if you want cheap and easy, the way i made my server was to just buy a refurb, older model off of newegg.

if your server is gonna be transcoding 1080p (one stream), you want at least 2.4 GHz, at least Core 2 Duo, at least 2 GB RAM. HD space doesn't matter; you're gonna install some beast HDs (see below).

here's one that's certainly good enough (as long as you don't have tons of simultaneous streams) for $100.

amazingly, RAM is actually much less important, i've found, than the CPU. for me, the desktop is only for plex. nothing else. so it really doesn't need much RAM.

when i got mine, i didn't even buy a monitor; i hooked it up to my tv first, then installed teamviewer on it, which is a free remote access program. i'd remote in through my regular laptop (or even phone) if i wanted to futz around.

i took out the CD/DVD drive (whatever came with it) for another bay, and installed two 4 TB WD Green HD's. added the drives as a password-protected network drive, so i can access from my laptop. (you can't have these as your main bootup drive, though, or you won't get access to the full 4 TB if you're doing GPT (but, i guess, you could partition it up; i opted just to add the separate drives, cuz i wanted 8 TB).

so now you're at almost $400 with 8 TB of availability. or, if you want just 4 TB's (god, so tiny), then you're at $240.

some people make their servers their download stations, too. but i actually don't do that, cuz i don't use usenet, and my VPN (private internet access) just doesn't work with plex server (you'll never see it when you're off the same network). so i dl with another computer, transfer through the network drive.

and when i feel like upgrading, i can just buy new parts for cheap and build myself. (my main reason for not liking apple; why won't you let me even open the goddamn thing?)