Advice on a budget, small and silent home server


maetthew

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Hello!

 

I'm planning to build my first Unraid server. I've had a QNAP TS-251+ for about four years, but now is the time to make the switch to something custom that I can have full control over. I've bene looking around for about two weeks researching parts and planning my set up. I initially had planned to use an old i5 4670k but I really want to use the Fractal Design Node 304, and finding a mini ITX board with the LGA1150 turned out hard, and quite expensive when I actually could find something. So I think I'm all set on buying new hardware instead.

Budget is around $500-600 without hard drives. Preferably as little as possible.

 

Use case:
I'm going to use this mainly as a NAS and to run Nextcloud plus a couple of other small web applications with me as the single user. At the moment I'm not using Plex, but there's a possibility I will want to do that in the future to stream/transcode to my TV. My TV right now is only 1080p, but it's got a few years on it's neck and I will probably get a new one in a year or two so if I can stream 4k that would be sweet. I would like the ability to spin up a temporary VM or two. For example, if I find some kind of software I'm interested in I usually make a VM with Ubuntu server on it to try it out. Most likely I won't ever need a VM with a GUI for the OS. There's quite a big possibility that I will find more services to host in the future, so a little overhead in terms of power would be preferable.

 

List of services/applications that I know right now I want to run:

(i'm guessing this will grow as I get used to and explore the capabilities of Unraid)

  • Nextcloud
    My current NC instance is running in a VM on my Qnap. I probably want to continue having NC in a separate VM.
  • Wallabag
  • Snapdrop
  • Maria DB server
  • Organizr
  • Quassel Core


The parts that I've come up with thus far

  • Case: Fractal Design Node 304
    I chose this cause of it size and price, while still being seemingly able to move air through it quite nice
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3200G
    I'm unsure whether this CPU is enough for me, but I chose it cause the price and saw it being used in a couple of other builds when researching.
  • M/B: ASRock Fatal1ity B450 Gaming-ITX/ac
    The cheapest mini-ITX board I could find with AM4 socket, 4 sata ports, Intel NIC
  • RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX Black DDR4 3200MHz 2x8GB (CMK16GX4M2B3200C16)
    I think 16GB might be a bit overkill for me but the price difference between 2x4GB and 2x8GB was only about $15
  • PSU: Undecided. I currently have an old "be quiet! KRAFT 600W BQ K-600W" that has been lying around I think I'm gonna start with. Though I'm thinking I might wanna get a new fresh one if I'm gonna run a server 24/7. I'd happily take advice on this and/or any suggestions for a stable, silent and budget friendly PSU.
  • Cache storage: Kingston A2000 M.2 250GB
    Cheapest M.2 drive I could find.
  • Array storage: I currently have 2x2TB WD Red that has been used in a RAID 1 array in my QNAP. One of them has power on hours for 4 years, the other one for 2,5 years. I plan on starting with these and getting one or two new 4TB drives in the coming months. Need advice on the most stable and quiet drives.

 

Couple of points I thought I'd mention:

  • Please note that I'm from Sweden so any deals probably won't apply.
  • I'm not sure yet what kind of "add ons"/"plugins" I would like to run
  • It's unlikely I would need more than 6 drives in the near future (at least 4 years)
  • For any VM use, it's highly unlikely I would ever need to run an OS with a GUI. But if possible, always nice to have the opportunity.
  • The server will be located in my bedroom, so I need it to be as close to silent as it can get on idle.
  • I won't be running or storing anything critical for the first month or two. I plan on messing around with Unraid and learning as much as I can. In the mean time I will keep all important data on my desktop computer and on an external drive.

 

Questions:

  1. Is there any parts you would swap out for something different?
  2. Would a Ryzen 5 3400G make any difference for my use case? I'm uncertain on the "power" of the Ryzen 3 3200G. The price is 150% (~$100 vs ~$150) for the Ryzen 5 in Sweden compared to the Ryzen 3. Would I be good to go with the Ryzen 3 and make the upgrade when the 5xxx APU's are available (if needed). As far as I understand, they will be compatible with the B450 boards?
  3. Is there anywhere I can shell out a few more bucks to make it quieter?
  4. Is there anywhere I can shave off a few bucks without making it noisier?
  5. I need advice on the most budget friendly 4TB hard drives which are stable and quiet. If there's 8TB where I can find a sweet spot for most bang for the buck, I'll consider that.
  6. How important is ECC ram? I went with normal ram for now cause of budget, but the M/B supports it if I want to go ECC in the future.
  7. If I feel the CPU and case fans are too loud, I might consider swapping them out and would gladly take suggestions on what to replace them with

 

I think I've got everything covered, might have missed something, will make a reply to this thread if I come up with anything more.

 

If you read up to this point, thank you for reading and thank you in advance for any advice!

Edited by maetthew
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Hi,

 

Personally I prefer mATX such as node 804, though I'm actually using full ATX.

mITX can be very limiting and expensive.

 

A few other thoughts.

 

For this type of build I would look to Intel.

The IGP on the Intel CPUS works very well for transcoding etc. in Plex, Emby etc. AMD doesn't have the support and some modern formats could easily hit 100% CPU during transcode. The iGPU can do that on ~20W.

 

If you set the drives to spin down and then the only noise will be the air passing through the machine.

If you use the BIOS fan management then it will be auidible only if you listen for it.

 

The exception may be parity checks when all drives are spinning, however you can use a plugin to manage the timings.

 

I do use ECC, but I read it is not a big issue with unraid, no different to your home PC.

Other OS with ZFS file system are more at risk from memory errors. 

It is important to run memory a the JDEC standard for the CPU, not the XMP profile speed ... high speed memory is therefore not needed.

You'd need to check but could be 2400/2666 on the AMD chip.

 

 

 

 

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