Hey guys, I have plenty of experience in building gaming PC’s but servers are a bit new to me so bear with me. I currently have my Plex server running on my gaming rig with my media stored on 2 portable HDD’s and have started sharing my 8TB(and growing fast) library with friends and family. As you can probably guess this isn’t Ideal and am now looking into building and or buying a server and NAS or DAS for storage. I did some research and am highly considering the HP 290 with a DAS. But I have a few questions. If I bought I DAS like the Drobo 5c and plugged it into the 290 would that be sufficient? I noticed in some posts people are building their own DAS that uses SAS. Would that be overkill for my needs of just using it for Plex Media? I considered a NAS but wouldn’t a DAS plugged right into the 290 be more efficient? Any and all help is greatly appreciated and thank you for your time.
What is your library size (now and expected)? That is usually the deciding factor on situations like this.
Currently its near 8TB. But I anticipate an ever growing library. I have a 10TB hdd being shipped now. I planned on using unRaid in the future.
Don’t buy a Drobo. HP 290 with DAS isn’t really worth the money you’ll spend to set it up. With 2-3 hard drives, the DAS isn’t cost efficient. When you get to 6+ or so, that’s when you could consider DAS, but you should have a NAS before DAS.
A) Get a 290 when it hits $100 and build a NAS in addition to it. Xpenology or Unraid at this point since FreeNAS has the writing on the wall.
B) OTIS can do all of what you want in one build.
C) Just build a new Windows computer since it’s easier for your current use. In the future you’ll add a NAS.