Hey all

Been playing around with plex and the *arr’s for a while on my main desktop.

Now looking to set up a server to run plex, downloads, pi hole and eventually some other backup’s.

Unfortunately the PC I had laying around is 32bit and it seems like most things are removing support for that architecture if they haven’t already. Now I’m faced with the problem/opportunity of getting something new (to me).

But I’m struggling with the absolute sea of options out there and also don’t want to spend on brand new gear.

There’s quite a bit of server grade hardware floating around (like a Dell Poweredge server T410, 32GB ram, Intel Xeon E5645 2.13GHz Quad-core for $100AUD) or even rackmount gear (probably overkill but a boy can dream).

Or should I just get a consumer case with the most drive bays I can find and build from there?

Lowish power consumption is a priority, planning on running ubuntu or similar.

Any and all tips welcome! Thanks.

  • FippleStoneEnglish
    2·
    11 months ago

    I would definitely recommend consumer grade hardware for a small home server, I ran older server gear (dual e5645+42GB ram) and found it to be loud and power hungry, especially at idle. Moved over to only slightly newer consumer stuff (i5-3470+8GB ram) and it still did what I needed it to, without costing $40AUD a month to run.

    8GB of RAM is perhaps a bit limiting at times but I’ve not yet run into any critical issues because of it. I wouldn’t want to try simultaneous, high bit-rate transcodes on it but aside from that it’s been fine for my use case.

    • tuff_wizardOPEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      Thats some good info, I had a sneaking suspicion that the server stuff might suck the juice. Currently trawling marktplace for a new i3 or i5 or someone’s older gaming rig I can strip down