Re-purposing an old desktop as a file server or NAS
Hey RFD,
Happy New Year. I recently purchased a Gigabyte Aero 15X that has more or less made my desktop obsolete. I was looking at buying a NAS now that my photo collection is growing (2 TB and steadily rising), but thought why not re-purpose my desktop as a server? The server would need to:
1. Run PLEX Server (I have the lifetime subscription).
2. Accept Windows 10 back-ups from my wife and I's laptops.
3. Store our photo and media collection.
4. Back-up the local content to Amazon Drive.
5. Sync music with Google Play Music.
Questions for you guys:
1. My desktop is an i7 2600k with 16 GB of RAM. Should that be sufficient for transcoding (outside of 4k h.265)?
2. Any recommendations on what OS to run? I'm obviously in a Microsoft environment right now, but I'm also handy with the Linux CLI (did my entire thesis running Ubuntu--svn was a godsend!).
3. Is it worth buying a hardware RAID controller? I *think* my Asus motherboard has one built-in, but I have also read that software RAID has come along so far that it's not worth going the hardware RAID route.
4. Any recommendations on hard drives? It's been a while since I purchased a spinning disk drive. Last I looked into it, WD Reds were all the rage. Have Seagate or other manufacturers finally caught up?
Thanks in advance!
Happy New Year. I recently purchased a Gigabyte Aero 15X that has more or less made my desktop obsolete. I was looking at buying a NAS now that my photo collection is growing (2 TB and steadily rising), but thought why not re-purpose my desktop as a server? The server would need to:
1. Run PLEX Server (I have the lifetime subscription).
2. Accept Windows 10 back-ups from my wife and I's laptops.
3. Store our photo and media collection.
4. Back-up the local content to Amazon Drive.
5. Sync music with Google Play Music.
Questions for you guys:
1. My desktop is an i7 2600k with 16 GB of RAM. Should that be sufficient for transcoding (outside of 4k h.265)?
2. Any recommendations on what OS to run? I'm obviously in a Microsoft environment right now, but I'm also handy with the Linux CLI (did my entire thesis running Ubuntu--svn was a godsend!).
3. Is it worth buying a hardware RAID controller? I *think* my Asus motherboard has one built-in, but I have also read that software RAID has come along so far that it's not worth going the hardware RAID route.
4. Any recommendations on hard drives? It's been a while since I purchased a spinning disk drive. Last I looked into it, WD Reds were all the rage. Have Seagate or other manufacturers finally caught up?
Thanks in advance!