Plex / PfSense / NAS + Cloud Storage / ?? Build

[Lyric]

What is your budget? Probably $1,200 max including everything I have in my pcpartpicker list (unraid os license, some ethernet cabling so I can make custom runs, etc)

How many drives do you want your server to be able to support and how much capacity do you need? Kingstone 240GB SSD (PfSense), Mushkin 500GB SSD (unraid Cache for plex, appdata, etc?) WD 1TB M2 SSD - VMs, backups to configs, pictures, dockers, etc?, then I have a current 2TB Seagate 7200rpm Green drive for my plex media. Probably will expand to another 2TB of the same kind in the future as that fills.

Is expandability important to you?  If so, what's your long term goal? 1 or two more drives.

Are you interested in running any unRAID Add Ons? Probably Plex and who knows what else I may find cool or interesting.

What do you plan to run for hard drives? I listed them above, and they are also in pcpartpicker link.

Do you have any spare parts laying around that you would like to apply towards your build?  Yeah, I will be stealing a 2TB with media on it from my gaming pc which is used for plex atm.

 

PC Part Picker link: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/SaltyC/saved/YnKJ8d (shopping locally at micro-center so I have manual combo bundle prices in there for the cpu/mobo for $335-370 depending on if they still have a few of the mark down 2700x in there for $200 when I went in there last time)

 

 

My planned use case for this build is the following:

--==========================================--

unraid OS - $60 license? I don't think i'll exceed 6 hard drives anytime soon, and if so I'll pay for the upgrade later.

 

pfSense in a VM (running pfblockerng, snort, ntopng, openvpn to tunnel in from outside on my phone, etc) for the entire network wide adblocking and intrusion detection, graphing, etc. - I've used this before (Router on a stick setup) - here is my write-up I did for it. https://isycorax.blogspot.com/ - for anyone who is interested? Idk.

 

Plex Media Server in a Docker (completely new to Dockers, no idea how they work - or VM? I use my phone to cast from the current plex server to a chromecast ultra 4k connected to our 4k TV. Most media will be stored locally, so I don't think I'll be doing much transcoding? I also don't use subtitles ever if I can help it I'll disable them. Hernce why I chose a GT 710 GPU. I have a RX 580 in my gaming system.

 

Nextcloud / ownCloud for my own personal cloud for me and my wife to backup pictures off our Samsung phones instead of using samsungs cloud.

 

Deploying other VM(s) for my studying - I just started on Net+/CCENT and will be pursuing CCNA. So maybe GNS3 / Packet Tracer usage? Over my head right now, just started studying. There also may be other use cases to deploy other VMs for a honeypot in the future, etc etc. I have endless amounts of projects in my head that come and go.

 

I would also like to buy a extra cheapo monitor and use Grafana to display network usage/plex usage, etc just for a cool statistical GUI output, otherwise I can manage everything from my laptop or gaming pc via https/browser.

 

 

 

That being said unraid is completely new to me. Any insight? Am I going to be ok with one GPU for this setup? The only thing I'll want to display out to a monitor is the Grafana (the monitor will be on when I'm in the room, this is more of a cosmetic thing than anything else and "cool factor" it's not like i'm in a data center or something. I could always just do this from my other computers, but I'd love to have it sitting up on the shelf showing 24/7 so I can peak at it whenever if the net goes down, etc.

 

 

Thanks.

[Lyric]

Well, no one replied.... :(

 

I ended up driving out to micro-center and built the server with the following specs:

 

Server Build (Left Tower in Picture)

-==============================-

CASE: CM Masterbox Pro 5 RGB

CPU:  AMD R7 2700x (Stock Cooler)

MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming

RAM: 32GB DDR4-3000

PSU: 650w PowerSpec

HDD(s): Intel 660p NVME M.2 SSD (x2 - 1TB/ea)

            Seagate Barracuda 3.5" 7200rpm (x2 - 2TB/ea)

GPU: NVIDIA GT 710 2GB - Cheap for passthru, won't be used for gaming. Mostly use VNC.

 

General / Gaming RIG (On the right in the picture) - for anyone curious, not really related to the discussion.

-==================-

CASE: CM H500 - Acrylic Front Panel

CPU:   AMD R5 2600 @ 4.0GHz

MOBO: GIGABYTE B450M DS3H

RAM:   16GB DDR4-2666

PSU:   EVGA 500w

HDD(s): 240GB Samsung 850 SSD, 1TB Seagate 3.5" 7200rpm

GPU:     AMD RX580 8GB for 1080p Gaming.

 

 

 

I ended up buying a 500ft roll of CAT5E as well and made 5x 60ft custom cable runs for the main entertainment hub in the living room that will be run from my TL-SG108E switch, waiting on my Intel quad nic to arrive from amazon before I deploy PfSense again for the entire network.

 

I also have successfully setup unRAID in the following config:

 

2TB - Parity drive

1tb nvme ssd - data

1tb nvme ssd - data

2tb seagate - data

cache - none yet, will be buying a 500GB SSD for this later for plex appdata (I use thumbnails, metadata, previews, etc.

 

Already have delugevpn running successfully, nextcloud using mariadb, plex with tautulli, win10 enterprise vm, kali vm, and will be exploring some type of Tor browser, maybe Talis for private internet surfing later. Customized the UI a bit, and moved my entire movie library back after pre-clearing the drives prior to setting this up.

 

 

Thanks for looking.

[JonathanM]

14 minutes ago, Lyric said:

I also have successfully setup unRAID in the following config:

 

2TB - Parity drive

1tb nvme ssd - data

1tb nvme ssd - data

2tb seagate - data

cache - none yet, will be buying a 500GB SSD for this later for plex appdata (I use thumbnails, metadata, previews, etc.

You are seriously kneecapping the performance of those NVME drives by putting them in the parity protected array, unless the 2TB parity is also NVME. Also trim is disabled on array members to keep parity intact, so if those drives need trim, they will degrade in performance in any case.

[Lyric]

3 hours ago, jonathanm said:

You are seriously kneecapping the performance of those NVME drives by putting them in the parity protected array, unless the 2TB parity is also NVME. Also trim is disabled on array members to keep parity intact, so if those drives need trim, they will degrade in performance in any case.

Yeah probably....ran out of money to spend. I'll eventually buy a 2TB SSD to replace the parity drive, and probably replace the other 3.5" drive with a SSD as well. That's the plan anyhow....money doesn't grow on trees though haha.