Good Cheap Server - HP Proliant Microserver 4 BAY - OWNERS THREAD

I've been running Plex since it first came out and it's great. I tend to find that my N40L is on the cusp of being able to transcode HD content. Generally I find that 720p is doable as long as the machine isn't doing anything else. 1080p is a no-go. SD content is no problem at all for mine

(For info I'm running 8gb Ram and Windows server 2012 Standard)
 
nails666 said:
Ah that's interesting, I'd assumed even the N54L wouldn't be capable of any transcoding let alone HD stuff. What sort of formats are you doing and does it do SD fine? How do you find Plex in general for serving and transcoding?
Sorry for all the questions Cokecan, the reason I'm interested is I have a load of DVD rips in MKV format that my PS3 can't play so would like to transcode to a format it can.
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As Si has said, it is more than capable but with some content (high bitrate 1080 kinda stuff) it's just pushing it to the limits which causes the Plex client to buffer during playback. SD content is no problem as is most 720p stuff.

I also have 8gb and server 2012 but I have a few other things running in the background which doesnt help.

With this in mind I do wonder if the N54L's faster chip will give us that bit extra headroom with the 1080 content, especially as it's dropped to a cheap and cheerful price :)
 
Thanks for the info guys. I'll be running WHS2011 on my N54L, how RAM hungry do you find Plex? I currently only have the 2gb it came with and wondering how much more I'll need.
 
Hmmm, mine transcodes 720p content fine (N36). I have a graphics card in it though, so I think that does some transcoding instead of the CPU? I don't really have any 1080p stuff on Plex but I thought this kind of transcoding is offloaded to GPUs or am I thinking of decoding?


rp2000
 
I don't think Plex can do GPU transcoding which is part of our problem. I also have a dedicated GPU in mine to hardware accelerate XBMC which it does nicely but it never gets involved with Plex :(

But as we mentioned, 720p does appear to be fine for the most part, it's just 1080 and higher bitrate stuff that suffers that I've seen so far
 
cokecan said:
I don't think Plex can do GPU transcoding which is part of our problem. I also have a dedicated GPU in mine to hardware accelerate XBMC which it does nicely but it never gets involved with Plex :(

But as we mentioned, 720p does appear to be fine for the most part, it's just 1080 and higher bitrate stuff that suffers that I've seen so far
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Ah I see. Also I mainly stream content from a Macbook so Direct Play instead of transcoding.

I might download a 1080p file and see if my iPad would be abale to play it back. A "standard" mkv should be transcoded from a Plex windows server to an iPad, right?


rp2000
 
Arrrrgh I hate you guys, im really tempted to get the N54L, I have a N40L and ive convinced myself I need the extra power, when the N40L does me just fine! Is anyone else like me? I only use it as a HTPC/NAS lol.
 
You probably wouldn't notice the difference in general day to day stuff but as we've been discussing, it may tip the limit of transcoding in Plex making it suitable for 1080 streaming too.

I'm not sure it's worth the upgrade from the N40L if you have no issues with that
 
I have found an N54L for £65 brand new- is it worth getting one for running some VMs on and using as a file server? I am wondering if it will have enough power to run a few game servers as well?

Edit: Just realised that was excluding VAT. :(
 
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Finally decided to go ahead and buy one this morning, now I need to start the debate as to what O/S route to go down given the variety of choices!

I want:
- Reliable storage (only about 1Tb atm) with the ability to hassle free swap a disk in / out if it goes wrong.
- Setup and forget setup, don't have time to be doing maintenance.
- Ability to drop the drives into something else if i have a hardware failure

What would people suggest, Windows with Drivebender? ZFS looks awesome, but seems a bit overkill for a homesetup, and I don't think you could add drives and expand the pool later? I'm only going to have 2 x 2TB WD Red's in it to start with.

Cheers
 
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