Building a game server/cloud computer?

[nutmanmatt]

Hey all,

My buddies and me have been toying around with the idea of putting together a pc for hosting game servers and a cloud/dropbox style storage system. I honestly don't have any experience with building a pc for those purposes. We live across several states and wanted to run a central computer we could all use to store files on as well as host servers for some games we play like minecraft, space engineers, etc. So I guess the question is how good of a computer should I be looking for here? I was thinking about grabbing a used Xeon on ebay or something like that. Would it help to store the data on a SSD or just normal HDD? Just kind of looking for some advice here on making a build that will accomplish the above tasks.

Thanks!
Matt

 

[boosted1g]

Any i3 equivillant CPU would be fine for this. You dont need anything too powerfull.
A new pentium g4560 build would be perfect for this. Looking at less then $200 for cpu/board/memory

No need to host files on SSD when the max speed of HDD will be much much faster then your upload speed.

I looked into cloud software at one point but since ownCloud stopped making new updates I just gave up on that idea.

 

[USAFRet]

For shared files, DropBox or OneDrive would be far, far better. Easier, less security hassles, etc, etc.

For the game server, what do those games require? Not a lot in terms of system horsepower.

Far too many people equate "server" with "it must be a Xeon, preferably dual CPU, and 128GB RAM"
Not even.
Yeah, if you were hosting a database server for 50,000 users, OK.
For you and your friends? Any PC would do this.

Your biggest drawback might be upload speed.
And then port forwarding, DMZ, access lockdowns, etc, etc.
You don't want some random dude cruising through your connection, or using your game server box in a botnet.

 

[nutmanmatt]

Any i3 equivillant CPU would be fine for this. You dont need anything too powerfull.
A new pentium g4560 build would be perfect for this. Looking at less then $200 for cpu/board/memory

No need to host files on SSD when the max speed of HDD will be much much faster then your upload speed.

I looked into cloud software at one point but since ownCloud stopped making new updates I just gave up on that idea.

Really just an i3? My friend has tried playing and hosting a minecraft server on his pc at the sometime (lots and lots of mods mind you) and it lagged the crap out of his pc of course as I said that was trying to play as well. Good to know about the SSD vs HDD. So a cloud server for us might not be possible? I just want something we can all access through a drag and drop file system or something like that. Sorry if that's not how it works I have never attempted anything like this.

 

[AbhiTheBoss]

As mentioned above, cloud storing- not a very good idea, but if you want to build a game server, I would look at an old i5 2500, with onboard video, as you can get these pretty cheap, and will be good enough forhosting the above mentioned games
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-DZ68DB-motherboard-CPU-i5-2500-3-3GHz-4-gig-ddr3-I-O-plate-CPU-fan-/192161527370?hash=item2cbdb8364a:g:UHQAAOSwSypY9R9y

 

[AbhiTheBoss]

Get an SSD or an HDD and a decent 300w power supply to go with it and if needed you can get 4 more gigs of ram

 

[AbhiTheBoss]

Even an i3 would do fine as mentioned by the others.

 

[nutmanmatt]

For shared files, DropBox or OneDrive would be far, far better. Easier, less security hassles, etc, etc.

For the game server, what do those games require? Not a lot in terms of system horsepower.

Far too many people equate "server" with "it must be a Xeon, preferably dual CPU, and 128GB RAM"
Not even.
Yeah, if you were hosting a database server for 50,000 users, OK.
For you and your friends? Any PC would do this.

Your biggest drawback might be upload speed.
And then port forwarding, DMZ, access lockdowns, etc, etc.
You don't want some random dude cruising through your connection, or using your game server box in a botnet.

I could be wrong but I was under the impression that dropbox and the likes have monthly or yearly costs that I wanted to avoid? Could be wrong though I do want at least 4 or 5TB or space. Interesting about the cpu I thought for sure more than an i3 or the likes would be needed.

 

[James Mason]

I could be wrong but I was under the impression that dropbox and the likes have monthly or yearly costs that I wanted to avoid? Could be wrong though I do want at least 4 or 5TB or space. Interesting about the cpu I thought for sure more than an i3 or the likes would be needed.

So does running a server 24/7.

What my friend does, is his router is somewhat decent, and lets you attach a USB hard drive to it to create a "cloud storage" from home.

It's much cheaper than building a whole computer just to have a few terabytes of personal (but unsecured, and unbacked up) cloud storage. (Side note: routers are mini computers, hence they advertise things like having dual core processing)

Hosting a minecraft server is much different than playing minecraft.

