Over Synology, and looking to build my first home lab. Could use some advice on parts...
Over Synology, and looking to build my first home lab. Could use some advice on parts...
I currently have a Synology 220+ and a couple of VPS's, and I'm looking to consolidate, while getting out of Synology's walled garden. I've already got a couple of 3.5's in the Synology, and 4 2.5's lying around and I'm planning on running a number of docker containers and a couple of vms.
That said, I've never built anything before, and basically just went to PCPartPicker, started with the case, and checked 5-stars on each component and went from there. So... how absurd is my build?
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor | $135.00 @ Amazon |
| CPU Cooler | Cooler Master MasterLiquid 360L Core ARGB Liquid CPU Cooler | $90.71 @ Amazon |
| Motherboard | MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard | $165.99 @ B&H |
| Memory | TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory | $26.99 @ Amazon |
| Storage | Seagate IronWolf NAS 8 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive | Purchased For $179.00 |
| Storage | Seagate IronWolf NAS 8 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive | Purchased For $179.00 |
| Storage | Seagate IronWolf NAS 8 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive | $159.99 @ Adorama |
| Case | Fractal Design Meshify 2 ATX Mid Tower Case | $173.89 @ Newegg |
| Power Supply | Corsair RM650 (2023) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | $89.99 @ Corsair |
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts | ||
| Total | $1200.56 | |
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-05-23 19:32 EDT-0400 |
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I don't know what kind of server you're running, but if you plan to host any video then you want a dedicated GPU or a cpu with integrated graphics (and even if you're not, I think it's a good idea anyway), which the 5600x doesn't.
I also think it's overboard to get $90 watercooling. Just get an air cooler for half or a third of the price
Someone else mentioned the cooler too, so that's out for sure. To be honest, I never really thought about graphics in the traditional sense, but I do need something for at least Jellyfin transcoding. And maybe a small llm. Would it be better to get a dedicated GPU or CPU with integrated?
Dedicated GPUs are obviously going to be more powerful. I've never run ai before so maybe someone else can weigh in on the requirements for it, but I can say for sure that an igpu is good enough for jellyfin transcoding. It also depends on your budget, do you want to spend the extra money just for a dedicated GPU?
If you go igpu route I think that Intel is recommended over AMD, but you should probably do extra research on that before buying
My amd igpu works just fine for jellyfin. LLMs are a little slow, but that's to be expected.
Yeah, I'm not sure if I really want to deal with an llm. It would mostly be for home assistant, so nothing too crazy.
I have a very similar NAS I built. The Home Assistant usage doesn't really even move the needle. I'm running around 50 docker containers and chilling at about 10% cpu.
The LLM for home assistant, or just HA in general doesn't move the needle? My HA is also pretty low key, but I was considering the idea of running my own small llm to use with HA to get off of OpenAI. My current AI usage is very small, so I wouldn't need too much on the GPU side I'd imagine, but I don't know what's sufficient.
Just home assistant doesn't move the needle. The llms hit the igpu hard and my cpu usage spikes to 70-80% when one is thinking.
But my llms i'm running are ollama and invokeai each with several different models just for fun.
The gold standard for transcoding these days is a newer gen Intel CPU with integrated graphics.
The integrated GPU on those intel chips can do Intel QuickSync / QSV which will handle a dozen streams at once without breaking a sweat.
People buils jellyfin media servers out nases which have complete garbage computing power. It really does not take much unless you have like 4 4k tvs and fell for dolby atmos scam.