Hardware recommendations for auto download + media centre

Corbula

Corbula

Corbula

Associate
Joined
10 Mar 2008
Posts
195
Hey all, I need recommendations for hardware that I could use as a low powered always on solution that I can install software (utorrent + filebot + Plex media server) to create a completely automatic downloader and media centre.

Most of what I have at the moment and what I will be getting is 720p movies with some 1080p movies. So it needs to be able to transcode 1080p movies to be able to watch via Plex Media Server.

I'm still trying to come up with a specific plan to use filebot to run when a torrent has seeded enough, extract the files, rename them and then move them and deleting the originals. I know this can be done I just haven't used filebot before.

Anyway, what hardware would you recommend (pre built) with around 2TB of storage and powerful enough to transcode 1080p movies?

I have been looking at a QNAP 253 pro, but I'm wondering if a mini PC might be better and possibly cheaper.

Thanks all.
 
The Gen8 Microserver is a capable bit of kit, with the cash back deal currently on it's great value. I have it's predicessor(s) and they're more than capable of what you're describing from personal experience. For the cost involved I shoved 8GB in and then (at the time) stacked it with 6 x 2TB drives with an SSD cache drive and put Un-RAID on it. I now have my old ION based Revo as an HTPC along with a i3 NUC and a dedicated i3 build, it can easily stream 1080p to all 3 at the same time while downloading but I did have to play about with the SABZ performance settings to find a happy equilibrium. The celeron will have a bit more grunt, either way yes what you've found is ideal for your intended purpose, but so would a custom built Celeron/i3 and allow greater expansion in the future... Just a thought.
 
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