Mainly you just need tons of ram, the mods people use put more pressure on them then the server. (that 100s of mods thing sounds like BS to me really, you're using a single mod or two that adds many things)

 

[AbhiTheBoss]

I could be wrong but I was under the impression that dropbox and the likes have monthly or yearly costs that I wanted to avoid? Could be wrong though I do want at least 4 or 5TB or space. Interesting about the cpu I thought for sure more than an i3 or the likes would be needed.

So does running a server 24/7.

What my friend does, is his router is somewhat decent, and lets you attach a USB hard drive to it to create a "cloud storage" from home.

It's much cheaper than building a whole computer just to have a few terabytes of personal (but unsecured, and unbacked up) cloud storage. (Side note: routers are mini computers, hence they advertise things like having dual core processing)

Hosting a minecraft server is much different than playing minecraft.

Mainly you just need tons of ram, the mods people use put more pressure on them then the server. (that 100s of mods thing sounds like BS to me really, you're using a single mod or two that adds many things)

Since he is only playing with a couple of freinds, tbh an i5 and 8 gigs of ram would be more than enough. I have hosted a server for 4 people with around 10 plugins on my good old Pentium D with 4 gigs of ram.

 

[nutmanmatt]

I could be wrong but I was under the impression that dropbox and the likes have monthly or yearly costs that I wanted to avoid? Could be wrong though I do want at least 4 or 5TB or space. Interesting about the cpu I thought for sure more than an i3 or the likes would be needed.

So does running a server 24/7.

What my friend does, is his router is somewhat decent, and lets you attach a USB hard drive to it to create a "cloud storage" from home.

It's much cheaper than building a whole computer just to have a few terabytes of personal (but unsecured, and unbacked up) cloud storage. (Side note: routers are mini computers, hence they advertise things like having dual core processing)

Hosting a minecraft server is much different than playing minecraft.

Mainly you just need tons of ram, the mods people use put more pressure on them then the server. (that 100s of mods thing sounds like BS to me really, you're using a single mod or two that adds many things)

Since he is only playing with a couple of freinds, tbh an i5 and 8 gigs of ram would be more than enough. I have hosted a server for 4 people with around 10 plugins on my good old Pentium D with 4 gigs of ram.

Yes there is at the most probably going to be 7 or 8 on but mostly 4 or 5 people on. That being said I do want to host servers for more intense games examples are space engineers with mods and newer games like killing floor 2 also I want something slightly future proof that I can build and mostly leave alone for a few years.

 

[USAFRet]

I could be wrong but I was under the impression that dropbox and the likes have monthly or yearly costs that I wanted to avoid? Could be wrong though I do want at least 4 or 5TB or space. Interesting about the cpu I thought for sure more than an i3 or the likes would be needed.

OK...4-5TB of space is a whole different thing than a few friends sharing some files.

As a known comparison, 5TB = 1,000 full length movies.

 

[nutmanmatt]

I could be wrong but I was under the impression that dropbox and the likes have monthly or yearly costs that I wanted to avoid? Could be wrong though I do want at least 4 or 5TB or space. Interesting about the cpu I thought for sure more than an i3 or the likes would be needed.

OK...4-5TB of space is a whole different thing than a few friends sharing some files.

As a known comparison, 5TB = 1,000 full length movies.

Haha sorry should have clarified more we have lots of junk

 

[USAFRet]

Easy solution...

Buy a prebuilt NAS box.
The newer ones would give the opportunity to host a couple of VMs to run game servers, cloud as well as local storage (accessible through the Net), very little maintenance, low power draw.

I have a Qnap that could probably do what you seek. ~$500 + whatever drives you want in it.

Linux based OS...and does all your 'server' bits that you need.

 

[James Mason]

Minecraft (and other builder games like it) are currently the hardest to host server games because of how RAM intensive they are. CPU Wise they're not that different from something like counter strike, but because builder games have "infinite maps" they need to store a lot more temporary data. Tracking where people are on the maps hasn't changed, but the maps are huge in size, unlike a CSGO map that gets extremely optimized to reduce its data load.

 

[nutmanmatt]

Ok so what if I did something like this

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kWxDNN

would this get the job done?

 

[AbhiTheBoss]

It would, but you would be way better off with at least an i5 2500 plus motherboard and 16 gigs of ram