Struggling with New PC Build

donbot on 15/11/2021 - 09:37

I've been made to feel very old trying to build a replacement PC. Having done this since my teens, I've fallen away with current tech in recent years and feel a bit out of my depth!

My current fileserver/media server/plex/sonarr/etc box is dying a slow death. The HDDs in it (18TB of storage) are fine and bring them across, but as an i3-3220, its showing its age. I think its in excess of 10 years old… so I dont mind throwing a few bucks at a system as its used a lot. The drives are a lot newer - I've upgraded them as I've gone along as some have died. Critical information/photos are kept locally across all drives and a cloud backup, so redundancy

I've considered a 4 drive NAS, but cost prohibitive IMHO for what you get. I do a little bit of lightroom work via RDP, so having a PC thats a bit snappier and setup to manage cloud backups of critical files is gold. The current setup is quite sluggish.

Thinking to future proof myself a bit too - I tend not to update often.

Hoping someone can give thoughts as to what I'm listing below as to any major flaws that jump out.

i3-10105F
Gigabyte b560I Aorus Mini-ITX
Existing Radeom 5450 (wont be connected to a monitor - RDP into Win10) - will this cause any slowdown with the system by using this old part? If so, happy to go a non-F chip rather than a new dedicated card)
250GB NVME SSD - to keep the SATA ports clear for another storage drive in due course.
16gb RAM
Fractal Design Node 304 (noting pre-sale everywhere currently) - or another alternative?
Modular PSU so as to eliminate excess cabling - whats decent and compact for a reasonable sum?

I'm struggling with the NVME Drive & compatibility (is there a point of NVME for OS with i3?), and the Case/PSU size. Ideally the case has space for 6 drives so that when I put 4 storage drives in there, they arent crammed in line sardines).

Welcome your thoughts. Thanks

Computing

Comments

  • Fergy1987 on 15/11/2021 - 09:42

    Always good to have one less PSU and SATA cable to manage

    • donbot on 15/11/2021 - 09:53

      the SATA is to keep one space clear for an additional HDD when the current system is filled - seems logical to do so?

      PSUs have long bugged me with their huge bunch of cables that I never fully utilise. Ends up jamming the case full of excess wiring that I'll never, ever use.

      • Fergy1987 on 15/11/2021 - 09:57

        Thats the beauty of modular PSU - I always dream of having a full NVME build but prices always force me to get a 2TB HDD instead.

        but definitely if your budget allows you - I'd always go NVME, no matter the system.

  • darxtorm on 15/11/2021 - 10:17

    i would recommend separating your storage needs from your workstation needs. you will not have a fun time with a machine full of magnetic hard drives that you're also trying to run like a daily driver.

    edit - actually, i'm confused by your requirements now… are you building a new server here? if you are and don't mind desktop equipment, i would strongly endorse going down the secondhand path

  • donbot on 15/11/2021 - 10:51

    Its not my daily driver (I have a laptop for that) - its a home server (eg. Desktop that manages home files/photos/phone backups/file backups/plex/nzbs/etc). The only time I'd use it outside of these things is for very occasional lightroom use - to touch up photos stored on its HDDs anyway, and even thats via RDP. Life is a lot easier working with RAW files on the actual machine they are stored on for what I do.

    I dont mind going down the secondhand path, but given my last upgrade was circa 10 years ago.. I kinda feel like buying new and once makes sense rather than second hand. For the above, I estimate its going to cost circa $500-600, which wont break the bank if it gives me a similar service period as this one has.

    Dont need magnetic drives as the existing ones will come over.

  • mikeb on 15/11/2021 - 10:59

    IMO you don't need a full-blown desktop running 24/7 to do what you want. Get a synology DS920+ during sales this weekend. It will be more than $600 probably but not that much more. Your drives might not be NAS specific but it probably won't matter that much in the short to medium term.

  • Bid Sniper on 15/11/2021 - 11:06
    +1

    Will chew power, always look at power requirement. probably look for a dedicated NAS or something.

    I'm running plex of a gen1 trash Celeron dual core 1.7ghz NUC, able to stream, 4K with it

  • smashman42 on 15/11/2021 - 16:44

    I'd go integrated graphics if you can to keep the x16 slot free if you decide you want way more SATA drives than your mobo supports and you buy a HBA card to do it, on top of using the NVMe drive for boot.

    I use an 8 port HBA for my NAS/Server built in a Silverstone CS380 (8x 3.5" hot swap bays, and I added a 5.26" IcyBox 6x2.5" hot swap bay for SATA SSDs up the top as well), but I'm still using ancient hardware - an i7-3930K 6c12t Sandy Bridge E on an actually Intel branded board with 8x4GB DDR3 sticks. Being an early HEDT thingy I need a basic GPU (GT610 fanless) because they have no iGPU, but it has more PCIe than a normal consumer board so I'm ok for now, but when I upgrade to something modern and more power efficient I'll need at least a Gen3 x4 slot for that HBA, or preferably an iGPU to make things easier and give me a spare slot just in case.

    Most likely I'll use the R5 2600 + B450 board in my wife's PC (or I upgrade the CPU in her mATX board and buy a new full ATX B450 board for the server to go with her current CPU), so I'd put the GPU in the secondary Gen2x16 (electrically x4) slot, the HBA in the Gen3x16 where a GPU would normally go, and have only one Gen3x4 slot sort of available if I put a dodgy converter into the NVMe slot, which isn't very desirable. I have a pair of WD Red 500GB SATA drives software mirrored for the OS, working with ancient spare bits NVMe wasn't an option and most B450 boards I'd consider for this thing have either only one NVMe slot or the second one is munted with Gen2 or only x2, or both - though it still would be faster than SATA and free up slots and my current SATA NAS drives could become write cache tiering drives, hrm…

    I guess the whole point of my waffly post is to think about your future upgrade paths considering how much has changed for you since you originally built the current unit - your current plan basically means you need to outright replace those spinning rust drives when they're full, you can't add any.

    Having a chassis capable of supporting more drives than that little Fractal case would be the first thing I'd be looking at, and possibly a chassis that at least supports mATX to give a little more flexibility with adding in HBAs or similar later

    Integrated graphics on the ITX board would work to get one HBA in there, but mATX boards are cheaper and have more slots so if you can find an acceptable chassis that supports mATX and 8+ 3.5" drives, you have more options than you have now

    Just my 2.2c Inc GST - if you went a built NAS instead I'd want a 6+ bay unit, which makes the price climb a lot hence I'm on the roll your own wagon. Having owned a 2 bay then 4 bay NAS, I'm in the never again camp - I want flexibility even if I have to manually do stuff in the OS to do it.

  • MelBorn on 15/11/2021 - 19:34

    raspberry pi nas

  • Lukian on 16/11/2021 - 10:11

    N40L or one of the newer HP microservers? Much better value than a Nas. I run FreeNAS off a USB boot stick.

    Modular PSU so as to eliminate excess cabling - whats decent and compact for a reasonable sum?

    SFX PSUs are not a reasonable sum, so ensure your case takes an atx psu, and perhaps choose one that is 140mm long/deep.

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