Windows 10 HTPC + PLEX and VM

[daevilb]

I have a little problem 🙂

i am currently running a little server that acts as my htpc as well as storage, nothing special i3 and 4gb of ram and SSD for OS.

its beginning to drive me crazy so the server will have an upgrade and also serve as owncloud and also VM-lab for work stuff.

So my question to you guys is this..
i want a powerful server that runs on "normal" components and can be upgraded to kaby lake later on and fit inside a mATX chassi.

Intel Core i7 6700 3.4ghz Socket 1151
Asus Z170M-Plus
2x Crucial DDR4 PC1700/2133Mhz 16GB
Corsair SF450 W PSU

Is this stupid?

All i can say is that i dont have room for a fulltower or server rack or something like that, i just want a SUPER powerful HTPC...

And the best of it all.... i dont want a Graphics Card inside this thing since i will ONLY be playing 1080p material from it so intergrated Graphics will do just fine.

Maybe in the future i will put a gfx-card inside and upgrade to kaby lake but thats years in the future.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I don't know about a 450w PSU.

But in theory you can put a i7 in a HTPC, it just kinda gets wasted on HTPC functions unless you game.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I do all that. One of my Sandy rigs does HTPC duty, serves as my main computer, allows me to run flight simulators and Steam games while it continues the video feed to my AVR/HDTV.

But for a server or HTPC or both, you don't need the latest-greatest.

I use spare parts, used parts -- whatever I have. I'm building a new server on Win 2012 R2 Essentials with a refurbished Z68 Pro/Gen3 motherboard I'd picked up for $85, and a non-K IB 3470 CPU. It's still considerably more than needed. The RAM-kit was an "extra" I acquired when I bought a CPU-board-RAM used combo for $200 -- 16GB Corsair XMS DDR3-1600.

Way more power than what we need here, but better to make use of spare parts.

 

[dclive]

I have a little problem 🙂

i am currently running a little server that acts as my htpc as well as storage, nothing special i3 and 4gb of ram and SSD for OS.

its beginning to drive me crazy so the server will have an upgrade and also serve as owncloud and also VM-lab for work stuff.

So my question to you guys is this..
i want a powerful server that runs on "normal" components and can be upgraded to kaby lake later on and fit inside a mATX chassi.

Intel Core i7 6700 3.4ghz Socket 1151
Asus Z170M-Plus
2x Crucial DDR4 PC1700/2133Mhz 16GB
Corsair SF450 W PSU

Is this stupid?

All i can say is that i dont have room for a fulltower or server rack or something like that, i just want a SUPER powerful HTPC...

And the best of it all.... i dont want a Graphics Card inside this thing since i will ONLY be playing 1080p material from it so intergrated Graphics will do just fine.

Maybe in the future i will put a gfx-card inside and upgrade to kaby lake but thats years in the future.

I have a few ESXi boxes - a little Intel NUC (16GB i3/1.8, 3rd gen), Gigabyte Brix (16GB i3/1.7, 4th gen), and Mac Mini (16GB i5/2.3, 2nd gen). I then have a Synology box with a shared 1TB SSD for shared storage. Works great.

For your setup, if you want a few VMs, and you want them as servers, and you want the machine to have direct video output too, then Windows HyperV is perfect. Get a serverOS (latest is best), or the enterprise version of Windows 10, and cram as much RAM as you can in there, use SSDs for local storage, and with an i7, you're good to go. I'd suggest 64GB if possible (are there mITX boards with 4 slots?) but .. the sky, and your budget, is the limit...

You'll usually run out of RAM before CPU for most things most people do.

There's no reason to upgrade once it's in place (to Kaby Lake) unless Intel really does something unexpected; there's almost no benefit in going from Sandy Bridge to the latest Skylake except for heat/power and current (typically: cheaper, denser) RAM chips.

The setup you describe would typically use under 150W. I'd get a cheap 300W PSU and call it a day.

 

[SolMiester]

You dont need to waste $$ on server O/S, Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 all have the ability to run hyperV
I am using 8.1 on my ML110 G6, which runs NAS for file sharing and another VM for PLex Server

 

[Kartajan]

Seconding the comment on not needing a full server OS. Win10 Pro will do fine. (Win10 Home is missing "Join a domain, Remote Desktop, Client Hyper-V")