Windows 10 HTPC + PLEX and VM

[Daevilb]

HTPC BUILD

i am currently running a little server that acts as my htpc as well as storage, nothing special i3 and 4gb of ram and SSD for OS.

its beginning to drive me crazy so the server will have an upgrade and also serve as owncloud and also VM-lab for work stuff.

So my question to you guys is this.. 
i want a powerful server that runs on "normal" components and can be upgraded to kaby lake later on and fit inside a mATX chassi.

Intel Core i7 6700 3.4ghz Socket 1151
Asus Z170M-Plus
2x Crucial DDR4 PC1700/2133Mhz 16GB
Corsair SF450 W PSU

Is this crazy? 

All i can say is that i dont have room for a fulltower or server rack or something like that, i just want a SUPER powerful HTPC...

And the best of it all.... i dont want a Graphics Card inside this thing since i will ONLY be playing 1080p material from it so intergrated Graphics will do just fine.

Maybe in the future i will put a gfx-card inside and upgrade to kaby lake but thats years in the future.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

IMO, i think you would be better with an Xeon CPU... But that's just my logic. Take it with a grain of salt.

[Daevilb]

16 hours ago, Mindovermaster said:

IMO, i think you would be better with an Xeon CPU... But that's just my logic. Take it with a grain of salt.

http://www.prisjakt.nu/list.php?l=3108397&view=l

 

sorry for swedish language but this is what i have come up with,   PSU still needed.

[BinaryData]

32GB of RAM is overkill. My Media Server / Storage Server has 4GB and a dual core atm. I server 3 - 5 people streaming from my Plex Server at 720p resolution. I can upgrade it to a i7 when I want too. I can also upgrade the memory to 64GB but it isn't needed.

 

16GB would be enough, and spend the rest on a BEEFY processor. If you can, put the OS drive on a SSD, which is how mine is setup. Makes simple reboots amazingly fast. I think my slowest reboot was 35 seconds. Most of the time it's 20s or so. I can clock it again to find out.

[Daevilb]

54 minutes ago, BinaryData said:

32GB of RAM is overkill. My Media Server / Storage Server has 4GB and a dual core atm. I server 3 - 5 people streaming from my Plex Server at 720p resolution. I can upgrade it to a i7 when I want too. I can also upgrade the memory to 64GB but it isn't needed.

 

16GB would be enough, and spend the rest on a BEEFY processor. If you can, put the OS drive on a SSD, which is how mine is setup. Makes simple reboots amazingly fast. I think my slowest reboot was 35 seconds. Most of the time it's 20s or so. I can clock it again to find out.

The server will also host a bunch of different other stuff also,   Mainly PLEX and Owncloud but i will also have my Hyper-V LAB that i play around with to learn SQL/Sharepoint and also linux-stuff.

 

And currently on my gaming computer i have 16gb and while playing around with vm´s on that i simply cannot do what i want.

 

 

[BinaryData]

2 hours ago, Daevilb said:

The server will also host a bunch of different other stuff also,   Mainly PLEX and Owncloud but i will also have my Hyper-V LAB that i play around with to learn SQL/Sharepoint and also linux-stuff.

 

And currently on my gaming computer i have 16gb and while playing around with vm´s on that i simply cannot do what i want.

 

 

Mmm... Even then, a Linux VM (Which you should run vs MSSQL), won't use more than 1GB, 2GB if you want to give it a little extra juice. Even with Sharepoint, should be solid. You aren't going to be running all these VMs at one time, even with 32GB of RAM, I wouldn't suggest it. Even the R610 I have for my ESXi Box, which is build for VMs, doesn't run more than 4 at the same time 24/7.

 

Those VMs you mentioned, shouldn't be left 24/7 unless the VM is used for monitoring, i.e. pi-hole, Observium (just learned about this one), and ssh servers, etc.

 

But hey, it's your money, I'm just saying that 16GB would suffice for awhile, until you got more into things. Start small, build up. That's what Budman's told me. Get what you need, not what you want.

 

Wait, hold up. You're running VMs on a gaming machine that's built for heavy usage, and you CAN'T run everything you want? What in the actual ###### are you running?! I have 8GB and an i7 on my laptop. I can run World of Warcraft, and a virt with Linux running (2GB dedicated to it), and I have 0 lag. If you're going to run VMs, run VMs and browsers only, and maybe a light weight dev client. Any game should be turned off, wasted resources if you aren't using it.

[Daevilb]

Lets just say that things started running slowly when i had 6 vm´s on 16gb.

 

I dont run any games in the background i just want to have some practise with disaster recovery and failover and such things.

If we talk sharepoint, i want to use 4 sharepoint servers and 2 SQL boxes just for that   (copy of work-productions environment)  

 

And even if you say 16 is enough....  an extra 16 gig costs about 100$

 

 

 

 

[BinaryData]

15 minutes ago, Daevilb said:

Lets just say that things started running slowly when i had 6 vm´s on 16gb.

 

I dont run any games in the background i just want to have some practise with disaster recovery and failover and such things.

If we talk sharepoint, i want to use 4 sharepoint servers and 2 SQL boxes just for that   (copy of work-productions environment)  

 

And even if you say 16 is enough....  an extra 16 gig costs about 100$

 

 

 

 

Better off splitting the devices, build a smaller server for the HTPC/PLEX Etc, and build another server specifically for the Sharepoint/SQL Boxes. Hell, when I get the SSDs for my R610s, I'll gladly throw up a VM for you to ssh into and play with.

 

I pay 3 cents per K/w of power, with 5 Servers running 24/7, my power bill is $112 for 2 months. :] Not only is BudMan jealous of my internet (100Mbit up/down, unmetered but shared), I have spanking good power too

[Daevilb]

55 minutes ago, BinaryData said:

Better off splitting the devices, build a smaller server for the HTPC/PLEX Etc, and build another server specifically for the Sharepoint/SQL Boxes. Hell, when I get the SSDs for my R610s, I'll gladly throw up a VM for you to ssh into and play with.

 

I pay 3 cents per K/w of power, with 5 Servers running 24/7, my power bill is $112 for 2 months. :] Not only is BudMan jealous of my internet (100Mbit up/down, unmetered but shared), I have spanking good power too

100/100 here too  

 

Well the virtual stuff is fun to play with..   Ssh was very long time ago I played with,  like.....  10 years.  

 

Keep in touch..  Maybe we can exchange bits and bytes

[Daevilb]

Well,  i went a little different way than planned.

 

i7 6700k

Asus Z170M-Plus

EVGA SuperNOVA g2 650w

16 + 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX Black DDR4 3200mhz

Silverstone Grandia GD09

Noctua NH-L12

Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 SATA3 2,5 (OS DRIVE)

Samsung SSD 850 EVO SSD 500GB (TEMP-FILESTORE)

 

 

[Odom Member]

Why not get a bigger SSD instead of two? Price or performance? Because it won't make a different for the last one.

[Daevilb]

13 hours ago, Odom said:

Why not get a bigger SSD instead of two? Price or performance? Because it won't make a different for the last one.

The Kingston 120GB is an old drive i bought for the old HTPC so thats why

 

So basically i will buy a new 500GB Samsung drive when the prices drop.

[Odom Member]

Cool