Tips on building a modern quiet home office server

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openmedia

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#215008 8-Jun-2017 12:32

I don't currently have a separate room for my home server so I've spent time investing in quiet PSUs, fans etc but it is getting a little old.

I don't need extreme performance, current setup is an Athlon II X4 640, but extra RAM would help.

Base Specs

Quad Core
>= 32 GB Ram
>= 6 onboard SATA
Onboard GPU
GigE
USB3 - backup/recovery

Don't need RAID as I use Linux Software raid etc. I'd also like a board that can leverage an existing 550W PSU, and mATX is would be sufficient.

I've been looking at some of the Ryzen HW.

A backup option is to keep the CPU and move to a newer board with better RAM and USB support, but struggling to find anything with onboard graphics.

Any thoughts / tips.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

Item

1717 posts

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#1796614 8-Jun-2017 13:16

What does it actually need to do? Could you get away with just a NAS rather than a full on server?

openmedia

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#1796667 8-Jun-2017 14:32

Two primary uses

Local Storage - Currently 5 x 3TB disks Raid 6
Virtual machines
- Running a pair of 512GB SSDs Raid 1

I use it for local VMs for home services, plus quite a bit of prototyping for work. I need it available 24/7 as I access it remotely while working as well.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

openmedia

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#1796679 8-Jun-2017 14:35

Closest NAS devices are around $850 plus for 5 bay and close to $1500 for 8 bay.

I already have cases, disks and power supplies so I'm not looking at a NAS.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.