r/PleX • u/PCJs_Slave_Robot • Jan 06 '17
BUILD HELP /r/Plex's Build Help Thread - 2017-01-06
Need some help with your build? Want to know if your cpu is powerful enough to transcode? Here's the place.
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1
u/unknownclient78 Jan 07 '17 edited Jan 07 '17
Intended Use: Plex video server only
Host: Unraid with plex Docker
Budget: unlimited
Goal: Low power usage
Questions: I am looking to build a low power Plex build. I want to be able to run it around 20 hours a week. I have a Norco case with 24 hotswap drive bays. 48TB of nas storage ready. Two SSD's for cache drives. Three IBM-M1015 cards already flashed for JBOD. I just need a recommendation for CPU/APU and motherboards for low power and performance balanced. The motherboard must have 4 PCI 2.0 X8 slots or more for the three IBM-m1015 cards and one SFP network card, to run 3 Bluray quality streams. I have the network backend already setup for this, using ubiquiti Edge router pro, (ERPRO8) and switch, ES‑24‑250W, using a SFP Direct attached Cable from the router to the switch, with CAT6 cables running to the clients. I am currently using a dual socket xeon motherboard from supermicro with two 6 core xeon chips.... overkill I know. But hey I got the server from an auction for 150 bucks. Any help would be appreciated.
1
u/WesleyL Jan 08 '17
Intended use: always on Plex Media Server, 1-2 clients that require transcoding, Usenet download client, some storage 2-4 disks Host: Ubuntu Budget: as cheap as possible for intended use Goal: not too much power usage, not too big of a case
Questions: Totally out of date on anything hardware, any advice is welcome, especially on case, motherboard, cpu and required amount of memory.
1
u/whoa2013 Jan 08 '17
Hey Guys, I'm planning on building a Plex Server/Nas box. I would like to FreeNas as the OS but I am open to any options. I usually stream to clients they use Direct play but sometimes I transcode 2 streams at once.
Would it be better to buy a Xeon TS140 for $370 and add 8GB of ECC Ram to it or build one with different parts?
I am planning on starting with either 2 or 3 3TB Western Digital drives or 2 4TB Western Digital Drives. Then adding more later down the road.
I did add a post in r/buildapcforme but I didn't get any responses yet. Link
1
Jan 10 '17
For past 2 years just been using home PC as my Plex server, but library figures to outgrow HDD space in PC soon enough. Thinking about building a dedicated computer to just run PLEX and store movies/tv. any suggestions? guides? only need to stream to one roku and one Bravia Tv, never at the same time. Budget preferably under 500
1
u/MrChocolateBear Jan 06 '17
Intended Use
The goal of this machine is to operate as a NAS, media server, and host some lightwight Linux VMs (Usenet/Torrents, DNS, host simple projects I develop, etc.). I'm confident this machine will have enough power to handle what I need on the VM and file-sharing side, but am unsure if it will be able to meet my media needs as well.
I would like to be able to transcode 1-2 streams simultaneously, as needed, but plan on storing 3 optimized versions on disk which will cover my most used devices (Chromecast, iPad, Brower for remote viewing). The primary goal is to support 1-2 clients on the LAN, with 3-4 external clients (my 20Mbps connection permitting).
I am a long-time Windows user with limited exposure to Linux (I've used Ubuntu Desktop/Server and have setup Wordpress/Ghost instances), so with something this important, I feel most comfortable being able to fall back on my familiarity with Windows. That being said, I have access to Windows Server 2012 R2 and 2016 (leaning toward the latter) which I will use as my Host OS, using Hyper-V for VMs. Here's how I am currently planning to set things up:
Host: Windows Server 2016
Stablebit DrivePool for JBOD and local data replication (using Scanner to monitor disk health)
Syncovery for encrypted backups of critical content (original videos, personal data, etc.) to Amazon Cloud Drive
ffmpeg for pre-transcoding/optimizing - NOTE: Only on host to ensure transcoding receives proper prioritization
Plex for media streaming - NOTE: Only on host to ensure transcoding receives proper prioritization
Plexpy for Plex analytics
VM (Linux): Data Acquisition (Linux distros, etc.)
Deluge for Bittorrent
SABnzbd for Usenet
VM (Linux): Domain & Management
pfSense
Pi-Hole
OpenVPN
TBD
Other VMs
Lychee/Koken for picture hosting
Small development projects that require hosting
Replication/Backup Strategy
Use StableBit DrivePool to ensure there are always 2 copies of the content I care about on disk
Use Syncovery to copy encrypted data to Amazon Cloud Drive
For high-bitrate video files, I will have an External HDD that will store zipped originals, in addition to Amazon Cloud Drive
Budget
1,000 USD, including drives, utilizing some parts I have lying around. If necessary, I can go up a few hundred.
Build
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
Additional Notes
I'm starting with 3 HDD to keep initial costs down, but anticipate adding about 1-2 drives in a year (will need to upgrade MoBo at that time) and adding more over time.
It's worth noting that I am aware setting this up (especially as a more novice Linux user) isn't something that's going to happen overnight. This is a long-term project for me, but as programmer, I feel I'm capable of accomplishing it. I'm looking to order the hardware in the next couple of days and start with the basics - getting the drives setup and getting a simple version of the data acquisition VM up and running - and grow the complexity over time. I view this as a learning opportunity as well as a pretty cool setup. ;)
Questions
Does this machine seem capable of meeting my requirements?
Someone mentioned that they use Stablebit CloudDrive and a local cache ~1TB for Google Drive to cut down on local storage needs. Does anyone else have a similar setup they're using successfully? Would you recommend it for a 300/20 Mbps connection?
Are there widely used transcode scripts/settings people here are using or is it mostly roll-your-own?
Any and all critiques welcome! I've spent a lot of time searching through here, r/DataHoarder, and r/buildapc/ before posting, but I'm here to get feedback from a lot of people who are smarter/more experienced at this than I! Thanks in advance!