PC on the way : Need suggestion for my initial setup

[Noctosphere]

Hello people.

So, my "new" PC is on the way. It's a refurbished setup that I plan to use for my Plex media server.
All I want it to do are :
1- Run Plex Media Server
2- Torrenting (24/7)
3- To be able to remotely acces it from other allowed devices (android, windows, linux)

That's basicly it. Nothing else. I don't want to use it for gaming, for browsing or anything else.
Among the first few thing I will do with it are :
1- Add more hard drives (I have 2 HDDs that will go in there)
2- Replace the SSD (it comes with a 1TB SDD, I'm going to swap it with a cheaper 256GB and put the 1TB one in my main setup)
3- Install another OS.

So here I am. What do you guys think would be the best OS to put in there?
I've taken a quick look online, on some forums. Some talk about different Linux distros, some talk about NASos (iirc)
I've used chatgpt, but since I'm a life-long user of Windows (Who will most likely switch to linux after all this), I have zero experience with other OSes (except android phones/tablets)
So what would you guys suggest me from your experience? What would be the easiest OS to install for this, that would fit the criteria and be simple enough for a noob like me to easily use it?

 

[Crass]

Linux is easy enough to install

 

[Noctosphere]

Linux is easy enough to install

k, which one would you suggest?

 

[Exnor]

Mint. Always Mint

Post automatically merged: Nov 10, 2025

Also get enough RAM and disable any Swap partition or file on a SSD's. It will prolong the lifespan of the SSD, since it will do less write cycles.

 

[Noctosphere]

Mint. Always Mint

Post automatically merged: Nov 10, 2025

Also get enough RAM and disable any Swap partition or file on a SSD's. It will prolong the lifespan of the SSD, since it will do less write cycles.

I hope 16GB DDR4 is enough
Also, I have no idea what the "Swap partition" is, but I guess I'll have a look into it when the machine arrives.

 

[Exnor]

I hope 16GB DDR4 is enough
Also, I have no idea what the "Swap partition" is, but I guess I'll have a look into it when the machine arrives.

16GiB of RAM just to run Plex and do some torrenting might be overkill, but if you have it then you don't need any swap.


Swap file or partition is where the OS stores the data it literally swaps from RAM to disk (and vice versa), when space in RAM is full.
The thing is, even Linux has the bad habit of doing this when enough RAM is still available. Windows is the worse offender that i know of.

 

[Noctosphere]

By the way, as I said, I'm an actual noob to all this.
I heard about this RAID thing, to "synchronise" two hard drive, to have backup in case one is failing.
I will probably add more hard drive later, and, most likely, a pair of "RAIDed ones (?)"

What would you suggest me to look at first if I'm considering this?

 

[Exnor]

By the way, as I said, I'm an actual noob to all this.
I heard about this RAID thing, to "synchronise" two hard drive, to have backup in case one is failing.
I will probably add more hard drive later, and, most likely, a pair of "RAIDed ones (?)"

What would you suggest me to look at first if I'm considering this?

There are several RAID modes. If you want simple data redundancy you can use 2 disk in Raid (mode) 1. With this mode if one of the disks/ssd dies you can simply replace it since the data is also cloned on the other disk (btw you can use as many disks as you want). When the new disk is inserted, the RAID controller should copy all the data from the good disk to the new one.

Some motherboards offer native RAID controller out of the box (i think most do nowadays). But even if there is no native support, its possible to do it via software to (well at least in Linux you can. Never used it in Windows).

 

[Sicklyboy]

You may want to consider a NAS appliance OS such as TrueNAS Scale.

It's a Debian Linux based appliance OS, meaning that as far as the operating system itself is concerned, what you install is what you get, it doesn't get modified aside from system updates. All of your configuration changes get consolidated down into a config file that it manages, which you can export and restore if you ever need to reinstall and be right back up and running.

It's managed entirely via a web interface accessible to other computers on the network, supports running applications such as PMS and torrent clients in Docker containers (all installable via an "applications" list), and gives you a wizard driven UI to create things like SMB shares so storage can be mounted on a Windows system over the network.

Despite being Linux based, there is little to no Linux knowledge needed as you don't really touch the "under the hood" stuff at all.

TrueNAS creates software RAIDs and is not reliant on a bespoke physical RAID controller.

And it's free - https://www.truenas.com/truenas-community-edition/

Edit - UnRAID is another popular option but I've never used it, and it is also not free. I've used TrueNAS for a number of years now on two different systems

 

[Exnor]

You may want to consider a NAS appliance OS such as TrueNAS Scale.

