Technology Home Media Server

[Khastle]

I'm making a home media server currently and I was wondering if anyone on here has experience with making them? This will be my first one and I'm quite happy with what I have planned so far. I'll be using a NV3 Kingston for the SSD OS, two mirrored Seagate Ironwolfs mirrored 4tb HDDs for my Jellyfin media library, 32GB of Corsair Vengance DDR4 3200mhz ram, and will all be processed by Intel N100. Case I'll be using is a Topton R1 Pro which looks like a futuristic air freshener but I've heard good things all things considered. For the OS I'll most likely be using Proxmox or Ubuntu server.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on my build below and also advice ans tips if you've built your own server in the past.

 

[Bibr]

Summon @krop (stop lurking you fag)

32gb might not work

Maximum RAM for Intel N100?

I'm searching for a low-power board for my own home server, but there is something I don't understand about the Intel N100: ASRock states it supports 32GB of RAM Intel states the maximum RAM is 16GB

superuser.com

Intel n100 specs state that it supports up to 16gb and it's a luck factor if 32gb stick will run. IMO anyway 16gb will be more than plenty for this tast. IMO raid 1 is a waste of space, unless you plan on storing there some of your heckin lost media and some valuable personal files.
Drives will be new, or something refurbished from ebay ? You can get some real cheap decomissioned drives there

 

[Khastle]

Summon @krop (stop lurking you fag)

32gb might not work

Maximum RAM for Intel N100?

I'm searching for a low-power board for my own home server, but there is something I don't understand about the Intel N100: ASRock states it supports 32GB of RAM Intel states the maximum RAM is 16GB

superuser.com

Intel n100 specs state that it supports up to 16gb and it's a luck factor if 32gb stick will run. IMO anyway 16gb will be more than plenty for this tast. IMO raid 1 is a waste of space, unless you plan on storing there some of your heckin lost media and some valuable personal files.
Drives will be new, or something refurbished from ebay ? You can get some real cheap decomissioned drives there

Oh wtf it said it could on the listing wtf!!!!

 

[Khastle]

Summon @krop (stop lurking you fag)

32gb might not work

Maximum RAM for Intel N100?

I'm searching for a low-power board for my own home server, but there is something I don't understand about the Intel N100: ASRock states it supports 32GB of RAM Intel states the maximum RAM is 16GB

superuser.com

Intel n100 specs state that it supports up to 16gb and it's a luck factor if 32gb stick will run. IMO anyway 16gb will be more than plenty for this tast. IMO raid 1 is a waste of space, unless you plan on storing there some of your heckin lost media and some valuable personal files.
Drives will be new, or something refurbished from ebay ? You can get some real cheap decomissioned drives there

Was unable to cancel but seeing reports with the Topton that it works fine so should be ok

https://forum.marianabay.com/redirect?to=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmVkZGl0LmNvbS9yL01pbmlQQ3Mvcy8zekRFTXZOY0Zy

(Idc its Reddit, site is good for tech support)

 

[Khastle]

Drives will be new, or something refurbished from ebay ? You can get some real cheap decomissioned drives there

Hate to triple post but forgot to reply to this part: yes they are new, used HDDs are hit and miss and since this is gonna be a server that'll be on for long periods I didn't want to risk getting something used and it fucking up in the first month, comes with a year's warranty anyways which should be more than enough to see if the drives will work well in the long run as I hear if a drive is bad it will usually fuck up in the first year.

 

[Bibr]

Bro desperately needs to stay as top 1 poster of the month no problem fam
This whole 32gb of ram thing is something that I found by accident. IMO if manufacturer of this PC claims "up to 32gb", then it's gonna work.
If those drives are new i seriously wouldn't bother with mirroring them. Once you start to hoard data, space will be an issue, and it's not like you can put third drive there

 

[Khastle]

Bro desperately needs to stay as top 1 poster of the month no problem fam
This whole 32gb of ram thing is something that I found by accident. IMO if manufacturer of this PC claims "up to 32gb", then it's gonna work.
If those drives are new i seriously wouldn't bother with mirroring them. Once you start to hoard data, space will be an issue, and it's not like you can put third drive there

I'm only mirroring as I get way too paranoid over disk failure and that assurance that if one dies the other will be fine puts me at ease, yes another friend said the same thing that if you don't have lost media on there (which tbh I don't) then mirroring seems silly as almost everything can be redownloaded if the worse does happen anyways, but thats effort if it does happen and also I get too overboard with data hoarding ngl lol, I like having that file limit there so I don't get too autistically obssesed with creating the best media collection in the world.

 

[Tabula Rasa]

how does it all work?

 

[Khastle]

how does it all work?

Brilliant question, essentially I'll be running a Proxmox hyperscalar on the machine which will let me run multiple virtual machines and containers at once aka multiple servers at once. Jellyfin will be used to share whatever media I have on the HDDs but it can do so much more too, I could run a minecraft server on the side, host websites, play around with multiple VMs on an external machine, mine crypto, etc. There's alot I can do essentially but it will take some studying before I even dare make it something that can be accessed on the internet (very easy to get hacked if youre a noob and don't prep properly) so for the start it only be accessible on my local network. Loads of possibilities tho and I look forward to having fun with this.

