The Best Tech Investment I’ve Ever Made! | Sliger CX3701
Nearly three years ago, I sat down after work to unwind with Parks and Recreation—one of my all-time favorite shows. I opened Netflix, and… it was gone.
A quick Google search revealed that Netflix’s licensing deal had expired, and the show had moved to Binge—yet another $20-a-month subscription service.
This frustrated me to no end.
Naturally, my first thought was: How do I make sure this never happens again?
Exploring My Options
I had two choices:
Subscribe to every streaming service available. Financially absurd.
Buy physical media. Great, but inconvenient—I’d need a Blu-ray player, and I couldn’t watch on my phone or anywhere outside my home.
What I really wanted was my own personal streaming service—something I could upload my media to and access from anywhere.
Turns out, that’s a thing.
Two weeks later, I had all the parts to build my own media server. A few hours after that, I had Bragi—the heart of our home entertainment system.
For nearly three years, Bragi has run flawlessly. But now, it’s running out of space, and it's long overdue for an upgrade.
Upgrading Bragi: The Storage Expansion Project
In this post, I’m giving Bragi a new home—a proper storage server case. Along the way, I’ll explain why this has been one of the best tech investments I’ve ever made.
The original Bragi chugging along happily as it has for 3 years
What Powers Bragi?
Bragi runs:
Plex for streaming movies and TV shows
Immich as a Google Photos alternative
NextCloud as a Google Drive replacement
Storage for my work projects
Hardware-wise, Bragi is built to be cheap and efficient:
Intel i3-13200
16GB DDR4 RAM
10GbE NIC
A collection of hard drives for storage
Despite the budget build, it’s been rock-solid. But as I started ripping 4K Blu-rays, storage filled up fast. I needed more drive bays—which meant a new case.
The Hunt for the Perfect Server Case
The problem? Most PC rack cases are at least 500mm deep—exactly the depth of my rack. That leaves 0mm for cables and connections on the back of the server. Not ideal.
After extensive searching, I found Sliger, a company making compact rack-mount enclosures. They had a 10-bay server case that’s only 380mm deep—the CX3701.
It ticked every box:
ITX motherboard support
SFX power supply compatibility
10 hot-swap drive bays
The only downside? Shipping it to Australia cost almost as much as the case itself.
Assembling the New Bragi
After shutting down and stripping the original Bragi, I was ready to get started.
The original Bragi
The Sliger CX3701 case is cleverly designed, allowing the drive bay section to be removed for easier hardware installation. In a small enclosure like this, that’s a godsend.
Hardware Installation:
Fans: Noctua industrial fans—quiet isn’t a priority, but airflow is.
Power Supply: Corsair 850W SFX Platinum-rated unit to keep energy consumption low.
Motherboard & CPU: ITX board with an Intel i3-13100 and a Noctua NHL9 cooler.
Storage Expansion: An NVMe to SATA expansion card, giving me enough SATA ports for 10 drives.
Networking: A 10GbE NIC swapped over from the old build.
Once the motherboard was mounted and everything connected, it was time to reinstall the drive bays.
Attaching the motherboard to the drive bay assembly wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped.
The Downsides of the CX3701
SATA Passthrough Issues: The connectors don’t lock in place and can fall off easily. One even broke under light pressure.
Case Panel Fitment: The front panel didn’t quite align as expected—possibly a minor manufacturing defect.
No Proper Backplane: Instead, it relies on individual SATA passthrough connectors. At this price point, a backplane would have been a nice touch.
Still, once everything was connected, I tidied up the cables, closed the case, and installed it back into the rack.
After a bit of paint - It fits perfectly alongside my Ubiquiti network equipment
The Results: More Storage, Better Cooling
Bragi 2.0 has been running for a week now, and the improvements are undeniable:
More storage: Now up to 70TB of usable space.
Dedicated SSD: A 4TB SATA SSD for Docker containers and active projects.
Better temperatures:
Hard drives dropped from ~60°C on hot days to no more than 50°C.
CPU temps also decreased significantly.
Overall, the CX3701 is a great compact NAS case with some compromises. But given my rack depth constraints, it was the best option available.
Is a Personal Server Worth It?
If you’ve made it this far, you might be wondering: Is this really a good investment? Surely, it's more expensive than just subscribing to streaming services?
Yes and no.
To get ad-free access to the shows and movies I want, I’d need subscriptions to:
Netflix
Binge
Disney+
Amazon Prime
Apple TV+
Paramount+
Google Drive or iCloud for storage
That adds up to $107 AUD per month or $1,284 per year.
Cost Breakdown of Bragi
Initial build cost: ~$3,600 AUD
Power consumption: 40W (~$6 AUD per month)
Break-even point: ~3 years
Factoring in historical price increases for streaming services (~6% per year), the break-even point lands around 31 months.
That means within three years, I’ll be saving thousands in subscription fees.
A quick visualisation of the numbers
What the Numbers Don’t Show
Of course, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.
Media Costs: Buying Blu-rays adds up—unless you’re comfortable exploring alternative methods.
Time Investment: Setting up a server isn’t trivial, but if you’re tech-savvy, a long weekend is enough.
Maintenance Costs: Drives and parts will eventually fail. So far, I’ve been lucky—knock on wood.
Why I’ll Never Go Back to Streaming Services
Even beyond the financial savings, Bragi gives me full control over my media:
No licensing changes that remove my favorite shows.
No ads.
No algorithm dictating what I should watch.
No sudden content edits to suit different audiences.
And here’s the kicker—many paid streaming services still include ads!
Building Your Own Server
Obviously, your numbers will differ, but a home server doesn’t have to cost $3,600. With some second-hand parts, I priced out a build with 20TB of storage for under $1,000 AUD—breaking even in less than a year.
I’ll drop some links below for anyone who wants to research their own build.
Final Thoughts
Bragi has been one of the best investments I’ve ever made. It’s the heart of our home entertainment system and gives me total control over my media.
If you’re thinking of doing something similar, run the numbers—it might just make sense for you too.
Oh, and for the record… that last season of Parks and Rec wasn’t worth all this trouble.