Looking to build an unraid/Plex server

Technology Buy Curious
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Hello all. First things first, I’m not sure if this is the correct forum for these questions. I am looking to finally build an unraid/Plex server that will primarily be used for home use only. I won’t be allowing outside connections to access the content since my upload speed sucks and I don’t want people bogging me down. I want to build in a tower case since I do not have room for a rack/rack mount setup. I currently have an older Antec Twelve Hundred case that can hold 12 drives in it’s current configuration. I know there are bays that can hold like 4 in 3 or 5 in 3, but I’m having trouble finding them. Also, I’m not sure if I should go Ryzen or Intel for this build. I don’t think I will be doing much transcoding since it will all be local, and my playback devices will be the Shield pro both upstairs and downstairs.

I currently have an ancient Synology that has 4 x 3tb reds that are full. It’s not powerful enough to run PMS and I want to be able to scale up in capacity as needed. I also have 3 external drives that are nearing capacity, but my thinking is that once the server is built and I transfer everything over I can use these drives as extra space as well.

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I saw you deleted this, did you not need help anymore?

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Yes, I do still need help. I was trying to navigate the forums on my phone and the reply button wasn’t popping up, so I wanted to edit my post and ended up deleting it. My bad.

1 Like
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It isn’t clear what your questions are? If you are just running Plex, and the only clients will be Shield Pros, your actual hardware needs will be pretty low as you won’t need transcoding horsepower. A NAS Killer 4.0/4.1 would be more than enough, as long as you are okay with used hardware.

If you want new though I’d probably go Intel since they have an integrated GPU, which would be useful for initial setup and diagnostics plus be available for future hardware transcoding if your needs change. Ryzen gets you more cores/threads per watt and better IPC, so might be a slightly better choice for virtualization.

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Sorry about that. It’ll mainly be for Plex and personal storage. As of now, the only clients will be a Shield Pro and maybe the Shield TV stick for upstairs (both of which will be hard wired). My main concerns are I’m not sure which hardware I should be looking at (last PC I build was 2007 so I’ve been out the game for a long time), and I’m having trouble finding hard drive bays that will fit in the Antec 1200 case I am planning on using. That case can hold 12 drives in the front, but I’m looking for something that can fit 4 drives in the space of 3 5.25" bays, or 5 if there is anything of the sorts.

I also have a couple of 512GB SSDs I will use for my cache so I should be set there. I just don’t see the need for a used enterprise server, nor do I have the room or space for something like that.

Thanks.

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The idea is you take the MoBo/CPU/RAM out of the server chassis and put it in whatever case you want. Going new will obviously work, just more expensive.

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This is kinda what I came up with for a parts list. I forgot (wife reminded me) to add that I will be looking to run a minecraft server or two for the nieces/nephews to play on instead of public realms where their worlds keep getting destroyed, so hence the beefier specs. As for any other add-ons, I have a dedicated crappy laptop that I do all of my downloading on, so I won’t be using things like Sonaar or Radaar on the unraid server.

As for Plex, it’ll still be all local play on Shield devices so no need for a separate video card for that. I plan on sticking to just 1080P for the server and buying 4k physical discs for the movies I really want in 4k.

Budget for parts I don’t have is about $600:

Motherboard: Gigabyte B460 HD3 LGA 1200 ($120)

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813145209?Item=N82E16813145209

CPU: Intel Core i5-10400 ($160)

https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i5-10400-core-i5-10th-gen/p/N82E16819118135

Power supply: Rosewill Hive 550W ($85)

https://www.newegg.com/rosewill-hive-series-hive-550-550w/p/N82E16817182131

USB: Sandisk 32GB Cruzer Fir USB 2.0 ($7)

https://www.newegg.com/sandisk-model-sdcz33-032g-g35-32gb/p/N82E16820173256

Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB 4x8GB ($151)

https://www.newegg.com/corsair-32gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820233731

SSD: Reuse current Intel 500GB SSDs for cache and metadata (currently have)

Power cables: Cable Matters power splitter ($12/2 pack)

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B012BPLW08/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=A1AMUYYA3CT6HJ&psc=1

Shucked drives: WD 8 and 10TB drives (currently have, starting with 4-5 & 1 parity, would like expandability to add more drives)

SAS/HBA: Not sure, input needed

Case: Antec Twelve-hundred ATX case

Add-on drive bays: 4in3 or 5in3 5.25" bays (input needed)

I just posted newegg links for the fact it’s easier for me to create a wishlist on there and keep everything organized. I won’t be purchasing everything from there unless it’s cheaper than other places.