Server build just for streaming(plex,emby)

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
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Hi,
Hope you all are doing well. I want to make a streaming server for around 30 to 35 people(so worst case ~35 people playing simultaneously is possible during peak hour) . This is my hardware. no transcoding.
Intel Xeon Silver 4214R Processor
Mainboard: Asrock EPC621D8A Intel C621 Chipset
1x M.2 512gb
32GB DDR4 ECC
3x 12TB HDD SATA

What I want is I want to increase HDD later when the current HDDs are full. But I also want raid 5, I will keep adding HDDs to that raid 5 array. I was looking into windows storage space for this. And I am here for your suggestion for a better solution be it linux or windows server .

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If you’re already familiar with windows server, and it can do what you want, then I don’t see any compelling reason to deviate for a project like this. I have no idea if storage spaces can append drives to a raid5.

For 30-35 original quality video streams, I would think you might run into bandwidth limitations with only three hard drives. Maybe I’m wrong, but it would likely be worth testing before you go full scale.

As far as options, you can expand a ZFS raidz1 pool by adding additional vdevs, just not additional drives into an existing vdev. No ZFS in windows, though.

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My suggestions:

  • upgrade to 4x 32GB ECC RAM (reasonably cheap from Aliexpress)
  • add a 1TB NVMe drive as cache for the RAID5 for your game streaming, your platform is PCIe Gen 3 so fairly cheap SSD’s can be used (<100USD)
  • replace the 12TB drives with 16TB HDD’s. Initially you won’t see an increase in storage capacity until you’ve replaced all 3 drives, then you can expand from 24 to 32TB storage
  • consider transforming the RAID5 to a RAID6 for extra redundancy, any write penalty is off-set by the 1TB NVMe cache
  • use Proxmox or similar offerings for the OS, easy config setup for new users
  • ZFS is overhyped, it’s not so flexible when it comes to disk management on upgrades as a normal mdadm-based Linux RAID is. It has an extensive fancy feature set, but how much of that one really uses on a regular basis? Most mundane tasks for ZFS are also available on other file systems and for the more notable fancy stuff BTRFS is a good alternative, although admittedly it’s less mature due to much, much more money spend on ZFS development over BTRFS.

HTH!