAS ready made stuff for convenience, space saving and low power. Building your own is certainly cheaper and you can trailer the spec.

The QNAP I'm looking at has a Intel Atom C3758 8-core 2.2 GHz processor so not sure how that compares.
My Asustor has a Intel Celeron J4105.

Mitzy · 9 Apr 2022 at 15:27

Updated, removed 2 drives, added a case. I don't think this CPU is suitable.

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i5-10400F 2.90GHz (Comet Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-680-IN) = £119.99
1 x Asus Prime H510M-K (Socket LGA 1200) Micro ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6GK-AS) = £79.99
1 x be quiet! Pure Power 11 500W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply (SKU: CA-12X-BQ) = £62.99
1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (SKU: MY-0AK-TG) = £49.99
2 x Seagate 8TB Barracuda HDD 5400RPM 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (ST8000DM004) (SKU: HD-39Z-SE) = £169.99
1 x Raijintek Zofos Evo Silent Full Tower Gaming Case - Black (SKU: CA-03S-RT) = £149.99

Total: £817.63 (includes delivery: £14.70)

Tetras · 9 Apr 2022 at 15:54

That CPU has no IGP (-F) so it's not appropriate, no. Any reason you're not going 12th gen?

Mitzy · 9 Apr 2022 at 15:59

Tetras said:
That CPU has no IGP (-F) so it's not appropriate, no. Any reason you're not going 12th gen?

100 thank you!

Honestly I don’t know what I’m looking for. If you could point out a mobo cpu combo I would really appreciate it!

Like do I really need a i5 or higher or would a i3 be okay assuming it had the same iGPU as the more expensive big brothers?

Semple · 9 Apr 2022 at 17:39

Assuming your server will be local, is there even much of a requirement for transcoding? Would have expected much of it to be direct play.

andy_mk3 · 9 Apr 2022 at 17:44

Semple said:
Assuming your server will be local, is there even much of a requirement for transcoding? Would have expected much of it to be direct play.

Indeed, it's almost more efficient to have a second copy of media to allow direct play.

Delta3D · 9 Apr 2022 at 17:55

Would it not be cheaper to buy a used Dell T*** (Tower) server? Or even an R model to bung in a cheap rack?