[Need advice] My first home server
I need some advice on what hardware to buy for my home setup. I see a lot of posts talking about software, but not so much hardware. I would love to have a box I can buy and start setting up stuff.
A rack seems a bit expensive, my initial budget I feel is reasonable starting out is about $500-$800.
I’ve been looking at mini PCs, what are your thoughts on ASUS PN52? Just throwing that into the post to give a pin point of what I’m looking for.
I’m planning on hosting
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Bitwarden
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Nextcloud
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Plex
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Standard notes
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Lemmy instance
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Web server
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Openresty
And need to be able to upgrade storage etc. for future proofing.
Thankful for all insights, tips, and suggestions!
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It absolutely is viable. I do so myself. There's pros and cons to this.
The cost of hardware is more because you have more pieces, you probably need a decent shelf to hold everything (check the local thrift stores for old home theater stands, they work great), and it may add latency for some things where they interact together.
The hardware modularity of it is really nice though. It's kinda nice not having to worry about losing all your data if you need to reinstall everything on the server. And it gives you the ability to update in smaller pieces rather than all at once.
That being said, a NAS itself generally isn't all that good at transcoding Plex. Most entry level NAS's ($200-$300 range) can only transcode a few streams at a time. However you might not use transcoding all that much anyway if you store media on it in a playable format.
I've personally only ever used Synology, and they're not bad, but they've been doing a few anticonsumer practices in more recent years that makes me want to get away from them. They're really easy to set up though, so it's not a bad option starting out.
If you're going to go this route, I'd host Nextcloud on the NAS as well as your Plex media, then mount the share on your server so that your server can do transcoding while you're NAS does bulk storage. Everything else could be hosted on the server
Considering you're starting from square one though, it may be better to just buy a beefier NAS, and then get a server as your needs expand. Especially if you don't plan on sharing Plex or Nextcloud with a bunch of people outside your home at this time.
Thanks for the detailed response! I've looked around a bit, and a Synology DS220+ seems like a good starter. Knowing I have the ability to move comoutation to a server later on and keep using the NAS for storage makes it seem like a great setup for me
Happy to help, though might I suggest you get 4 bay version of the NAS instead of the 2 bay version (if your budget allows it). I speak from experience in this where storage space required tends to grow quicker than anything else, and you may outgrow a 2 bay NAS quickly. This is especially true if you're running any type of raid array.
You'll also want to get a UPS to help avoid data corruption on power failures. Even if your power goes out indefinitely, doing a proper shutdown can help prevent data failure. You can see the responses I recieved asking for help on this topic here: https://lemmy.world/post/158974
I wish you luck in this endeavor.