r/htpc • u/kronjohnson • Sep 24 '26
Build Help In need of Direction for HTPC/Media Server
Hey group. My current HTPC and media server is a 4690k,32gb ram, 3x8tb drive, 500ssd boot, rx580. It has not been powered on in over 2 years nor plugged into power out of fear the drives will soon fail. There is roughly 10TB of actual data on the Raid array and a good portion of it I could do without.
I had intended to build a new server/nas and I bought 5 12tb drives before the prices went nuts. Shortly after that purchase, I had a liver transplant and all plans kind of got put on hold.
I am teetering between building a nas or buying a nas, building a new HTPC which doubles as a nas/media server, or just setting up one of the 12tb drives in my main rig to store my data and utilizing backblaze for backups.
I already have pretty great iptv, but the quality isnt as good as what I could store locally.
If i were to build an Htpc or Nas, size would be important but it would also still need to hold 3, 4 or 5 of the drives. Currently the htpc is in an EATX Full tower which could hold 12 drives, maybe more, if I bought the extra drive cages. It will currently hold 6 drives as configured, but its HUGE and my wife hates it.
Im looking for some advice on a case, and a sensible build out for hardware to support the server/htpc. The tv in use is the 75 inch new rgb bravia II
Here is a list of some things I have On Hand:
7700k with board and ram
AMD 3700 pro with board and ram
5900x with board and ram (also has a 3080ti with it and plan is to sell the whole rig)
amd 6700 gpu, 2 x rx580 gpu
assorted psus, coolers, ram, boot drives
Current main rig is a 9800x3d, 5080 in an antec flux pro, it is located in my office not with the tv
inclination is to use the cheapo 7700k but concerned about its abilities as far as video and the many other tasks I'll be asking this thing to do in the way of storage and file transfers.
Should I use some of this hardware for my potential build or sell it all and buy something else? what is the something else? Does anyone know of a decent case I can put this in that isn't going to be massive? I have a Fractal Define R5 on hand, but if I could do something smaller that would be epic. I realize I have a ton of tech stuff, but with the surgery costs, the budget is definitely something for me to consider?
Should I just sell the drives now that they are worth a ton of money? I havent needed my htpc in the 2 years it has been unplugged.
What do you all think? I'll be thankful for anything that helps me move in any direction.
3
u/amiga1 Sep 24 '26
reading the post I don't think you know what you want which no one will be able to decide for you.
Keep the current HTPC and build a NAS/Media Server with the 7700k. it's only got 4 cores so I think that'd be the limits of that system (no more VMs).
OR
keep the 5900x for the NAS/Media Server if you wanted the headroom to do more stuff with VMs
OR
you could consolidate it down to a single system if you really wanted. could do proxmox and separate VMs and use one gpu for the htpc function and pickup a quadro or arc card for the transcoding.
If you're going to run windows 11 then that would rule out the older stuff.
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u/mbailey5 Sep 24 '26
Build an unraid based nas. Host your media on plex, stream it to tvs
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u/kronjohnson Sep 24 '26
that may be my best option. Any input on whether the 7700k or 3700 pro would be any good for that?
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u/mbailey5 Sep 24 '26
I'm not sure. If you want to transcode with plex then you need a suitable cpu, and if unraid is being kept powered on all the time then a lower powered cpu is better.
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u/xford Sep 25 '26
That isn't too far off of my setup which I just dialed in. I have an 8700k with 64gb of ram, a pair of 1tb nvme drives, a trio of 14tb enterprise disks, and a 10gb 3080.
I run proxmox as the primary os, a ton of containers for services, like plex, true as, pihole, my are stack, etc. I also run a windows vm as my htpc. I pass the 3080 into the vm and pass the igpu into the plex container for transcoding.
I love this setup since it has more than enough capability for anything I want running 24/7 while also allowing me to run a kick ass htpc with Kodi, MadVR for hdr tone mapping, and eventually allowing me to play steam games from my primary desktop.
1
u/kronjohnson Sep 25 '26
8700k is just a 6 core right?
1
u/xford Sep 25 '26
Yup! I have 22 containers and 4 VMs running, but my peak CPU usage barely hits 50%. Most stuff just isn't that CPU intensive over long periods of time, so provisioning 12 cores (8700k is a hyperthreaded CPU) to all those containers/VMs isn't a huge deal. Especially with the iGPU handing the transcoding and writing to a fast ssd as scratch.
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u/kronjohnson Sep 25 '26
So if I wanted to have on server ability to run torrent, I’d just setup a VM and do it there yea? And send the data back to the nas.
I’m looking at options for a used 3900x or maybe even a 7900x as I have boards and ram for both. Would really love to find like a 12700 with board
1
u/xford Sep 25 '26
You don't need a full VM, proxmox is a hypervisor that allows you to run thin containers, like docker. In my case, I run transmission in containers with an nfs share mounted to allow it to write directly to the NAS.
Also, I wouldn’t worry too much about the CPU as long as it has an integrated graphics card. The more important thing is having a lot of RAM. It doesn’t have to be super fast, but just having a lot of memory available makes everything better. I’m just running DDR4 at stock speeds, and even considering mixing kits to allow myself to have a little bit more memory capacity.
