PC Hardware Talk Megathread

[Jacks]

MemEx isn't bad for that though, the only part that doesn't have a specific model listed is the power supply.

[CroFlames]

Let's say I wanted to get a 3080Ti Founders Edition.

What's the best way to go about this? Does Memex or Newegg have a lottery or something?

I vow not to use scalpers.

[cSpooge]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Let's say I wanted to get a 3080Ti Founders Edition.

What's the best way to go about this? Does Memex or Newegg have a lottery or something?

I vow not to use scalpers.

The only place that sells FE cards in Canada is Best Buy so Memex and Newegg are out. I think they just do first come first served though

[photon]

[CroFlames]

That's interesting about forcing you to buy other hardware. I mean yes I want to build a new rig anyway, so maybe they allow you to change out some of the hardware in the package?

I don't NEED the FE, but I really like the look of them.

[Brendone]

Anyone with some home server / storage setup for a noob? Our old all-in-one PC is past it’s prime so it’s down in the basement now acting as a server we access with our laptop, but I’m sure I can do a little better. I’d also like to rip all our old CDs, DVD, and Blurays, and make them accessible from different devices. I currently have some of our media on an old WDTV Live, but I’m sure I can also consolidate that with a server?

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Brendone

Anyone with some home server / storage setup for a noob? Our old all-in-one PC is past it’s prime so it’s down in the basement now acting as a server we access with our laptop, but I’m sure I can do a little better. I’d also like to rip all our old CDs, DVD, and Blurays, and make them accessible from different devices. I currently have some of our media on an old WDTV Live, but I’m sure I can also consolidate that with a server?

Look into a dedicated NAS or install Unraid or FreeNAS and then Plex. That's the best way to consolidate all for media in one place.

Then get yourself a bunch of Google TVs or other streaming sticks.

[Brendone]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Look into a dedicated NAS or install Unraid or FreeNAS and then Plex. That's the best way to consolidate all for media in one place.

Then get yourself a bunch of Google TVs or other streaming sticks.

Thanks, thinking dedicated NAS is the route I want to go. A lot of options out there. Looks like most don’t come with the drives so you determine the capacity, up to the device max (WD My Cloud, Synology, TerraMaster, etc). Buffalo seems to come with drives but not huge capacity.

Any experience with any of these? All seem to have similar features.

Any advantages to going with Unraid? edit - doing some reading.... seems like a more flexible system when it comes to storage size and recovery, but you essentially build a PC with the attached drives and run using the Unraid Operating System (probably over simplified it).

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Brendone

Thanks, thinking dedicated NAS is the route I want to go. A lot of options out there. Looks like most don’t come with the drives so you determine the capacity, up to the device max (WD My Cloud, Synology, TerraMaster, etc). Buffalo seems to come with drives but not huge capacity.

Any experience with any of these? All seem to have similar features.

Any advantages to going with Unraid? edit - doing some reading.... seems like a more flexible system when it comes to storage size and recovery, but you essentially build a PC with the attached drives and run using the Unraid Operating System (probably over simplified it).

If you want "storage for a noob" unraid is not the way to go. It's very powerful and if you want to spend the time to learn it then it might fit the bill, but a NAS will be the most "set it and forget it" network storage option out there. Personally I'm going to grab a Synology DS420+ whenever I can actually buy hard drives for the damn thing

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Brendone

Thanks, thinking dedicated NAS is the route I want to go. A lot of options out there. Looks like most don’t come with the drives so you determine the capacity, up to the device max (WD My Cloud, Synology, TerraMaster, etc). Buffalo seems to come with drives but not huge capacity.

Any experience with any of these? All seem to have similar features.

Any advantages to going with Unraid? edit - doing some reading.... seems like a more flexible system when it comes to storage size and recovery, but you essentially build a PC with the attached drives and run using the Unraid Operating System (probably over simplified it).

Depends on how much you want to learn and manage yourself. I have used Synology, QNAP, WD, and Unraid before. Stick with the most popular ones so you have the most community support and software plug-ins you can take advantage of.

Synology and QNAP give you the easiest system to set up and use, but limits your flexibility cuz you will be stuck with their hardware and specs.

Unraid, which is what I am using now, will run on any computer hardware so you set up, spec out with enough power for your server as you like, but will be a bit more complicated to set up. You won't have to do anything in command line or the like except for more complicated use cases, but you may have to watch some YouTube videos or read some wikis to get things set up right for a Plex server.

Another thing to consider is how much you want to spend, what format you will be storing your media in mostly, and what devices you will be playing your videos on. That will factor into which you choose cuz you may need powerful enough hardware to transcode between different video codecs

[Brendone]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Another thing to consider is how much you want to spend, what format you will be storing your media in mostly, and what devices you will be playing your videos on. That will factor into which you choose cuz you may need powerful enough hardware to transcode between different video codecs

One of the advantages we have with our old school AV distribution system (four sources) is the WDTV “server” does all the heavy lifting, it’s just limited capacity, and I had downsized our media to fit more. I’d like to re-rip everything to higher quality on and put it on a NAS then move files on and off the WDTV as needed to watch on all the TVs. I’ve been using Archos to stream from the WDTV to my tablet.