It's a Debian Linux based appliance OS, meaning that as far as the operating system itself is concerned, what you install is what you get, it doesn't get modified aside from system updates. All of your configuration changes get consolidated down into a config file that it manages, which you can export and restore if you ever need to reinstall and be right back up and running.

It's managed entirely via a web interface accessible to other computers on the network, supports running applications such as PMS and torrent clients in Docker containers (all installable via an "applications" list), and gives you a wizard driven UI to create things like SMB shares so storage can be mounted on a Windows system over the network.

Despite being Linux based, there is little to no Linux knowledge needed as you don't really touch the "under the hood" stuff at all.

TrueNAS creates software RAIDs and is not reliant on a bespoke physical RAID controller.

And it's free - https://www.truenas.com/truenas-community-edition/

Edit - UnRAID is another popular option but I've never used it, and it is also not free. I've used TrueNAS for a number of years now on two different systems

Forgot about TrueNAS .

This is the way to go.

 

[Noctosphere]

You may want to consider a NAS appliance OS such as TrueNAS Scale.

It's a Debian Linux based appliance OS, meaning that as far as the operating system itself is concerned, what you install is what you get, it doesn't get modified aside from system updates. All of your configuration changes get consolidated down into a config file that it manages, which you can export and restore if you ever need to reinstall and be right back up and running.

It's managed entirely via a web interface accessible to other computers on the network, supports running applications such as PMS and torrent clients in Docker containers (all installable via an "applications" list), and gives you a wizard driven UI to create things like SMB shares so storage can be mounted on a Windows system over the network.

Despite being Linux based, there is little to no Linux knowledge needed as you don't really touch the "under the hood" stuff at all.

TrueNAS creates software RAIDs and is not reliant on a bespoke physical RAID controller.

And it's free - https://www.truenas.com/truenas-community-edition/

Edit - UnRAID is another popular option but I've never used it, and it is also not free. I've used TrueNAS for a number of years now on two different systems

Thanks, it sounds like exactly what I need
I'll take a look into it

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Hello people.

So, my "new" PC is on the way. It's a refurbished setup that I plan to use for my Plex media server.
All I want it to do are :
1- Run Plex Media Server
2- Torrenting (24/7)
3- To be able to remotely acces it from other allowed devices (android, windows, linux)

That's basicly it. Nothing else. I don't want to use it for gaming, for browsing or anything else.
Among the first few thing I will do with it are :
1- Add more hard drives (I have 2 HDDs that will go in there)
2- Replace the SSD (it comes with a 1TB SDD, I'm going to swap it with a cheaper 256GB and put the 1TB one in my main setup)
3- Install another OS.

So here I am. What do you guys think would be the best OS to put in there?
I've taken a quick look online, on some forums. Some talk about different Linux distros, some talk about NASos (iirc)
I've used chatgpt, but since I'm a life-long user of Windows (Who will most likely switch to linux after all this), I have zero experience with other OSes (except android phones/tablets)
So what would you guys suggest me from your experience? What would be the easiest OS to install for this, that would fit the criteria and be simple enough for a noob like me to easily use it?

UnRAID
By far way easier than TrueNAS especially when it comes to adding more drives.

 

[lightwo]

By the way, if you're going to use it like a NAS, you may as well also use something like Nextcloud (self-hosted cloud storage, calendar, etc.), or for something simpler that only deals with syncing files, Syncthing. While Syncthing is designed in a way that you don't need a central device, provided that you set up a VPN or some other way of accessing your local network remotely, it could come in handy for remote file sync.

However, if you will install a NAS-centric distro, simplicity shouldn't be a huge bother as I'd imagine that most such utilities/suites are even easier to set up there.

 

[Noctosphere]

Welp, it seems like I was wrongly guided all this time....
So many people told me to get a Dell Optiplex, or a Dell Precision, or such kind of prebuilt PC for my NAS server.
So, I bought one, installed my hard drive in it... just to realise (through chatGPT) why it would not boot in.
Proprietary cabling. My hard drive won't boot at all, and it's "perfectly normal".
Why have I never heard about this? The reason I wanted a prebuilt PC, is because I wanted to avoid all the trouble of building everything piece by piece...
Now, is there anything I should be aware of, before facing ANOTHER unwanted surprise? Such as "if I buy a new PSU, the motherboard won't recognize it and go bye bye"???

 

[Sicklyboy]

Proprietary cabling. My hard drive won't boot at all, and it's "perfectly normal".

Could you expand on this, by what exactly you mean is going on? Is the pc not turning on at all when the HDD is plugged in, is the system not seeing the HDD when it's plugged in, or is the connector physically wrong?

