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Processor: (3.40 GHz) 4-Core Intel Core i7-6700 Processor
Memory (RAM): 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4 U Memory (for i-series/Core Processors)
Graphics Card: Integrated Graphics (with i series processors only) +$0.00
Drive 1: 3TB HDD SATA 7.2k 3.5" Hard Drive
Drive 2: 3TB HDD SATA 7.2k 3.5" Hard Drive
M.2 Storage: 512GB M.2 SSD NVMe Drive
Price: $291.95
My main concern with this option is energy usage. The CPU’s TDP is 65W, the CPU in my current server’s TDP is 35W.
It does have a few advantages over my current setup:
- More RAM 8 → 32
- Better CPU, passmark score 4766 → 8091, threads 4 → 8
- Ability to use RAID, current setup only has the capacity for 1 drive.
Is this a good option or is there a better option? I’ve also been considering using an external drive enclosure with software RAID, but I heard that could be unreliable.
EDIT: Is the price good? Shipping is quite expensive (about $100), so I’m only planning on buying it if the deal is good.
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If you are planning to use it as a jellyfin or other media server, look for 8th Gen or later Intel. They have Intel quicksync that provide hardware decoding.
Why 8th gen? Wikipedia and Plex say quicksync was added in Sandy Bridge.
You make a good point, but OP’s pick is still a really good choice. In early 2020 my old desktop became the new home server: i7-6700K w/ 32gb ram. It’s been going strong every day since. Unraid with Jellyfin, pihole, HAOS, and like 20 other containers running. I generally serve untranscoded 4k hevc videos locally, but I tossed in an old geforce 900 series for both on the fly transcoding as needed (honestly, it’s rare if ever) and for tdarr.
I’m running Jellyfin on 6th gen i3 and quicksync works fine.
Get a 10th/12th Gen processor so that you can transcode powerfully if you’re intending to use jellyfin.
Wow it didn’t even click in my head that this is a 6th gen Core. How is OP speccing out a custom server using 8 year old parts?
I was worried about the power usage when I first started using my old gaming CPU for a home server (i7-4770k). I bought a kill-a-watt, ran it plugged into that for a month, saw that it was using pennies worth of energy per month and never worried about it again.
Unless you’re pegging the CPU at 100%, it’s not going to be pulling the full 65W. As far as maintenance fees go, the cost of replacing a single hard drive will likely overshadow your energy costs.
Pro tip: keep an eye out for hard drive deals on black fri. And I recommend doing a burn-in run on any new drives when you get them to push them past the initial failure window of the bathtub curve (I used
badblocks. Took nearly a week for the initial run, but I found one bad drive and was able to RMA it immediately instead of finding out the hard way).How high are your electricity prices? Mine is roughly €0,40/kWh.
I don’t have my bill in front of me, but for my state it looks like mine’s effectively around €0,10/kWh. So yeah, more expensive for you.
I’d buy a Dell Optiplex 5060 for about $200 off eBay and you’ll get an i7-8700 with a 630 iGPU and the NVME taken care of. Then you just need the hard drives and more RAM. My home server is just fine with 16GB of RAM, though. There’s no DE and I don’t game on it.
It seems to only have capacity for 1 drive.
Sorry for the late reply. You can replace the optical drive with a 2.5" HDD or add a sata PCI-E card since your not using the GPU slot in this case. My personal setup uses an NVME for the OS (DietPi), and two 6TB external HDDs on an Optiplex 5060 SFF.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters NAS Network-Attached Storage PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express Plex Brand of media server package RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.
[Thread #272 for this sub, first seen 10th Nov 2023, 14:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
If RAID is what you’re after, don’t mind the premium for SSD storage and have available 5.25" bays, I highly recommend 5.25" mobile racks. The one I’m using is a a cheap 4 drive one, but if you want something more premium there is always ICY DOCK.
I doubt a 5.25” rack will fit in my closet but thanks for the suggestion 😄
Mobile rack is just what these things seem to be called. Basically it’s just a cage that fits multiple 2.5" drives into a CD/DVD drive bay.
Oh okay, I thought it was a lot bigger. It’s still not going to fit in my Lenovo SFF PC I use as home server though.
i got a Fujitsu D556/2 (SFF as well) exactly because it seemed to have an optical drive bay. Turned out it does not have one, but some double sided tape and ugly cable management solved the issue for me :D.
Interesting solution. How did you connect it? PCIe?
My model, and I believe all other, have a 4pin molex connector for the power and as many sata ports as the rack can handle (in my case 4). My “mobile rack” came with 4 rather long sata cables (about 30cm) so it was easy to fit them through an empty pcie bracket slot and I just had to buy a somewhat long 4pin molex adapter.
The drives are practically internal, they are just located outside of the case in said “mobile rack”.
TDP doesn’t have much to do with idle power draw, that’s more based on the age of the CPU and specific type (standard, U, or T skus)
Exactly. Just as a real world example for OP, my home server has an i5 7400 with the same TDP. At idle the whole system draws around 10.5W, measured from the wall.
I always dissuade anyone from buying Intel for any purpose. A backdoored CPU undermines your security and privacy to an unacceptable degree.
Why would PSP be better than IME?
PSP allegedly does not have internet acces so it can’t call home while IME does.