 

[playFACE]

Brilliant question, essentially I'll be running a Proxmox hyperscalar on the machine which will let me run multiple virtual machines and containers at once aka multiple servers at once. Jellyfin will be used to share whatever media I have on the HDDs but it can do so much more too, I could run a minecraft server on the side, host websites, play around with multiple VMs on an external machine, mine crypto, etc. There's alot I can do essentially but it will take some studying before I even dare make it something that can be accessed on the internet (very easy to get hacked if youre a noob and don't prep properly) so for the start it only be accessible on my local network. Loads of possibilities tho and I look forward to having fun with this.

sounds like youre doing more than a basic home media server and a station at that point. nice, i wish you the best of luck too lmao. i recently (few months ago at best) built my first server (unraid, 60tb, media server atm with more plans in the future) and yeah it can seem like a daunting task at first

i would highly highly HIGHLY advise for you to look at guides on youtube, forums, substack, literally everywhere to get as informed as you can before you go live. feels like every day i learn a bit more about how to manage my server more efficiently.

also yeah having your server send an internet connection can be done safely and encrypted but it does take a bit of work and technical know how on how to actually do it right. im sure no one wants to suddenly come home from work to realize their entire network is compromised and they have to pay some random russian 50,000 roubles to "unlock" their network

 

[Khastle]

sounds like youre doing more than a basic home media server and a station at that point. nice, i wish you the best of luck too lmao. i recently (few months ago at best) built my first server (unraid, 60tb, media server atm with more plans in the future) and yeah it can seem like a daunting task at first

i would highly highly HIGHLY advise for you to look at guides on youtube, forums, substack, literally everywhere to get as informed as you can before you go live. feels like every day i learn a bit more about how to manage my server more efficiently.

also yeah having your server send an internet connection can be done safely and encrypted but it does take a bit of work and technical know how on how to actually do it right. im sure no one wants to suddenly come home from work to realize their entire network is compromised and they have to pay some random russian 50,000 roubles to "unlock" their network

Thank you fren, I see you use Unraid, would you recommend that over Proxmox as Ive looked at that but I see it as a paid program and it runs off a usb which seems mega gay but might consider it if its half decent.

Also yeh dw Ill do my research, reckon its gonna be awhile before Ill allow the device to communicate outside basic ethernet as I want to be secure as possible at first.

 

[playFACE]

Thank you fren, I see you use Unraid, would you recommend that over Proxmox as Ive looked at that but I see it as a paid program and it runs off a usb which seems mega gay but might consider it if its half decent.

Also yeh dw Ill do my research, reckon its gonna be awhile before Ill allow the device to communicate outside basic ethernet as I want to be secure as possible at first.

ehh i cant say for sure if i am being quiet honest. my research into proxmox is quiet small and a majority of my time i spent researching into whether or not i should go with unraid vs truenas. proxmox wasnt really on my radar when i went to decide on what to use for my OS for my server. also yeah it is pretty fucking gay that you have to use a USB stick for your os. its dumb but at least i have heard some talks on their official podcast that they might change it, but i imagine such a change would be several years down the line.

i went with unraid due to the unanimous community opinion that it is more "noob" friendly and has more active plugins than truenas (although i say that with an asterisk since a 90% of unraid's plugins are community ran so if there is an issue you better hope that the community has found a fix for your problem vs truenas has more official support but it is slower on the updates (i think?) and has less plugins overall)

personally i am just using my current server as a media storage server as when i attempted to run jellyfin, sonarr, radarr, the whole Rs plugins, they uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh caused my house to brownout. so yeah im definitely putting that on the back burner for a while lmao.

 

[Khastle]

Bro desperately needs to stay as top 1 poster of the month no problem fam
This whole 32gb of ram thing is something that I found by accident. IMO if manufacturer of this PC claims "up to 32gb", then it's gonna work.
If those drives are new i seriously wouldn't bother with mirroring them. Once you start to hoard data, space will be an issue, and it's not like you can put third drive there

Decided to take your advice and will return the two 4TB HDDs, simply not enough space and I doubt I'll be using it enough to even about hard drive failure and RAID mirroring, not to mention I have offline backups as is. Will see if the seller will exchange for a 8tb

 

[Khastle]

@playFACE @Bibr Experiences with helium based drives? May get one (most hdds over 8tb are helium anyways due to the hdd plates working better under it). They consume less watts, are more quiet, and seem to have good life too, I was wondering if you lads have had experiences with them tho, will be getting one regardless probs as I found a good deal

 

[Bibr]

@playFACE @Bibr Experiences with helium based drives? May get one (most hdds over 8tb are helium anyways due to the hdd plates working better under it). They consume less watts, are more quiet, and seem to have good life too, I was wondering if you lads have had experiences with them tho, will be getting one regardless probs as I found a good deal

ngl for me drive is a drive

 

[playFACE]

@playFACE @Bibr Experiences with helium based drives? May get one (most hdds over 8tb are helium anyways due to the hdd plates working better under it). They consume less watts, are more quiet, and seem to have good life too, I was wondering if you lads have had experiences with them tho, will be getting one regardless probs as I found a good deal

just get them if theyre cheaper than regular air based hard drives, if not then just go for the standard air ones and call it a day.

after all, this is going to be a long term project as well, one that you can adjust and change as you go. nothing says you cant buy helium drives later