Media server for Plex and ripping blue rays and DVDs

[citizen0100]

Hello,

Wondering if someone could help spec me a pc to run Plex and rip media? I have a monitor, keyboard & mouse but would need a OS and blueray/dvd reader and a few TB of storage.

My budget is £400.

Thanks

 

[citizen0100]

Anyone?? Please?

 

[LewisRaz]

Hard to do and include an OS at that budget.

If you were able to use linux then you could add much more storage or CPU power for ripping.

This would be a bare minimum system. PLEX doesnt need much ram and the CPU is more than enough for a single 1080p stream but may struggle at 2 simultaneous streams.

Upgrading the CPU to a pentium 4600 would be a significant upgrade.


My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x MSI B250M-Pro VH Intel B250 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro-ATX Motherboard= £54.95
• 1 x Intel Celeron G3950 3.00GHz (Kaby Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £49.99
• 1 x Corsair Value Select 4GB (1x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Single Channel Module (CMV4GX4M1A2400C16)= £49.99
• 1 x Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)= £94.99
• 1 x Kolink Victory ATX Midi Tower Gaming Case - Black= £24.95
• 1 x Super Flower Golden Green HX 350W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black= £49.99
• 1 x WD Blue 2TB 5400rpm SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (WD20EZRZ)= £62.99
• 1 x OcUK Value Blu-ray / DVDRW combi SATA - OEM= £55.99

Total: £456.14 (includes shipping: £12.30)​

​

 

[P4Clock]

FM2+ quad core CPU is when i use and i get 2 1080 streams no problem, never tried more but should be ok. and would save a few £££'s

also use freenas to run plex you dont need windows

 

[P4Clock]

all the quad core CPU's are out of stock but i added a it for price reference but i would recommend a Quad, for OS run free nass with the plex plugin

Adding a small SSD for plex cache will also boost performance

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Kolink Victory ATX Midi Tower Gaming Case - Black= £24.95
• 1 x Super Flower Golden Green HX 350W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black= £49.99
• 1 x Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST2000DM006)= £58.99
• 1 x OcUK Value Blu-ray / DVDRW combi SATA - OEM= £55.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GA-F2A78M-HD2 AMD A78 Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard= £43.99
• 1 x AMD Athlon X4 840 3.10Ghz (Socket FM2+) Quad Core Processor (AD840XYBJABOX)= £34.99
• 1 x Team Group Elite 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Single Channel Module (TED34GM1600C1101)= £29.99

Total: £311.19 (includes shipping: £12.30)
​

 

[bremen1874]

I ended up running unRAID rather than FreeNAS on my Dell T20. It isn't free, but it's cheap enough.

 

[citizen0100]

Thank you @LewisRaz and @P4Clock for the lists, really appreciate it.

Unfortunately I need a OS (its a long boring story) but I could potentially work with Ubuntu if I can get something to rip DVDs etc with and not be such a noob with Linux.

 

[P4Clock]

Buy a copy of win7 and do the upgrade to win 10 for free.
Win7 is about a 10er now days

 

[Kei]

Nowt wrong with linux. Handbrake works just fine and there's avidemux and makemkv too. Initial setup can take a little bit of tweaking to get right but it's not stupidly difficult.

 

[citizen0100]

Nowt wrong with linux. Handbrake works just fine and there's avidemux and makemkv too. Initial setup can take a little bit of tweaking to get right but it's not stupidly difficult.

Completely agree, I've used it in the past and am generally comfortable with it but the frustrating part is when it goes wrong, it just takes me so much longer to troubleshoot and fix.