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

GDL · 19 Feb 2018 at 17:32

ChrisD. said:
Pizza box and tower servers are not cheap on electricity. A DL380 G7 is going to cost about £30 a month to run. That's the beauty of the microserver.

Tell me about it, my whole setup runs at around £4 a day. That's with static low performance set.

doodah · 20 Feb 2018 at 08:40

HEADRAT said:
If your client is asking the video to be "transcoded" by the Gen7 then probably yes.

If you are "direct streaming" then probably no (no transcoding, just playback)

As your CPU is 100% then sounds like it's "transcoding"

All of these files are stored locally though, so shouldn't it just be playback? Also have a 7450 in it.

ChrisD. · 20 Feb 2018 at 08:42

Not if the playback client can't natively play the media type.

doodah · 20 Feb 2018 at 08:52

Ah I see, didn't think of that. Surely Kodi can handle x265 and come to think of it - I would be shocked if MPHC cannot. Off to do some digging.

ChrisD. · 20 Feb 2018 at 10:01

It depends on the platform it's playing on as well.

HEADRAT · 20 Feb 2018 at 13:41

Yep, this can be an annoyance, sometimes files that should be able to be played "nativity" (Directstream) by the client just aren't which means Plex will try and transcode (CPU @100%)

doodah · 20 Feb 2018 at 21:51

Running Windows 10, Kodi 17.x I think.

HEADRAT · 21 Feb 2018 at 06:32

You can see what the server is doing with the video if you hover your mouse over it, here you can
see it's "Direct Play"

Here you can see it' "Transcoding" (IOS)

doodah · 21 Feb 2018 at 08:49

Is that not Plex though? I am on Kodi.

HEADRAT · 21 Feb 2018 at 09:42

LOL, I completely managed to miss that fact, I'm sure Kodi must have a similar way to see what it's doing.

ChrisD. · 21 Feb 2018 at 10:03

No idea about Kodi, I switched to Plex years ago and haven't looked back.

doodah · 21 Feb 2018 at 10:58

^ may I ask why? Briefly used Plex but can't remember much, just happened to go with XBMC/Kodi as my former housemate got me into it.

ChrisD. · 21 Feb 2018 at 11:26

doodah said:
^ may I ask why? Briefly used Plex but can't remember much, just happened to go with XBMC/Kodi as my former housemate got me into it.

I just find it more polished and better to use overall. Everything is in sync no matter where I watch something, the out of the box interface versus Kodi (at the time, not sure what Kodi looks like now) was nicer etc. I now share my library with some friends, it's all very easy to set up and use. It also installs on nearly everything, phones, TV's, PC's, smart boxes etc.

HEADRAT · 21 Feb 2018 at 12:16

I've only ever used Plex and it does everything I want, also all my TVs in the house are Samsung Smart TVs as at the time of buying them they were the only TVs that had a Plex Client.

#Chri5# · 2 Mar 2018 at 09:30

Cashback is back up to £50 on the base Microserver (873830-421) for March. Had been looking at a Dell T30 or T130 but decided I couldn't justify the extra cost. The saving over the Dell pays for a couple of 500GB SSDs for the boot array.

jubei · 2 Mar 2018 at 20:15

#Chri5# said:
Cashback is back up to £50 on the base Microserver (873830-421) for March. Had been looking at a Dell T30 or T130 but decided I couldn't justify the extra cost. The saving over the Dell pays for a couple of 500GB SSDs for the boot array.

but the very same server on release was like 50% cheaper even without cashback :/

Snapshot · 3 Mar 2018 at 08:32

That was just an introductory offer......

philjayj · 3 Mar 2018 at 11:22

#Chri5# said:
Cashback is back up to £50 on the base Microserver (873830-421) for March. Had been looking at a Dell T30 or T130 but decided I couldn't justify the extra cost. The saving over the Dell pays for a couple of 500GB SSDs for the boot array.

I can't decide whether to buy a Gen 10 HP Microserver or Synology 918+. With cashback now back on for the 873830-421, what would you recommend? Whichever I go for, it will only be used to stream movies etc. Is the 873830-421 more powerful than the sinology?

Many thanks

Phil

Snapshot · 3 Mar 2018 at 14:57

The Opteron™ X3216 in the Gen10 has a passmark of 2345 and a single core score of 1393.
The Celeron J3455 in the DS918+ has a passmark of 2139 and a single core score of 780.
So the Gen10 is ahead and half the price.

jubei · 4 Mar 2018 at 01:10

Snapshot said:
That was just an introductory offer......

Eh? Gen8 was much less for ages, gen10 was a little more expensive at 200 odd. Now want over 300 for a non upgradable server with a 2 core chip? Mental