2024-05-23, 07:54 AM
(2024-05-23, 06:35 AM)bitmap Wrote: TDP and I each just bought a Fractal Meshify 2 which has 11 bays and 13 total mounts for drives. I believe there are even 1-2 additional 2.5" locations. No complaints so far, easiest re-case I've ever done and allowed me to consolidate my hardware. The lower power usage is great on mini-PCs but they're a one-and-done kind of machine. You can find a chip with lower power consumption if that's a concern.
CPU: Intel 12th-gen+ i3 or i4 depending on additional plans for the server
GPU: Arc A380 is cheap and an absolute beast. Would recommend this for concerns around 4K transcoding or if you want to encode your own media. You will definitely up your power consumption with this, but enabling ASPM for BIOS/OS has lowered mine quite a bit.
RAM: 16+ GB of anything decent. You can add more if you want to do RAM drives for transcoding or other tasks to speed them up.
OS Drive: Get an SSD or NVMe drive, doesn't need to be screaming fast, but faster is definitely better.
OS: I would highly recommend Linux. Choose your flavor, but I have gone with Ubuntu Server Minimal and been very happy. I run the LTS version now that there is built-in support for the A380. Ditch the GUI, as the overhead is entirely unnecessary.
Mobo: I have a Gigabyte B660M DS3H DDR4 that has been great, no complaints. Look toward the future of what you might want and what makes sense. For now, good networking, support for the right socket, at least 4 RAM sockets, PCIe for everything you need, plenty of SATA connections for your drives, USB 3.1 if you care...this one is a laundry list of what you might want to get.
Buy your HDDs in pairs so you can backup/mirror. Buy more than you think you need (if you want +4 TB, see if you can afford 8+ TB drives) to fend off repeated spending and outgrowing your smallest drives. Get a Bluray burner if you rip any of your own media (or want to).
Ah I see, this looks like a good build. It seems quite future proof as well. Thanks bitmap, I will look into your recommendations!