PCPartPicker Link: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/YftmdC

 

My friend turned me onto unRAID about six months ago and I've been in love with this thing since. I don't know much about Linux and the architecture but I'm learning new things every day and the community here has been extremely helpful. The reason for this post is to get general impressions for the server and ideas for fun things I could do with existing hardware or small upgrades.

 

At the time I decided to build the server, I had a fairly beefy gaming computer. I wanted something that I could keep on at all times for Plex as well as network storage for my family. I pulled the HDD/SSD and video card and used everything else, so I realize that several components (AIO liquid cooler, unlocked CPU) are simply unnecessary but just remember that I didn't originally design this build to be used as a server.

 

I had only just recently started converting my library to HD quality so I didn't mind actually starting fresh if necessary. I bought two WD Red 6TB drives to start, later adding two more. The case has six (6) internal 3.5" bays so I will ultimately fill them all for a 5/1 array with 30TB available. I have a SSD attached via PCIe adapter and just recently upgraded to the max supported 32GB of RAM for game servers, etc. Right now I only have Plex, PlexPy and several Minecraft servers running. I want to setup DuckDNS and TeamSpeak 3 dockers but would really love to be able to run VMs and other game servers. In the future, I would love to be able to run a home-monitoring setup for cameras and other components. I also hope to add a Silverstone front cage for five (5) additional 3.5" bays, but that is nowhere close to necessary at this point in time.

 

My CPU (i7-3770K) has integrated graphics -- can I run a VM with that or would I need a dedicated GPU?

This is the most recent update on passing through integrated graphics to a VM:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=47088.0