Tag: Home Server

The New Server

By

On 9th May 2025

In Blog

I have finally gotten around to sorting out a new server for the house.

Gone for a Fujitsu TX1310-M1 with a Xenon E3-1226V3 with 32GB Ram and even comes with a 512gb SSD and a pair of 3TB HDDs.

Got it for £130 which I don’t think is a terrible price, but when they went to ship it to me, they found they had lost the side panel and they contacted me to offer a discount of £26, which is accepted, I can always pop a Perspex cover on it.

It came on the Thursday and was delivered by DHL, coming at lunchtime.

So the planning started as soon as I hit buy on as to how best implement this and get it up and running and that started with the decision to run Proxmox on bare metal.

So that was installed and I created a ZFS pool with the two 3TB drives.

The first container I set up was for Casa OS, which would be hosting most of the media stuff, starting with the basics of PLEX and AudioBookShelf.

Once that was setup, I started setting stuff up, but I soon realised that I had a fatal issue, my hard drives with the media on were formatted in NTFS which docker doesn’t play nice with 😭

So I had to transfer data to drives that were being formatted in EXT4 or the ZFS pool, starting with the movies library, and then the slow process of the TV shows which would take some time annoyingly.

In the meantime I set up a second VM running Foundry VTT that me and Chris are going to play around with to see if it will prove a decent replacement for Roll20.

The data transfer took a good long while, there was a lot to transfer.

But alas, in my attempts to be clever I managed to delete the audiobooks and movies meaning I have to restore them from the offsite backups, and that could take at least a month to do that and sort out the metadata properly

But now it’s in place in what’s its permanent home, it takes up a lot less space and is significantly more powerful that what it replaced, I am quite happy with it and in the next few weeks we are going to set up Mealie

What I Am Painting

I spent the weekend at my sister in law’s and painted up the terrain that came in the £75 pack from Combat Patrol

I got the Stockades finished first

Then the Vox Antenna

And then the Landing Pad

Followed by the Auspex Shrine

Then finally a pair of Hab-Bunkers

After that I painted a squad of Ogryn Charonites for the Solar Auxilia

Followe by a squad of Phallax Warders for my Imperial Fists

And finally a trio of Rapiers for the Solar Auxilia

So what’s coming up next?

  1. Blood Angels Landspeeders
  2. Scarab Occult Terminators & Infernal Master
  3. Dark Angels Incursors x 5
  4. Blood Angels Impulsor
  5. Imperial Knight Magara
  6. Carnivale Gondola
  7. Stormdrake Guard x 4 & Knight Draconis
  8. Imperial Fists Breacher Squad x 10
  9. Armiger Helverin x 2
  10. Deathshroud x 3

What I Am Reading

I listened to Leontus: Lord Solar by Rob Young whilst painting the terrain and that was really good

Right now I am listenting to Terror Firma by Joseph Lidster and Fulgrim: The Perfect Son by Jude Reid.

I also read We Were Brothers by Richard Fox which was pretty decent

What Tabletop Games I Am Playing

I played a game of Heresy with Graham at Durham Raiders, where I tried out Artillery with the Solar Auxilia, it did not go well, my positioning was terrible and his summoned Daemons ripped me apart

But it was fun and that’s what counts

I then played Dave at Hartlepool Gamers, where I lost, badly, but I could have won in turn 2 when all his reserves failed to arrive, but I am lot a dick so didn’t do that

When his reserves did arrive, the Gal Vorbak tore my ranks apart panel by panel

And again at Durham Raiders, I played a simple doubles game with Andrew where we took on Paul’s Iron Warriors and thanks to Andrew’s nasty plasma guns we won!

And finally I played 40K with Chris and took my Imperial Knights, we didn’t do too badly but it was still a loss

But I really felt like I held my own!

And when CJ came over one Saturday we played DnD with Megan DMing

What I Am Spending

I bought a controller holder for my peg board from eBay

IKEA discontinued these, annoyingly and I needed one more to hold my Duchess

I also grabbed some Deathshroud to complete the Death Guard Combat Patrol

And some Tempestus Aquilons for my Astra Militarum

Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag went on sale on Steam, so I picked that up, and it also included Freedom Cry, and I managed to grab Assassins Creed Unity as well.

And I finally bought Grand Theft Auto V!

I also picked up in various bundles and sales

Managing The PLEX Server Better

By

On 17th May 2024

In Blog

At the minute my servers files are all over the place, we have 13TB of space but the files are spread out randomly with some films and TV series on each drive, audio books split into 3 folders, 8 different book folders and documentaries and kids stuff spread out all over the shop!

So we are struggling with managing what’s where, and thus, we decided to expand with another 4TB of space, by adding this drive from Amazon to it

So right now I have all the films transferring into this, which should mostly fill it, the last folder is currently transferring and will need a little over 20 hours to complete the move!

Then all TV Series will be moved to the 6TB drive, and other stuff, like documentaries, kids, concerts, standup, anime etc, will move on to the original 4TB drive.

Music has already been transferred to its own dedicated 1TB drive which it’s nowhere near filling as I have still transferred barely anything of our music collection over!

That will leave a 2TB drive, which is going to store things like books, comics for which I intend to install Kavita in an attempt to do for books what AudioBookShelf is doing for audio books.