I have to do the same with all my CDs. Long ago I had ripped them at high quality but downsized them when space became an issue. Now I want to rerip them at full quality and place all our music libraries in one location.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Brendone

One of the advantages we have with our old school AV distribution system (four sources) is the WDTV “server” does all the heavy lifting, it’s just limited capacity, and I had downsized our media to fit more. I’d like to re-rip everything to higher quality on and put it on a NAS then move files on and off the WDTV as needed to watch on all the TVs. I’ve been using Archos to stream from the WDTV to my tablet.

I have to do the same with all my CDs. Long ago I had ripped them at high quality but downsized them when space became an issue. Now I want to rerip them at full quality and place all our music libraries in one location.

With a NAS, why move the media on and off to the player. Keep the media on the NAS and just get capable players that'll play off the NAS directly. Most modern players should be able to handle that. Roku, Amazon Fire Sticks, and Chromecast/Google TVs will be fine for that.

Of course though you'll have to have ethernet or pretty good wireless depending on if you plan to stream 4K content or not.

[Raekwon]

I use Freenas for my home storage and run Plex on it. I find it to be confusing to setup but haven't had issues once it was up and running. Also be sure to change the settings on the SSH as soon as its running, I had people trying to log into it the same day I brought it online I assume trying the default root password.

If I took a little more time to understand it I think its probably one of the best NAS solutions

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

I use Freenas for my home storage and run Plex on it. I find it to be confusing to setup but haven't had issues once it was up and running. Also be sure to change the settings on the SSH as soon as its running, I had people trying to log into it the same day I brought it online I assume trying the default root password.

If I took a little more time to understand it I think its probably one of the best NAS solutions

Did you not have a firewall setup? How were people reaching it from the internet?

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Did you not have a firewall setup? How were people reaching it from the internet?

Probably set up some kind of port forwarding rule for remote management. I'd never open those up for security purposes on the default port or I'd only allow it from a specific whitelist set of devices.

Probably should geoblock any traffic from countries you don't expect, and set up URI white/blacklists, etc. 90% of malicious traffic coming to my server comes from Russia, Lithuania, and China

[Raekwon]

Yeah I can't remember the details it was about a year ago, this was right after setup so I assume that port was open from remote GUI or something. I do have it exposed externally for Plex as its shared to some users externally. I'm not skilled enough in network security and its a field I'm currently trying to gain knowledge in.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

Yeah I can't remember the details it was about a year ago, this was right after setup so I assume that port was open from remote GUI or something. I do have it exposed externally for Plex as its shared to some users externally. I'm not skilled enough in network security and its a field I'm currently trying to gain knowledge in.

Probably a good ideal to set up Cloudflare for the firewall and DDOS security functionality (free). Cloudflare will handle a lot of the security for you, and they are pretty easy to manage there. You can set up geoblock, URI whitelist/blacklists, UserAgent filters and the like. If you are using dockers/jails for your Plex/Sonarr/Radarr, it's a good idea to set your fail2ban/nginx configuration to block out repeated failed login requests, known SQL/PHP injection attacks, close all your ports and try to have a single nginx instance and different URI paths instead for externally accessible stuff, disable old SSL versions, use strict transport security, create a content security policy, etc. Had to secure my Plex/Ombi/Radarr/Sonarr cuz of a lot of Russian brute force attempts.

[CroFlames]

I plan on setting up a homelab, but ready all your guys' technical mumbo jumbo is discouraging me. I've decided to build a new house so I have ethernet running to every damn corner of my house and they all terminate in the mech room.

I don't even know what I don't know, but I guess that is part of the journey.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I plan on setting up a homelab, but ready all your guys' technical mumbo jumbo is discouraging me. I've decided to build a new house so I have ethernet running to every damn corner of my house and they all terminate in the mech room.

I don't even know what I don't know, but I guess that is part of the journey.

Is the house already built or is it still under construction? If there's still time I would suggest adding additional ethernet ports to places where you might want to install security cameras. You could then connect them to a PoE (Power over Ethernet) switch to have power and network over a single cable. That's one thing I really wish my house had, I'm stuck using wifi only cameras as there's no way to get ethernet to where I have them placed

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Is the house already built or is it still under construction? If there's still time I would suggest adding additional ethernet ports to places where you might want to install security cameras. You could then connect them to a PoE (Power over Ethernet) switch to have power and network over a single cable. That's one thing I really wish my house had, I'm stuck using wifi only cameras as there's no way to get ethernet to where I have them placed

Yup, already did that

I spent 24 months thinking of those things before I pulled the trigger on building.

I'm scared but excited to build a homelab and exploring NAS options, switches, racks, etc.