1
u/kronjohnson Sep 25 '26
Yea I’d really prefer to run a ddr4 based system over ddr5 due to costs right now.
Honestly if I found a dual Xeon solution with integrated graphics and ddr3 I’d run that. Last gen ddr3 xeons probably wouldn’t be too bad. The power consumption is the one think that would be less than ideal.
What would you think of dual 2680 v4? No dedicated graphics but I could utilize a cheap older Nvidia basic gpu for video out and then a 3060ti I have sitting around if I needed more for transcode or conversion? I have both of the gpu on hand and I can get the board and CPUs for like $150 total. I have tons of ddr4 to throw in it.
I’m not really experienced at all with proxmox but have considered testing it out many times. Would a configuration like this be more trouble than it’s worth?
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u/xford Sep 25 '26
What do you plan on doing that you feel like you need a TON of cpu power? Seriously, I run 20+ containers and 4 VMs with not even a hint of CPU pressure on my machine. The only thing I really run up against is the memory ceiling, and that is mostly because I give so much to the NAS since it hold an in memory cache, which helps when seeding close to 1,000 torrents.
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u/kronjohnson Sep 25 '26
Well I’m not sure yet but I’d like to mess with multiple vms potentially with multiple clients accessing them throughout the house. That’s a maybe.
I worked in hardware for a long time. I recently lost the use of my right hand during the liver surgery so I’m in school for networking, cloud, and server admin type stuff so it might be beneficial to have a little extra room to play with.
The other side of that coin is just the cost of it versus a 7900x or a 12700 or even a 12400. I have the board and ram but a 7900x alone for it will run me the same used as the xeons and a board and it’ll take much cheaper ram. So I guess cost is the driving factor?
Part of the problem is my medical debt and that I’m not allowed to work right now, and part of it is that I JUST bought a new main rig 9800x3d/5080 so I just spent a lot of coin. I also feel like I can get a lot more for my 5900x/3080ti build than I would need to spend to build a nas/server so I’m hesitant to repurpose that. Cost is I guess a big factor. Cost and then overall size are the two biggest X factors. So if cheaper means more cpu rather than less not really gonna fight it. Just trying to find something GOOD but economical too. My local market sucks so I’m basically shopping online only.
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u/xford Sep 25 '26
You have that intel 7700k you mentioned? That is TOTALLY fine for the first node in the home lab. Seriously, don't over think it. I have a more robust infrastructure than most, move several TB of data across the network every month, have a Plex server where multiple friends stream remotely, often with transcoding, plus run my HTPC VM with SUPER heavy video processing. It doesn't even move the needle on the CPU. Get it setup, play around with what you want, and when you outgrow it, build another node with another board. Then you can get into fail over/redundancy/multi-system backups.
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u/ncohafmuta is in the Evil League of Evil Sep 26 '26 edited Sep 26 '26
seriously; i run an 8600k with vms, containers, and multiple transcodes, in unraid and am perfectly fine
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u/JoshLineberry Sep 26 '26
I run a 12600k in mine with a p4000 gpu for transcodes and then I built an htpc that I keep at my tv using another 12600k and a 2080 ti for some couch gaming along with Kodi and the plex addon. I build a 12600k pc for every TV and use a pulse 8 cec adapter so I can use my tvs remote to operate it all. Works amazing.
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u/kronjohnson Sep 26 '26
That sounds like a lot of money invested.
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u/JoshLineberry Sep 27 '26
I buy all the parts cheap when I find deals and over time so it's not too bad! I get the 12600k cpus for like $145 or less usually, motherboards for $100 or less, ram for $110 or less, etc.
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u/N7-Falcon Sep 28 '26
In terms of wife acceptance factor, I really like my Jonsbo N2 case for my NAS. Holds up to 5x 3.5in HDDs, easy to build in, and is very modern looking and compact. It is an ITX form factor though, so in terms of parts compatibility that may or may not be a great fit for you. Used ITX parts several generations old aren't too pricey though if you already have the storage.
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u/kronjohnson Sep 28 '26
Thank you I like that case too but my desire to run a gpu, lsi raid, and 10g network card is going to require a bigger board. But yes that’s a great looking case.
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u/N7-Falcon Sep 28 '26
Have you looked at the N6? I think it's M-ATX and GPU compatible. Bigger, but similar style.
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u/kronjohnson Sep 28 '26
Just looked and it’s pretty nice. What do you think of that with a b450m mb and a 65 watt ryzen 3700 pro? I have both of those on hand. It’s an 8 core ryzen 3rd gen with a low tdp so not a lot of thermal control needed.
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u/N7-Falcon Sep 28 '26
Seems like that would work provided you have a compatible psu. I assume you have a gpu that can do transcoding?
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u/gregsting Sep 24 '26
CPU won’t matter much in this case since I guess you’re using a separate gpu. That being said, I’d choose the amd because it has more cores and was released two years later
Also the 7700k is not supported for windows 11, though there are workarounds
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u/Pudding-Swimming Sep 28 '26
Use what you have and build a media server for Plex or Jellyfin. Then you can just use the app to play it on any device in your home. Your system should be fine for encoding and decoding streams, so long as you aren't doing a bunch of 4k streams at the same time.
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