Looking into building a home server or nas

erehwon6811

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
493
I'm looking at building a home server or nas for storing my media and running plex. I have picked up 2 10 TB WB easystore drives from best buy that I'll shuck. I'm trying to decide if I want to make it a server or a Freenas/Unraid box. I've seen some people in the trade forum selling some cheap server licenses. It would be nice to have a home server to work on. I also noticed that Freenas has an option for running VMs. I could use that option to run a linux or windows VM to handle media ripping and encoding. The Freenas option probably be cheaper.

What do you guys think of the build? I know it is an older cpu, but I'm trying to put some old stuff to use.

This box is made using old parts I had laying around and some I got used.
Antec P183 case
Intel Core i7-920 2.67 GHz LGA1366 cpu
Prolima Megahalems cooler
Asus P6T6 WS Revolution motherboard
6 GB ram (have more to add)
Antec CP-850 power supply (came with case)
240 GB Sansdisk SSD Plus (brand new)
2 10 TB WD Easystore external drives (brand new, will shuck)
Blu-ray optical drive
 
If you're just using those two drives, you might consider getting something like a two-bay Synology and letting that do your file storage, and using the machine you've laid out as just a server to work on. that way your file storage isn't dependent on whatever software of the day you're playing with, and you can rebuild your server (software) as much as you'd like.

You could probably pretty easily run Proxmox or Hyper-V on that system and do anything you want. FreeNAS is great, but it would have to use bhyve and I think that's well behind KVM (haven't looked at it in a long time). Either way, having a system you can fiddle with and not be concerned about affecting your file storage is pretty nice.
 
I have a Zyxel Nas326 with 4 TB in a RAID1 set up. I got that last year at black friday. I keep that for some document storage and backup images.

I was looking at this box as a media server and ripper. I wouldn't be running the vm much. Only when ripping and encoding is needed. I can always do the ripping on one of my other machines. I was just trying to make it my main media box. I was also planning on expanding beyond those 2 drives. The Antec case has a lot of room. I think I have 6 3.5" slots to fill and only one of the 5.25" bays is used at the moment. 4 or more bay NAS units can get a little pricey.

I do have a Dell Poweredge server I can play with, but I don't want to use as my file server since it's quite a bit louder than my Antec box.

If I did look at a NAS unite, which is better? Qnap, Synology, and buffalo to a name a few. Newegg has a few on sale right now.
 
I haven't used any, but I'd go with Synology based on what I've read.

Personally, in your situation, I'd use those 10TB drives to expand the NAS and have a large centralized storage and just rip whatever you're ripping with your desktop to that storage. It's what I've done. I have 3 external USB CD drives that I've done just that, and I always have enough overhead to perform other tasks while I am doing it.

What is the motivation for a separate ripping system?

If you're looking for something to do with the desktop just for the sake of having something to do, I'd make it a standalone Proxmox box and just have a homelab to learn whatever. For me personally, it sounds like this is complicating equipment on your network just because you have it (which I've done and is easy to do).

ETA: I missed the encoding portion. I don't do a lot of that. In that case, I'd still use the centralized storage model and just use this machine without a VM for ripping/encoding, and just leave it off when you're not doing those tasks. I think you'll be happier with one storage, but I could totally be wrong. That's just my personal preference for how I'd do it.
 
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I haven't used any, but I'd go with Synology based on what I've read.

Personally, in your situation, I'd use those 10TB drives to expand the NAS and have a large centralized storage and just rip whatever you're ripping with your desktop to that storage. It's what I've done. I have 3 external USB CD drives that I've done just that, and I always have enough overhead to perform other tasks while I am doing it.

What is the motivation for a separate ripping system?

If you're looking for something to do with the desktop just for the sake of having something to do, I'd make it a standalone Proxmox box and just have a homelab to learn whatever. For me personally, it sounds like this is complicating equipment on your network just because you have it (which I've done and is easy to do).

ETA: I missed the encoding portion. I don't do a lot of that. In that case, I'd still use the centralized storage model and just use this machine without a VM for ripping/encoding, and just leave it off when you're not doing those tasks. I think you'll be happier with one storage, but I could totally be wrong. That's just my personal preference for how I'd do it.
My zyxel nas has 2 bays, so I could swap out the current drives. Though I should check and see if the 10 TB drives are compatible first.

I'm beginning to think that I should look into a new NAS for these and use the machine for something else.

The reason I was looking at a separate ripping and encoding system is that my main machine is in my bedroom and it can get loud.
 
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The reason I was looking at a separate ripping and encoding system is that my main machine is in my bedroom and it can get loud.


Just hit the encode button before you head out to work and come home to a machine that's idle. I myself have been encoding video for over a decade, since I figured out how to use Gordian Knot, AVISynth, etc. and I always encode on my desktop then transfer to my file server. My home automation software, that also runs on my file server/ usually hibernates my desktop when I leave home but it will not do this if MeGUI, the encoding utility I've been using for over a decade now, is running. That all said I have found that the .torrent community usually has everything I need already encoded pretty well. I don't know if the point and shoot encoding tools have gotten better or what but these days I usually just immediately put my new disks in the closet and download a pirate copy. If someone else wants to rip and encode my disk for me then more power to them! Just about every CD, DVD and BD I've purchased in the past 5 - 8 years has never seen the drive tray on my desktop. They just go right into storage. That all said there are still some really crappy encodings floating around out there, even of newer movies so it's wise to vet what you download and in the unfortunate case that someone else hasn't already ripped it, well, then resort to ripping it yourself.
 
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