Building a media/plex server

supercabbageuk · 27 Dec 2014 at 09:44

Hi All.

I'm looking at building a small media server PC that I can put under the stairs and leave to do its thing. It should be able to run as a media server for the house, I also use Plex and wish to install a Plex server on there, which will be accessed via means of a Chromecast on the living room TV. I'm going to use FreeNAS to facilitate file sharing and Plex.
I've had a look around and came up with the following parts list.

Case - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-043-IW&groupid=2362&catid=2279
Motherboard - Gigabyte F2A88XN-WIFI AMD A88X (Socket FM2+)
CPU - AMD A4-5300 3.40GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Dual Core Processor
RAM - GeIL Black Dragon 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache

The case comes with a 160W PSU, I think the draw will be closer to 120W so all should be good there. One question I did have, is do I need to buy a CPU cooler? The last time I built a PC from scratch retail CPU boxes came with stock coolers, I don't need anything else so if that's still the case I'll be happy but if not can anyone recommend a CPU cooler compatible with the mini-ITX form factor?

LePhuronn · 31 Dec 2014 at 12:38

Personally I'd look at a Kaveri APU, not the Trinity since Kaveri is newer. A6-7400K perhaps and it can be dialed down to a 45W TDP too.

There should be a cooler with that chip, but stock coolers are a bit pants really. That In-Win case you've linked should have space in it for something like a Scythe Kozuti or Prolimatech Samuel 17 - yes they're not cheap coolers, but they give great performance.

CaNsA · 31 Dec 2014 at 13:35

HP Microserver.

Deleted member 77746 · 31 Dec 2014 at 13:48

CaNsA said:
HP Microserver.

wengole · 2 Jan 2015 at 16:44

HP Microserver is good but be warned, the CPU isn't that powerful. A friend of mine has the N40L and it can't transcode video, it can just about transcode audio but only for one client. I know he re-encodes all his media before storing it on the microserver such that it never needs to do anything. (AAC is supported by pretty much everything things with AC3 need transcoding unless you're doing audio passthru to an AV amp which sounds like you're not with the Chromecast).

Maybe the newest version has a powerful enough CPU to transcode on the fly.

If you sort the media out, it's a perfect little server. FreeNAS is a good choice for it, you can add 4 HDDs, ECC ram and enjoy the benefits of ZFS with a friendly webGUI. Can install plex and other apps on it easily enough. Or if you want to do more yourself you can install a headless linux - like ubuntu server, Arch...whatever!

cokecan · 3 Jan 2015 at 17:54

The N54L is just about capable of transcoding a low bitrate 1080p video using Plex, but depending on the format and what device you're playing the video on it might not even need transcoding

flame696 · 12 Jan 2015 at 14:29

I use a HP N54L and use it as a plex server. It does the job perfectly well its also low power and was cheap costing £89 after cash back

Prophet · 12 Jan 2015 at 14:34

flame696 said:
I use a HP N54L and use it as a plex server. It does the job perfectly well its also low power and was cheap costing £89 after cash back

Same here. Streams 1080p without any issues both over the LAN and remotely.

flame696 · 12 Jan 2015 at 17:46

The HP microserver is a no brainer as it will do everything you want without you doing much to add apart from adding the software you want. Im currently using windows 7 on it. Will be getting Amazon Fire TV tomorrow so will be retiring the HTPC and using plex on Fire TV

hyperseven · 10 Feb 2015 at 15:03

just got a n54l with 8gb ram, will a hd6450 help with the transcoding?

shadow_boxer · 10 Feb 2015 at 16:07

The N54L is perfect. I on the other hand wanted to do a bit of causal gaming on my htpc so went with a 65W AMD A10-5700. Absolutely perfect for my needs, tears through 25GB BD rips, bit-streams HD audio to my AVR and works flawlessly with my Logitech Harmony. Granted it cost a fair bit more than a microserver but it is so much more capable too.

ZXSpectrum · 18 Feb 2015 at 10:13

I had a Microserver but didn't find it powerful at all. Don't get me wrong, it did its job but a) I put my 7200rpm drives in it and it vibrated like hell and b) it took ages and ages to unrar a 1080p film archive. I now have a I3-2100 and its brilliant.