Sharing the model of the PC you got and the HDD you are trying to use would be helpful too to see what might be going wrong here

Edit - and pics too if you could if it's a matter of it being the wrong connector

 

[Noctosphere]

Could you expand on this, by what exactly you mean is going on? Is the pc not turning on at all when the HDD is plugged in, is the system not seeing the HDD when it's plugged in, or is the connector physically wrong?

Sharing the model of the PC you got and the HDD you are trying to use would be helpful too to see what might be going wrong here

Edit - and pics too if you could if it's a matter of it being the wrong connector

I took a Dell Precision 3630. It could boot up using my SSD, I could install TrueNAS and all. But it seems like it couldn't detect my other HDD. I troubleshooted everything I could (BIOS SATA options, was there enough power from the PSU (460W), were cables properly plugged in). Everything was fine, but when I mentionned the PC model I had (Dell Precision 3630), then all answers came out. Proprietary cables. To be sure, they asked me to plug the SATA/Power Sata cable in my SSD. This time, it couldn't boot pass the BIOS (no OS detected). It confirmed it was proprietary cabling, that it couldn't detect my stuff for whatever reason (could only detect Dell Sata input plugs? I don't know) In any case, I'd prefer to avoid any other surprise. If I change the PSU, am I going to face "unwanted surprise"? Or should I just return the PC and get another one without "this shit"?

 

[Sicklyboy]

It *looks* like just a standard ATX power supply, so I don't think you should have any issues swapping it for any other normal PC ATX form factor power supply? Pinout seems to match ATX spec too based off of the wiring color on the 20+4 connector. https://www.dell.com/support/manual...bdcc09-4a5a-4ac6-99a1-65b8d718900d&lang=en-us

MAJOR word of warning - if you do end up swapping the power supply, DO NOT REUSE the modular PSU cabling that that factory PSU looks to use. Even if that cabling plugs in to whatever PSU you end up replacing it with, there is no standardization on the pinout at the PSU end of things and if the pinout does not match you will fry most/all connected components. Only ever use the cabling that is included in the box with a PSU.

Something you should try before raplcing the PSU though - I have a hunch that what you're seeing is the "3.3v reset issue" , basically on server PSUs they can turn on 3.3v to the HDDs individually to reset that hard drive, which some hard drives support and some don't. Consumer PSUs though can't control that and some of them will just always send 3.3v to the drive on those pins, and on drives that are controllable like that, will cause the drives to always be stuck in a "reset" state. Take a look at this guide on imgur, you can tape over the 3 pins on the drive closest to the SATA data cable. This is safe to attempt on any drive, it'll either do nothing or it'll fix your problem. You could probably use masking tape if you don't have kapton tape, but it might be too thick. Maybe a piece of scotch tape/cellotape instead?

Edit - if it is the "3.3v reset issue" then it's a total crapshoot on whether a replacement PSU will do the same thing, btw, as it's as much dependent on the HDD/SSD supporting that "reset feature" as it is on the PSU sending 3.3v to that pin. So if that is what is happening here then ultimately you could still run into it again, until you either get a PSU that doesn't send 3.3v over SATA power, or get a HDD/SSD that doesn't care that it's being sent 3.3v

https://imgur.com/a/3-3v-pin-reset-BFdmB

 

[Sicklyboy]

Or if you're *really* certain that you don't care about the PSU anyway and are likely just gonna replace it and don't want to futz with taping over connectors, you could just cut the orange wire here upstream of the first SATA connector (turn the PC off / unplug from power before you do this please). Tape it up on both ends so you don't have any bare wire floating around to short on something. That will accomplish the same thing as taping up that pin on the HDD, just cutting off the 3.3v feed from the PSU instead

Edit - I'm not sure if where I circled on the picture is between the first sata plug and the psu, or between the first sata plug and the second because it doesn't show me enough of the cable there lol. You want to cut the orange wire between the first sata plug and the psu

 

[AncientBoi]

k, which one would you suggest?

PureOS. It's a Linux, And it's secure.

 

[Noctosphere]

Or if you're *really* certain that you don't care about the PSU anyway and are likely just gonna replace it and don't want to futz with taping over connectors, you could just cut the orange wire here upstream of the first SATA connector (turn the PC off / unplug from power before you do this please). Tape it up on both ends so you don't have any bare wire floating around to short on something. That will accomplish the same thing as taping up that pin on the HDD, just cutting off the 3.3v feed from the PSU instead

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At this point, I'll just try to return it...
If I'm just gonna go through more and more trouble because of some "proprietary shits", I'll just try to get another PC.
Proprietary cabling is just a fucking scam