Great news! I started my selfhost journey over a year ago, and I’m finding myself needing better hardware. There’s so many services I want that my NAS can’t handle. And I unfortunately need to add GPU transcoding to my Jellyfin setup.
What’s the best OS for a machine focused on containers and (getting started with) VMs? I’ve heard Proxmox
What CPU specs should I be concerned about?
I’m willing to buy a pre-built as long as its hardware has sufficient longevity.
Define goals. What services can’t be handled?
If transcoding is a goal build around intel. Quicksync video is a no brainer, imo. GPU is unnecessary power draw (15-25w+ idle depending on card) and waste of a pcie slot unless you want to do LLM stuff. Imo 10th gen intel is the sweet spot for quicksync unless you desperately need av1/vp9. If so then you need much more expensive 13/14 gen, which use more power and have more considerations for thermal management
OS is an endless debate. Proxmox is fine and free, why not try it? Unraid is easier to get your bearings but it does cost money. Debian is also free but a bit more confusing because not purpose built. Truenas as well. All can do containers and VMs, but approach in different ways. None is “best” but some are more “free” which is nice
CPU specs are dependent on goals. For transcoding as said above quicksync is necessary and is so impressive. I can transcode a 4k remux to one device while transcoding a 1080 remux to another and direct playing a 4k remux and cpu sits under 25% load on Xeon equivalent of 10700. You don’t need a Xeon btw, I just got a great deal where this was $50 (see next point). Otherwise specs depend wildly on what you plan to do. I can run windows VMs pretty well with this though for the handful of times I need a windows machine
Prebuilt is a waste. Used hardware is cheap and gives more options and can plan more. What are you willing to buy now and what do you eventually want? My NAS started as a 36tb array with 16gb ram and no cache, now it’s 234tb and 4tb cache with 32gb ecc ram years later. Slowly building up was easier on wallet and used hardware, refurb drives, etc is 100% the build. Your goals will likely vary but figure out your roadmap and go from there
Also keep in mind that not every service benefits from running on a NAS. My homeassistant server is run on a raspberry pi for example. Easier to keep it segregated and don’t have to worry about getting zwave/zigbee/mqtt/etc all working with a docker plus dealing with any server downtime impacting home. Tbf literally everything else is run on the nas though haha
In hindsight, I didn’t explain myself well enough. My plan is to use my current NAS as a NAS and little more; I’d like a machine with respectable hardware to handle what my NAS is currently running plus more.
My NAS has Jellyfin, arrs, all the stuff that goes with that, Pi-hole, and Homarr. And that’s pushing its limits: everything has been slow, streams freeze, I’ve had containers quit, etc.
I’d like to get into other projects like Radicale, Mealie, ErsatzTV (old PC could handle it, NAS can’t), CCTV, and more. But according to my resources, the NAS can’t handle it
GPU (for the sake of transcoding) isn’t worth it?
This makes sense
No sense in getting rid of hardware that is working. I’m not familiar with ersatztv but for all the other stuff I am able to handily run it on a 10th gen intel build that is also handling nas duties fwiw. And some stuff is not ideal (cctv is handled via blue iris, which runs in windows VM, everything else is docker)
for the gpu it really depends on your needs. How many users is the big one. If you have at most 2-4 concurrent users and that is an uncommon scenario the gpu is a waste of power, money, and thermal management. Igpu will sip power and transcode (depending on library content, again av1/vp9 on a 10th gen isn’t happening) with that user load assuming you have a decent amount of ram (I have 32gb so you don’t need absurd amounts).
However if you have a lot of users hitting you, 5-6+ or more concurrent streams that all transcode, then you need to start evaluating a discrete gpu (and maybe a significant internet connection bc damn). Alternatively you can suggest your users get something like a ugoos am6b+ flashed with coreelec or a similar setup that can just direct play basically anything but that’s a bit challenging to setup
So then it may be as simple as buying some e waste pc to use a server and using the nas as its intended purpose. Frankly this is probably better, it’s worse power wise but having the storage separate from services has advantages
So I’m expecting a max of 5 concurrent users, but most wouldn’t need transcoding. The real hiccup (brace yourself) is a 720p CRT and (assuming I get transcoding to work well) a 480p CRT. I’m pretty novice to PC specs outside of the “buy whatever you can afford for gaming” mindset, so any suggestions there are welcome. My budget is…whatever it takes to not regret the hardware years from now. My last build was $2k for reference
When it comes to builds my mentality is “save shit from the landfill and spend as little as possible” haha
I feel like there is always a push for consumerism in (basically anything, but especially this) space. You’ll read forums and watch youtube videos that show dumb nerds with sponsorships doing a build with an $1800 budget and for what? Running a nas? Jellyfin? Caldav? This stuff doesn’t take a ton of overhead
If you’re running 5 concurrent users with 2-3 transcoding quicksync should handle that. Research this more but in my experience it works fine. For reference my library is all extremely high quality either 1080 remux or 4k remux with hdr/dv whenever possible (so tonemapping is required) and lossless audio (dts-hd, atmos, etc). If your library is like mine this bumps things up a bit and will use more cores - quicksync will handle the video fine but cores will be needed for the audio and the tonemapping of hdr/dv layer. Additionally if you’re like me and have a ton of anime (or just someone who likes subtitles) another core gets taken to burn those in. For my library with 2-3 users this is fine, could probably even handle 1-2 more (maybe, depends on what they watch).
This is where scalability comes in. Pick a case and psu where you have the option for a discrete gpu if it ever becomes necessary. You extend to 15 users or decide you want to run deepseek locally? Picking a motherboard with an extra PCIE x16 slot is helpful. since you’re offloading NAS to the synology you can just get a motherboard with a pcie slot, though getting one with multiple opens the option that down the line you could add an HBA and a second array should the synology run out of space. Again, depends on your long term plans
Look on marketplace, Craigslist, eBay, etc for older hardware. Full desktops use a lot of power, which sucks, but the advantage for you is that they are expensive to ship so they can get sold a bit cheaper sometimes. Sort by distance and filter by used
Read truenas, unraid, proxmox, serve the home forums for lots of info on example builds too. But don’t worry too much about getting it perfect. Remember it can always be a little better (or a lot better) but most of the time the extra power is just going to waste your money. Unless you specifically have a need for like multiple VMs at once, serious LLM stuff, etc something seriously demanding like that?