Help me spec a new Unraid/Plex build

[Randall8686]

Hi Guys

So the time has come to upgrade my server, Currently a Single Socket board with E3-1226 v3 @ 3.30GHz 16GB ECC ram and a 1060 gpu (used for HW encode/decode) HW Decode is still very flakey with plex on unraid with patches needed so its not yet perfect enough in my eyes.

The server is used for a VM (light to medium multi use)
Plex (by far its biggest task can have 3/4 users all needing transcoding at once)
CCTV (not too intensive)
A virtual Synology machine to handle some tasks
File server etc.

However i would like to go a little overkill with ideally some cheaper used hardware. Im thinking of finding a dual socket LGA2011 board and sticking two E5-2690's in in or something along those line. Threadripper and DDR4 is just too expensive at the moment for what i use it for.

I have a 800watt PSU so thats all fine and its in a very large rack mount case with 11 HDD's connected and 2 SSD's for cache and OS of VM's plex library database and images etc.

is there any disadvantage to going dual CPU apart from extra power consumption? What would you do with say a £500 budget? if i can get in below £500 on used hardware im all game. what i really want is lots of thread count. is there a CPU that sticks out for this application? im a bit lost when it comes to server stuff tbh and i know i can move away from server grade stuff but always had the thought it should last. the E3-1226 i have has been on from new for many years now and never once have i had to restart it.

Currently connected by a single LAN cable but i have a 4 port NIC that i would like to pop in. oh and my existing board only has 3 PCI slots that i have completely used up with 1X 1060 and 2X 4 port sata cards so a board with lots of SATA ports would also be great.

 

[Randall8686]

Firstly thank you for for the detailed reply. Below i have added answers i think should help

A very familiar problem, but a few points you may like to consider...



Spoken like a true Windows user. GPU passthrough is always going to be slightly more complicated than running bare metal, you are then presumably running Plex in a docker and shoehorning modified drivers to bypass the 2 stream limit into the equation? I ask as I can't see why you'd throw a 1060 at encoding two streams. Correct, i am running plex in a docker on unraid. removing the two steam limit by patching the drivers. and then patching the drivers again to enable HW decoding as plex only supports HW encoding at the moment. it works fairly well in all honesty but it does flip out at times and falls back to CPU transcoding.



If Plex has to transcode, you are generally doing something wrong. Exceptions being subtitles, unsupported audio formats that you can use, but clients can't or bandwidth limited devices connected via 4G etc. Either you are making inappropriate media choices, inappropriate client choices (including hers setting non origional as the preferred quality), or inappropriate connectivity choices. It's like people who chose H265, HDR or worst of all 4K H265 HDR media, if it can't be direct played, its useless as Plex outputs to H264 1080p when it transcodes and HDR to SDR tone mapping is broken/much more demanding and as soon as you transcode, any 4K is pointless. Before we go any further, can you tell us why the client's transcoding and what is your actual connectivity here (sync speeds, not profile). Family and friends all use my plex library clients range from iphones to 4k TV's i have little control over this. formats also vary but i have tried to keep the majority of the library to a decent format and 50%+ of the time it can direct stream to remote clients. however some family outside of the UK it always seems to transcode i guess due to bandwidth limitations some of them have 2mb connections etc. i do have a few 4k tittles that i like to watch on direct play over the lan. if these are watched remotely my upload is 19mbps so no way will that stream without a transcode.



This is the typical response when someone doesn't understand how Plex works, they throw hardware resources at it to compensate rather than making more suitable choices. Well thats me. although having more power also comes in fairly usefull for other tasks too so its a win win in some respects.



LGA 2011 is a decent socket/platform and running two is relatively inexpensive up-front, but for what you’ll pay for two decent higher end xeon’s, you could move up to a 2011-3 v3 or v4 single chip set-up which is even more efficient, generally quieter to cool and will have potentially higher core count, personally I have a stash of inexpensive X99 boards for just such occasions and DDR4 is under £35/8GB new. ECC and server/workstation class hardware is a little more expensive, but you gain IPMI or iDRAC/iLO etc. Cooling is not so much of an issue the server case this sits in is 4U so plenty of room for half decent coolers. I am also happy to hash together coolers and quite enjoy messing about with this. I was looking around the £100 mark per CPU.

eBay had 30 or so intel dual 2011 based boards for £75 a while back, generally expect to pay a lot more, then the coolers were £23 or so each, you're looking at potentially £200+ on CPU's and that PSU may not be suitable as dual CPU boards can require an extra CPU 12v 8 pin connection. Personally i'd go Supermicro (has wider CPU compatibility) or Fujitsu as they are less popular and unlike say HP (pay wall for updates) don't freak out with a non certified card in the mix. A Dell R720 is another option, but expect to pay quite a lot once you get one to a decent spec, heat, noise and a full depth rack come as part of the deal. Again, seriously consider if this is the route you want to go? The PSU has two CPU connectors sorry should have made myself clear on that. thank you for the tips on boards.



What are you planning to do with the 4 port NIC? I ask because that may affect what's suggested, but you left it till the last sentence. Also stop using SATA cards, an HBA such as the H200/H310 flashed to IT mode is £20-40 and combined with suitable breakout cables give 4 SATA connectors per port, or 8 from a single card, not ideal for SSD, but perfect for mechanical drives. well i have the VM and CCTV and Plex etc all on one port. with the CCTV having 4 i.p cameras its chewing up a fair bit of the connection so my thought was to assign one connection to the cctv and run it through its own switch (it has its own switch anyway as cameras are POE) so that removes that usage from the single port. I have two 4 port pci-e cards laying about thats why i have used them.

The other question you should be asking yourself is would it make more sense to run remote storage/server with improved connectivity? it would in ways but i have 11TB of data so far stored with the other half doing video and photo editing on it having it local makes a lot of sense.