This is something new to me and forgive my ignorance. I turn to for advice on what I actually need. I want to have a server at home that will run 24/7 and that will not be too much of an addition to the electricity bill. I have an old Asustor NAS and don’t want to push into off-the-shelf NAS solutions like Qnap and Synology. I prefer something that will give me more freedom.
Requirements are: Plex, torrent client with VPN, firewall, at least 1x2.5GbE. My first thought was to buy a MiniPC - e.g. Minisforum MS-01, but I am afraid that something so small will heat up too much.
In addition, I would have to somehow connect the HDD drives and I would prefer a solution where I have everything in one box. Besides, it’s probably overkill for my needs, but I think it’s better to buy overkill than something that will be sluggish.
Second option:
Jonsbo N3 + some Chinese motherboard with a permanently mounted processor seems to be a more sensible solution. Will this be enough for my needs?
I’m new to this, but I should have no problems with software installation and configuration. Proxmox, Unraid, TrueNAS are new to me, but I think I can handle them.
Asustor are pretty open ecosystems.
Why not put all your storage on there, and plonk a little MiniPC on top of it.
Not technically ‘all in one box’ but still a very pretty and very neat setup.
I have read and educated myself a little on these matters and know even less than before.
At the moment I am leaning towards something like this:
Chinese Q670 motherboard (brand kingnovyPC, never heard of it, Ethernet Intel)
Intel 12100
16/32GB memory
1 or 2x nvme
4x HDD
PSU ? I do not know how much power I will need.
Some mini ITX case
I have given up on the MiniPC option because I would like to be able to expand. In the future I would like to add more HDDs and use a PCIE slot and connect 10GBe. I have given up on N100 boards.
Would this be OK? Let me remind you of the applications:
Nas, Torrents. VPN, Plex/Jellyfin and pfSense. I would also like to learn something new so I would like to be able to set up some VMs. Mainly for fun and to refresh my Linux skills.
I would appreciate any advice.
I recently moved from a low tdp laptop to a gaming PC, tdp on idle is at 45W, it can host minimum 2 hard drives, and has 2.5gbe as well. RTX 4060 is plenty of power for 4k transcoding. PC has 4 fans and always runs cool. Its been running 24/7 for several months without an issue.
I use the jack hammer to do multiple things. An i5 with RTX 4060 GPU for gaming and I can still use that for Plex transcoding, nextcloud, etc. 4K HEVC to 1080p or lower when I’m outside, also I have some high quality 4k videos that uses lot of bandwidth so transcoding is a must. All this for 699 which was a great deal. Also added couple of 14tb internal drives and its a beast, with 4 fans runnings all the time, on idle its just 45W. While streaming or transcoding it could reach 60-70W and stays cool all the time.
That’s the only GPU I have, there is no iGPU. Also the power usage is right between 60-70W when transcoding 4K HEVC to 1080p, otherwise it just sits at 45W. What’s the ideal power usage for a server running all day with i5-13th gen, 2 internal drives, assume iGPU?