[ratzofftoya]

Hey all,

I'm building a home server and have decided to go with Windows for one main reason, which is that I want to run it as a PlayOn server, as well. Basic uses will be:

-Storing and serving all of my media (duh)
-Using Plex to organize/rename media as necessary
-PlayOn server
-Crashplan server
-Using XBMC.MyLibrary to update Library links to PlayOn content (meaning Java + Task Scheduler are needed)
-Permanently running XBMC for said XBMC.MyLibrary operation
-MySQL for home XBMC sharing
-PVR backend (probably ServerWMC), including recording
-Light-medium downloading
-VPN

I have two NUC clients, both of which are running SteamOS for in-home streaming and XBMC. I'd prefer for the server to be headless, or mostly headless.

Anyone have some hardware suggestions?

[aaronb]

Budget? Storage requirements? Pooling/parity plans?

[two515ty]

I'd say you would need nothing less than an i3, probably with at least 8 to 16 GB of RAM. Like aaronb said, we need to know what kind of budget and storage you're going to be working with.

Honestly though, why do you need XBMC, Plex, and PlayOn all at once? If your NUC's are your only two clients, why not just XBMC and/or Plex? Maybe I'm not understanding what PlayOn does, but it seems very similar to Plex in functionality.

I feel like you should skip PlayOn and just use XBMC + Plex or XBMC + PlexBMC addon to keep things a little bit more simple. Use XBMC for the live TV and Plex/PlexBMC for other media (Plex has a built in shared library function so you don't have to use MySQL.

Also, I'm not aware of Plex Media Server being able to automatically organize and rename media for you. If you organize it yourself and then add it to your Plex library, it will show up, but I don't think you can have it organize or rename the media for you automatically.

[negge]

Recommendations for a home server is pretty much the same as for a decent desktop, except a few things:

* storage space, including redundancy. Windows sucks in comparison to all other operating systems in this regard so if you want better RAID support than your motherboard can deliver you'll need a discrete RAID card.

* power consumption. If you leave the computer on 24/7 you probably want to get a CPU that uses as little power as possible while still being fast enough

* 16 GB RAM is a minimum. In a year or so you may be finding yourself running a few Linux virtual machines (or Windows for that matter) and less than 16 GB won't get you very far.

[two515ty]

* storage space, including redundancy. Windows sucks in comparison to all other operating systems in this regard so if you want better RAID support than your motherboard can deliver you'll need a discrete RAID card.

I'd highly recommend against hardware RAID. If the RAID card dies, then you have no way of accessing or rebuilding your array. There are a lot of risks involved with hardware RAID that are much less of a problem with software RAID.

[CaptainPsycho]

* storage space, including redundancy. Windows sucks in comparison to all other operating systems in this regard so if you want better RAID support than your motherboard can deliver you'll need a discrete RAID card.

* power consumption. If you leave the computer on 24/7 you probably want to get a CPU that uses as little power as possible while still being fast enough

NO hardware RAID! Absolutely no need for home usage. Even professional storage solutions no longer work with hardware raid.

For cpu the TDP is only interesting in terms of cooling. A quad core i7 or i5 with 3.4GHz is using almost the same power in idle as a lower clocked i3 when they are all haswell.
A good gold or platinum certified power supply is saving more.

[negge]

NO hardware RAID! Absolutely no need for home usage. Even professional storage solutions no longer work with hardware raid.

So you're saying hardware RAID isn't used anywhere anymore? That's obviously false.

[protocol77]

What version of windows are you planning on running

Windows 7
Windows 8 / 8.1
Windows Home Server 2011
Windows Server 2012 Essentials / Standard


the reason i ask is you can then look up the minimum and recommended requirements and use that as a starting point

[Stereodude]

So you're saying hardware RAID isn't used anywhere anymore? That's obviously false.

The anti hardware RAID paranoia around here is laughable. For example, RAID arrays created and run by the Intel ICH (motherboard chipset) are completely portable. If your motherboard dies you can move the array to another, even newer, Intel ICH (that supports RAID) and have no issues. If your HW RAID card dies, you get another one and plug in your array and off you go.

I don't see anyone warning people that they shouldn't use OEM Windows because if their motherboard dies they'll have to buy another OEM license after they replace it.

[ratzofftoya]

Budget? Storage requirements? Pooling/parity plans?

I'd say my budget is very flexible. I obviously don't want to spend money unnecessarily, but it's more important for me to get something that accomplishes the required functions than something that is either a compromise or soon to be obsolete.

As for storage requirements, I'd like to have 10 TB+. I currently have 2x2TB hard drives in a NAS that I'll be transferring about 2TB of data from, or perhaps I should include those in the build?

Finally, on the last point, I'm clueless. Seems like there's already some dispute in this thread as to hardware vs. software raid, and I have no idea in terms of parity. What do you recommend? Thanks!

Honestly though, why do you need XBMC, Plex, and PlayOn all at once? If your NUC's are your only two clients, why not just XBMC and/or Plex? Maybe I'm not understanding what PlayOn does, but it seems very similar to Plex in functionality.

PlayOn basically grabs media from Netflix/Hulu+/HBO Go/etc., transcodes, and serves it via UPnP to players on the network, so I think it's pretty different.

What version of windows are you planning on running

Windows 7
Windows 8 / 8.1
Windows Home Server 2011
Windows Server 2012 Essentials / Standard

What do folks recommend? I want to make sure that all of the points in my requirements are supported. From my initial research, it seems that things like CableCard decoding and such doesn't work as well on Windows 8.

[Dougie Fresh]

Windows 7 + FlexRAID makes for a nice home server solution. It doesn't require much to run it. The only question will be about on-the-fly transcoding with your Plex setup. Will you just be serving those NUCs or will you want to transcode to mobile devices? If you leave transcoding out of it, then a Celeron 18x0 will do just fine.

