Hey guys, I’ve been creeping around for a bit and I’m getting close to being ready to pull the trigger on everything. However, I’m not convinced I’m making the best decisions with everything, so I wanted to get some opinions here.
The main goal of this build is to offset usage from the main gaming PC. The main rig runs a 295x2 GPU, so even when not under load it’s pulling decent amount of power from the wall. I’d like to save my sanity and wallet the pain of another Texas summer running the AC and that beast 24/7.
The second goal is to take all of my media and make it available in one area. Music may be a bit tricky since I still use iTunes to manage my larger iPod, and a quick google search tells me that may be a bit problematic, but being able to take all of my movies onto a plex server would be amazing. It would be for a lot of in home streaming with a bit of remote, and I can’t really imagine more than 3-4 users pulling from it quite honestly.
I’d also like to use crashplan to back up everything and keep me protected. There’s no real need for this, but it never hurts to be careful. This would ideally back up the main pc, one (possibly several) laptops, a phone and an iPad (this one being the lowest priority)
I opted for this build in large part due to noise considerations. I currently live in a one bedroom apartment, so it's very likely going to sit in the living room. As much as I wanted a 4224 with the 120mm fans, the general consensus seemed to be the noise is just too much. While it may cost more in the long term, may be worth it to do this build now and then rehouse everything down the road.
I may also try to run small servers for gaming with my friends, but not sure what the best way to do that would be. One thing we’ve talked about is setting up a pit boss machine for Civilization 5 and Terraria, but not sure that could be done this way.
I'll be running Raidz1 most likely due to drive constraints. Currently, most of my media is on a 4 TB drive, and while it all could be reacquired, that's a huge pain in the ass. The current plan is to have two separate pools, with one pool of 4 4tb drives being added at the end so I can migrate the data and reuse the drive
I’ll be running FreeNAS with a slickbeard and Plex, again unless anyone has better suggestions.
Please feel free to be brutally honest with this critique, I’m way out of my element and could really use some honest help from the experts. This is going to be my first server/NAS and while I’ve done a ton of gaming/casual builds, this is unexplored territory.
Here's the PCPartPicker list if that's easier, but I'll link the parts as well.
Motherboard/CPU
[URL='http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157486']E3C224D4I-14S [/URL]
CPU
I'm torn between two options here, basically two versions of the same cpu. Is there one that would be better? How would these handle some Plex transcodes? Also, is the stock cooler enough? I'm certainly not overclocking
Intel Xeon E3-1230
Intel Xeon E3-1231
Case
Lian Li PC-Q26B
Memory
Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ECC will add another kit later)
Storage
6 TB WD Red X 4 (may scrap these for 4tb to save money)
4 TB WD Red 4 TB seems to be the sweet spot right now. I'll be starting with 4 drives and later throwing in an additional 4 to save on costs.
Power Supply
Silverstone 500 Gold (Is this too much? Not enough? I only have a vague idea of how much power I'll be pulling).
UPS
This would be for my main PC and the NAS more than likely, should I get one with a higher load?
CyperBower BRG1500
Thanks in advance for any insight. I've been browsing Reddit and here for a bit, but I've reached information overload and am starting to really overthink things.
The main goal of this build is to offset usage from the main gaming PC. The main rig runs a 295x2 GPU, so even when not under load it’s pulling decent amount of power from the wall. I’d like to save my sanity and wallet the pain of another Texas summer running the AC and that beast 24/7.
The second goal is to take all of my media and make it available in one area. Music may be a bit tricky since I still use iTunes to manage my larger iPod, and a quick google search tells me that may be a bit problematic, but being able to take all of my movies onto a plex server would be amazing. It would be for a lot of in home streaming with a bit of remote, and I can’t really imagine more than 3-4 users pulling from it quite honestly.
I’d also like to use crashplan to back up everything and keep me protected. There’s no real need for this, but it never hurts to be careful. This would ideally back up the main pc, one (possibly several) laptops, a phone and an iPad (this one being the lowest priority)
I opted for this build in large part due to noise considerations. I currently live in a one bedroom apartment, so it's very likely going to sit in the living room. As much as I wanted a 4224 with the 120mm fans, the general consensus seemed to be the noise is just too much. While it may cost more in the long term, may be worth it to do this build now and then rehouse everything down the road.
I may also try to run small servers for gaming with my friends, but not sure what the best way to do that would be. One thing we’ve talked about is setting up a pit boss machine for Civilization 5 and Terraria, but not sure that could be done this way.
I'll be running Raidz1 most likely due to drive constraints. Currently, most of my media is on a 4 TB drive, and while it all could be reacquired, that's a huge pain in the ass. The current plan is to have two separate pools, with one pool of 4 4tb drives being added at the end so I can migrate the data and reuse the drive
I’ll be running FreeNAS with a slickbeard and Plex, again unless anyone has better suggestions.
Please feel free to be brutally honest with this critique, I’m way out of my element and could really use some honest help from the experts. This is going to be my first server/NAS and while I’ve done a ton of gaming/casual builds, this is unexplored territory.
Here's the PCPartPicker list if that's easier, but I'll link the parts as well.
Motherboard/CPU
[URL='http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157486']E3C224D4I-14S [/URL]
CPU
I'm torn between two options here, basically two versions of the same cpu. Is there one that would be better? How would these handle some Plex transcodes? Also, is the stock cooler enough? I'm certainly not overclocking
Intel Xeon E3-1230
Intel Xeon E3-1231
Case
Lian Li PC-Q26B
Memory
Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ECC will add another kit later)
Storage
6 TB WD Red X 4 (may scrap these for 4tb to save money)
4 TB WD Red 4 TB seems to be the sweet spot right now. I'll be starting with 4 drives and later throwing in an additional 4 to save on costs.
Power Supply
Silverstone 500 Gold (Is this too much? Not enough? I only have a vague idea of how much power I'll be pulling).
UPS
This would be for my main PC and the NAS more than likely, should I get one with a higher load?
CyperBower BRG1500
Thanks in advance for any insight. I've been browsing Reddit and here for a bit, but I've reached information overload and am starting to really overthink things.
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