Hi all,
New to this forum but have been looking around for a few months for an "all in one build".
It is probably best if I let you know what I want and then to hear some other suggestions!
In my front-room I have my gigabit switch and my TV. My 2 TV's are smart TV's which are wired LAN and run Plex app. My PC currently serves as my media server, but I want to build a media server - and more!
So in the front room I want this server to have loads of storage and also be beefy enough to handle my TV's running Plex and also Hyperspin and some PC gaming. Oh and just so you know that I am not asking for too much i want it to be as quiet as possible!!
So realistically I am looking at a case that can handle 5 drives and is "wife friendly" on the cosmetic front.
I think I have narrowed this down to:
CASE - Fractual Node 304 (or 804) or the Lian Li - PC-Q25-B
CPU - Intel i5 4690K - looked at the 4670k and I know the 4690K falls into a strange bracket but the price difference (UK Amazon) is only £2.
Motherboard - I need help here I think. I was looking at ASRock Z87-E-ITX. I don't think there is much need for a z97 board, although willing to hear suggestions.
PSU - To be decided. Obviously need's to be fairly short. Read a post on here which used the SILVERSTONE ST45SF-G 450W, but I am wondering if that has enough future power for me - would want to put a fairly beefy GPU in this in the future.
RAM - Have used these: G-Skill 8GB Ripjaws X DDR3 2133 Dual Kit - Red in my PC and love them - wondering if i need lower profile RAM though?
Hard Drives - Was looking at 5 x 4TB WD Red's. Also 1 SSD for the O/S.
I did plan on installing ESXi5.5 and creating a few VM's but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed wrong. I can do everything I need with Windows 7 or more likely 8.1.
I have had a brief read about unRAID and it sounds good (like ZFS? but I don't think I can install Windows on unRAID) although I think I should either buy a RAID PCI card or I will probably just use RAID-5 on the inbuilt motherboard. Please don't talk to me about backups and that RAID is not a backup! I know it's not, anything SUPER important gets uploaded to my kimsufi dedicated.
So in summary I want the server to:
Main storage for videos, pictures and movies.
HDMI connected to my TV so I can play PC games and emulators.
Be as low profile as possible.
Be as quiet as possible.
Comments/suggestions please!!
EDIT - Just also looked at this case - Lian Li PC-V358B Micro-ATX Cube - Black. That is actually pretty much the same height as the q25b, but opens up the possibility to use a micro-atx motherboard.
