We’ve been hobbling along with a Mac Mini as our PleX server for the past few years. I’m becoming quite a data hoarder and the poor Mini can’t keep up with my appetite so it was time to move to something a little more serious. I built JDM_WAAAT’s “Thread-Runner” config and hope to migrate my data this weekend.
My config and cost:
| Component | Description | Used /New | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Phanteks Enthoo Pro | New | $80 |
| Motherboard | S2600CP Intel LGA2011 | Used | $140 |
| Processors | 2x Intel Xeon Processor E5-2650 | Used | $105 |
| CPU Coolers | 2x Arctic Alpine 20 | New | $37.50 |
| RAM | 32 GB DDR3 | Used | $62 |
| SSD | SanDisk Ultra II | Used | $0 |
| HDDs | 4x 2TB WD RE Enterprise HDDs | Used | $160 |
| PSU | EVGA - 80 PLUS 600W ATX | New | $35 |
| Cables | SATA Cables & PSU Splitter | New | $16.50 |
| Case Fans | 5x Arctic F12 | New | $25 |
| Operating System | Linux Mint | $0 | |
| Total | $661 |
As you can see, a lot of the major components were purchased used which I sourced primarily via eBay. There’s a lot of power (16 cores / 32 threads) and a bit of storage (9TB). It’s quite a build at a very reasonable cost. Assembly was easy. The Phentoo case is amazing. I really like the HDD cages (no screws required) and the cable management behind the motherboard. I encountered two minor hiccups and was able to resolve them quickly. The machine was booting to EFI and required disabling in BIOS to boot to USB and the NIC was not enabled, also resolved with a quick BIOS switch.
I’ll be running it headless and administering via Muximux and running PleX, SABnzbd+, Sonarr, and Radarr. I’m going to cheat and use AtoMic Toolkit to get it all done. The SSD will host the OS and metadata/thumbnails for speed and I’ll throw the data to the HDDs. The Western Digital HDDs are enterprise/data center certified and rated 1.2 million hours MTBF. Impressive!
After migrating data, I’ll be backing up using Duplicati to my unlimited Google Drive.
I’m really interested to see what else I do with this box. It should be all we need for several years (save for a few more HDDs)!