[ratzofftoya]

Windows 7 + FlexRAID makes for a nice home server solution. It doesn't require much to run it. The only question will be about on-the-fly transcoding with your Plex setup. Will you just be serving those NUCs or will you want to transcode to mobile devices? If you leave transcoding out of it, then a Celeron 18x0 will do just fine.

Thanks! Is there a reason to do Windows 7 + Flexraid rather than Windows 8 + the included storage pooling solution?

[aaronb]

I'd say my budget is very flexible. I obviously don't want to spend money unnecessarily, but it's more important for me to get something that accomplishes the required functions than something that is either a compromise or soon to be obsolete.

As for storage requirements, I'd like to have 10 TB+. I currently have 2x2TB hard drives in a NAS that I'll be transferring about 2TB of data from, or perhaps I should include those in the build?

Finally, on the last point, I'm clueless. Seems like there's already some dispute in this thread as to hardware vs. software raid, and I have no idea in terms of parity. What do you recommend? Thanks!

I'm in the process of building a new server and I went with an i5 and 16GB RAM (more RAM because I'm going to run some VMs, for a lot of people 8GB would be fine). Right now 3-4TB drives are the sweet spot on price. You could reuse the 2 drives in the NAS, but going forward I'm trying not to buy anything <4TB drives. If you only have a couple of TB of data right now, I wouldn't buy 10TB, drives will continue getting cheaper, expand as needed.

You want software RAID if you use any RAID. Hardware RAID comes with some drawbacks, and you're not that concerned with uptime and speed with a media server, but having some parity to protect against a failed drive is nice. And pooling drives will make your life much easier. I've been using Win 7/Flexraid for a few years and it's pretty good, on the new box I'm going with Ubuntu Server/Snapraid. Snapraid seems very good so far, and was very quick and easy to setup, but my new server is still in testing so I cannot give a full fledged recommendation for it. It's free while Flexraid costs money. Both will allow you to add new disks whenever you want and expand the pool.

You could also go with something like unRAID, Freenas, NAS4Free, etc, if you want something more like an appliance, but you have a lot of software requirements and so might want a full OS. If you go with Windows there is little reason to choose 7, just go with Windows 8.

---

Windows 7 + FlexRAID makes for a nice home server solution. It doesn't require much to run it. The only question will be about on-the-fly transcoding with your Plex setup. Will you just be serving those NUCs or will you want to transcode to mobile devices? If you leave transcoding out of it, then a Celeron 18x0 will do just fine.

Thanks! Is there a reason to do Windows 7 + Flexraid rather than Windows 8 + the included storage pooling solution?

I would go Windows 8 + Flexraid over Windows 8 + Storage Spaces.

[ratzofftoya]

Super helpful, thanks!

I'm in the process of building a new server and I went with an i5 and 16GB RAM (more RAM because I'm going to run some VMs, for a lot of people 8GB would be fine).

That sounds good, care to recommend a mobo and hard drive type? I'm interested in these intellipower NAS-type drives, but perhaps I should go with something more conventional (WD Green?) in light of all the software I'll be running. Then again, that software will probably be on an SSD, anyway...I'm definitely curious about the mobo, though. I've only bought gaming hardware before and I don't know what to prioritize here.

I've been using Win 7/Flexraid for a few years and it's pretty good, on the new box I'm going with Ubuntu Server/Snapraid.

Would I want Transparent RAID or RAID over Fliesystem? Can't say I quite understand the difference.

Thanks again!

[aaronb]

That sounds good, care to recommend a mobo and hard drive type? I'm interested in these intellipower NAS-type drives, but perhaps I should go with something more conventional (WD Green?) in light of all the software I'll be running. Then again, that software will probably be on an SSD, anyway...I'm definitely curious about the mobo, though. I've only bought gaming hardware before and I don't know what to prioritize here.

I bought a Gigabyte Z87 board, but buying today I'd go with Z97. Everyone has brands they like, I usually stick with Gigabyte and Asus. Make sure you get something with enough SATA ports and a good LAN chipset (i.e. Intel). For a home media server there isn't many other things to worry about mobo-wise, just need something stable that will accommodate your drives. Eventually you'll run out of SATA ports, so to plan long term you'll want to think about how you would add more drives, PCI-X SATA card, etc.

Hard drives, I like the WD Reds and Hitachi. It's a matter of when and not if they fail, try to mix up brands or batches of drives since drives from the same batch might all fail at the same time. Definitely get a SSD for the system drive, with enough space for everything you need. Plex can take up a lot of space, I went with a 120GB SSD. Intel, Samsung, or Crucial. Samsung EVO drives are great.

You'll want a case with good cooling and room to grow as well. I got an Antec with space for 6 drives, and a 5-in-3 cage that uses three 5.25" slots since I don't need those in the server, so 11 total. I've seen a lot of good reviews of the Fractal Design R4, that holds 8 drives, but only has two 5.25" slots. You can also go with an external eSATA box, Newegg has a few from Rosewill and Sans Digital. I have one of each of those attached to my old server and they work well and keep the drives cool. You're running 4 drives through one eSATA connection, but I have not noticed any issues with that.

Some newer cases have an extra spot to mount an SSD on the back of the mobo tray or bottom of the case, that's a nice added feature to avoid using up one of your precious hard drive slots on the system drive.

Would I want Transparent RAID or RAID over Fliesystem? Can't say I quite understand the difference.

Thanks again!

RAID over Filesystem for sure. T-RAID is real-time RAID, not necessary for mostly static data like on a media server. RAID-F does snapshots (mine runs nightly or weekly, I forget), so you do have the minor risk of losing data that is new since the last snapshot, but for a media server that's typically easily replaceable.