I'm building a server for my brother. The major purpose will be storage/Plex. It'll need to be able to serve at least 2 simultaneous streams. It will likely need to live with his other A/V equipment, although not necessarily. I'll be giving him a chromecast to act as the Plex client, driven from the Plex iOS app. It is also possible he'll have an older Mac Mini to act as the "front end" as well.

 

I'm giving him just enough drives to get started (2) but want it to be very easy for him to add more as he can afford to. He's also got a ton of DVDs that he wants to rip, so I'll need an optical drive for use with MakeMKV as well.  This is his first media server, and it is going to be a learning process for him, which he is expecting and looking forward to.

 

Budget is $750, and as you can see:

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/xWZ3dC

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/xWZ3dC/by_merchant/

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-3330 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($178.94 @ SuperBiiz)

Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard  ($69.99 @ Newegg)

Memory: Kingston Fury Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($69.99 @ Amazon)

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($114.00 @ Amazon)

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($114.00 @ Amazon)

Case: Silverstone GD08B (Black) HTPC Case  ($147.99 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: Corsair Builder 750W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($74.99 @ NCIX US)

Optical Drive: Pioneer BDC-207DBK Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer  ($39.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $809.89

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-06 18:03 EST-0500

 

 

I'm over

Based on case choice it looks like you want the server to be in the AV rack. I did too initially years ago but have since transitioned to a server box elsewhere in the house (in my office) and a "front end" as you call it in the AV rack connected by Gb ethernet. Reason? The server fans were not only loud (not really loud but you could tell when they were NOT on) when playing movies but even when the TV was off. Nowadays I have a couple media players (Roku3  running Plex client and an HD Dune for direct play - also beta version of Plex!) which are all silent. Makes a big difference to the noise level in the room.

 

One other thing I spotted is you have a single stick of RAM. I seem to recall that you need two to get the best dual channel performance though I may be thinking of some older implementation.

Thanks, yes I'm erring on the side of they can put it in an AV rack if they need to, or in a server closet. They haven't been in their house long and will likely make changes. This particular case is also rack mountable (with a rail kit) should they decide to move things into a dedicated space.

One nice thing about the HTPC cases that look like AV components is they tend to hold their value. I sold mine for near what I paid for it 3 years later.