Hardware Recommendations for Unraid Build

Below is my goal for my Unraid / Plex Media Build. I was hoping to get some suggestions on the best cpu/mobo combo for my needs. I’m also looking for a inexpensive GPU as well that will meet and exceed my needs. I would prefer a new Intel 5 or possibly a Ryzen 3000


Below is what I am trying to accomplish with my Unraid Server.

Server Task :

  • Primary Task - Media Server (Plex/Kodi)
  • Secondary Task - Cloud, Backup, VM, Retro Gaming.

Primary Task Details:

  • Media Library – Storage for all Media (Movies, TV shows, Music, EBooks, Photos)
  • Media Management –Media Grabbers/Metadata add-ons (Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr/Jackett)
  • Torrents/Usenet Clients - Torrents and Newsgroups clients (Qbittorrent, SABnzbd,Nzbget)
  • Plex Server – 2-3 transcode streams simultaneously, mostly direct (local content to media player)
  • Kodi – My primary media player at the moment (might use Plex plugin for Kodi).

Secondary Task Details:

  • Games – Retro/Roms (SNES, Genesis, etc.) Would like to store Roms on server and remote play.
  • Personal Cloud – Personal Cloud storage (Nextcloud or owncloud)
  • VPN –I might setup a VPN on a 2nd router that would be hardwired to the Raid box; is there a better practice? Otherwise I would install OpenVPN or something similar.
  • Backup –Backup primary pc files.
  • Virtual Machines –Most likely just 1 Windows VM running, new to VM so would like to play around.

Plug-Ins/Dockers (Not complete):

  • Plex Server
  • Tautulli
  • Ombi
  • Radarr
  • Sonarr
  • Lidarr
  • Jackett
  • Torrent client (Qbittorrent or Binhex DelugeVPN container?)
  • A backup add-on (Crashplan or similar)
  • DuckDNS
  • SABnzbd
  • Mopidy/Mopify or Subsonic/Madsonic
  • OpenVPN
  • Organizer
  • Nginx & LetsEncrypt

Media Players:

NVidia Shield TVRoku Media Players TCL Roku TVs

Home Environment:

  • 300Mbps/30Mbps Broadband
  • Cat5e/6 to all devices (using switch w/ MOCA 2.5 adapter for remote locations); will move to direct ethernet cat6 & ubiquiti aps.
  • Uptime 24/7

Curious what you ended up going with and any other build details you can share? I’m interested in a build to similar needs

i second this . i would like to know what direction you went with it