So to summarise what we have right now is

  • 4TB HDD – Movies
  • 6TB HDD & 1TB HDD – TV Series
  • 1TB HDD – Music
  • 4TB HDD – Other Media (Anime/Audiobooks/Documentaries/Kids etc)
  • 2TB – Books/Comics

The last stuff being transferred is the final TV Series stuff from the original 4TB HDD to the 6TB HDD

The process is allowing me to do some long overdue data hygiene as well!

Long term a dedicated device for the server will happen, with bigger hard drives running in RAID and offering NAS functions, but that’s gonna happen after I decide what to do about upgrading my PC next.

I am torn between replacing the mobo, CPU and RAM and moving to an AM5 CPU, or upgrading either the GPU to a 4070 Super or perhaps even just the CPU to a 5800X3D, just got to figure out what’s gonna give the best result for my meagre £s

What I Am Modelling

I started with an Aleguzzler Gargant for the Gloomspite Gitz.

Plus Johann Strehn, the greatest every hero of the Mortal Realms!

I painted up a Lasrifle Section for the Solar Auxilia

Alongside a Command Section

I then painted some Sneaky Snufflers for the Gloomspite Gitz

Followed by some Reinforcements for the Space Wolves, starting with a pair of Battle Leader.

To Accompany a squad of Primaris Infiltrators.

Who are covered by a squad of Eliminators

So what’s up next?

  1. Psychophage
  2. Megaboss on a Maw-Krusha
  3. Boingrot Bounders x 10
  4. Ultramarines Invader ATV x 2
  5. Tree-Revenants x 10 & Branch-Wych
  6. Chaos Space Marines x 10 & Dark Apostle
  7. Blood Angels Primaris Captains x 3
  8. Imperial Fists Vindicator
  9. Von Ryan’s Leapers c 3
  10. Krondys

What I Am Reading

Not had much time or spoons to read, but I did listen to Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space which was wonderfully retro!

What Tabletop Games I Am Playing

Played a league game against Joshua and his Sisters of Battle, and he tore me apart!

And I played Paul and his Leagues of Votann which beat me, but it was a really fun and fantastic game!

I also went to the November Echo Heresy Tournament in Heaton playing this 2000 points Imperial Fists list

+ HQ: +

Fafnir Rann: Warlord

+ Elites: +

Apothecarion Detachment
. Apothecary: Bolt Pistol, Power Armour
. . Chainsword: Chainsword

Contemptor Dreadnought Talon
. Contemptor Dreadnought: Gravis Autocannon, Gravis Autocannon, Havoc Launcher

Templar Brethren: 9x Brethren, 9x Combat Shield, Legion Vexilla, Meltabombs
. Champion: Bolt Pistol, Combat Shield, Master-craft a weapon, Solarite Power Gauntlet
. Land Raider Proteus Carrier: Twin-linked Heavy Bolter

+ Troops: +

Tactical Squad
. Legion Tactical Sergeant: Bolter, Lightning Claw, Meltabombs, Power Armour, Volkite Serpenta
. 8x Legionaries (collective): 8x Bolt Pistol, 8x Bolter, 8x Chain Bayonet
. Legionary w/ Options:: Bolt Pistol, Bolter, Chain Bayonet, Legion Vexilla

Tactical Squad
. Legion Tactical Sergeant: Bolter, Meltabombs, Plasma Pistol, Power Armour, Solarite Power Gauntlet
. 8x Legionaries (collective): 8x Bolt Pistol, 8x Bolter, 8x Chain Bayonet
. Legionary w/ Options:: Bolt Pistol, Bolter, Chain Bayonet, Legion Vexilla

+ Heavy Support: +

Heavy Support Squad: Lascannon
. Legion Support Sergeant: Bolt Pistol, Power Armour
. 3x Legionaries (collective): 3x Bolt Pistol
. Legionary w/ Options: Augury Scanner, Bolt Pistol

Kratos Squadron
. Kratos: 2x Heavy Bolters, Hull (Front, Right/Left) Mounted Heavy Bolters
. . Kratos Battlecannon

Sicaran Squadron
. Sicaran: 2x Heavy Bolters, Heavy Bolter

My first game was against Brendan, which was close, but not quite good enough on my part

Then I played Graham and got tabled, as usual

Followed by a game against Gareth’s Solar Auxilia who tore me apart!

What Video Games I Am Playing

Some more Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

I finished Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster which was a lot of fun!

And I have started God of War (2018) again, and enjoying it so far!

What I Am Creating

The next battle report has been published, so please go check it out!

What I Am Backing

I am backing CARnage 2 – STL Cars, weapons and more for auto combat games but just at the $1 level for access to the pledge manager at the end cause I cannot afford the main pledge level right now!

What I Am Spending

Lindsay and Megan wanted a better way to use Apple Fitness +, so we got an old and cheap, Apple TV HD, in cosmetically bad condition (but works great) from CEX

It’s now been attached to the back of the TV, and will also allow me to play Fantasian I guess!

I also got a Space Wolves Combat Patrol

And I used my Warhammer+ discount code to grab a couple of t-shirts from Warhammer Merch, an Imperial Fists one and a Sisters of Battle one.

And a couple more video games.

And of course it was Humble Choice time so I got

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