Plex server internal upgrade

EddScott

EddScott

EddScott

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
9,474
Location
Pembrokeshire
I'm planning a small upgrade to my Plex & File server. No transcoding and no 4K content.

I have 2 4TB WD Reds for the storage in RAID1.

How does the below sound? Overkill?

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £365.96 (includes shipping: £0.00)​
​
 
I wouldnt buy a synology without at least an I3 inside ... too puny.
Your build does seem overkill 8gb ram, i3 (4 core) is enough for a plex server. Some way of using the ssd to speed up the HDD's *like fuzedrive* would be nice.
Is this on 24/7? if so consider a re-purposed laptop or NUC with a 10-15w CPU. I use a n3455 (4core) and its plenty good enough , single user, home use.
 
GWANGY said:
I wouldnt buy a synology without at least an I3 inside ... too puny.
Your build does seem overkill 8gb ram, i3 (4 core) is enough for a plex server. Some way of using the ssd to speed up the HDD's *like fuzedrive* would be nice.
Is this on 24/7? if so consider a re-purposed laptop or NUC with a 10-15w CPU. I use a n3455 (4core) and its plenty good enough , single user, home use.
Click to expand...

I've got a 218j and it does direct play in my house absolutely fine, even with Blu ray rips converted with Handbrake on HQ settings. Think that's about 25Mbps.
 
Current internals are i3 2120, 8GB DDR3, Asus P8H67 motherboard. Only running Win10 - I don't have enough experience with other OS to be confident I'm using it right.

Reason for upgrade? Only that it's a bit slow to start up and takes a while for Plex to start working when first turned on. I don't leave it on 24/7.

Disks in RAID1 for redundancy if one fails? Assumed that was a good thing to do.
 
EddScott said:
Disks in RAID1 for redundancy if one fails? Assumed that was a good thing to do.
Click to expand...

If you're hosting a mission critical service then yep, otherwise that second drive would probably be of better use as a backup - of course i'm assuming you're already backing up that data? :)
 
EddScott said:
Current internals are i3 2120, 8GB DDR3, Asus P8H67 motherboard. Only running Win10 - I don't have enough experience with other OS to be confident I'm using it right.

Reason for upgrade? Only that it's a bit slow to start up and takes a while for Plex to start working when first turned on. I don't leave it on 24/7.

Disks in RAID1 for redundancy if one fails? Assumed that was a good thing to do.
Click to expand...
None of this makes sense to me mate.

Buy a supermicro board and a pentium and install freenas. Or install freenas on the box you have. Thatll be your raid storage layer and file sharing capability. Also you can plug in s3 for remote automated off site back up. Then you can add a Plex plug in to that.

Super super simple.

Do not buy that stuff or run it on Windows.
 
lnoton said:
None of this makes sense to me mate.

Buy a supermicro board and a pentium and install freenas. Or install freenas on the box you have. Thatll be your raid storage layer and file sharing capability. Also you can plug in s3 for remote automated off site back up. Then you can add a Plex plug in to that.

Super super simple.

Do not buy that stuff or run it on Windows.
Click to expand...


Thank you.

I've decided not to buy any new parts. The current internals are fine.

I have a few questions if you don't mind helping out?

Is FreeNAS simple - or at least obvious enough to use?
Do I need to have the 2 3TB drives mirroring? Could one just back up to the other?
Is S3 the Amazon online back up?
When you say plug in, is that just a plug in to the FreeNAS OS?

Sorry, never really looked into much further than getting the thing going a few years ago.
 
EddScott said:
Thank you.

I've decided not to buy any new parts. The current internals are fine.

I have a few questions if you don't mind helping out?

Is FreeNAS simple - or at least obvious enough to use?
Do I need to have the 2 3TB drives mirroring? Could one just back up to the other?
Is S3 the Amazon online back up?
When you say plug in, is that just a plug in to the FreeNAS OS?

Sorry, never really looked into much further than getting the thing going a few years ago.
Click to expand...


Hi, sorry for the delay been a busy week.

The choice is yours. You can choose to mirror or pool or have them in dependant and back one up to the other.

There are plugins to freenas (basically virtual machines) one of which allows you to push you data to an s3 bucket, another is plex. So amazon's low cost storage. I spend a few quid a month for TB's. The real cost is if you need to pull it out. But I never plan to, as I have one raid backing up to another raid over vpn to another location. You don't need to do that of course, but I do.

It's all click click click. I don't think you have to script anything.

I'd get freenas on a USB drive and plug it in to you mobo and give it a whirl.

Do not install the OS on your data drives, ensure its either on USB or a small drive.

See this section. Basically download the iso and get it onto. USB using image writer..
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2-U5/install.html#getting-freenas


Edit. S3 is now a native service in freenas. I forgot that.
 
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To be honest, I just chucked it back into the rack.

I've taken off the RAID and one drive just backs up to the other. I will probably use the Amazon Glacial storage and it's really only going to be for emergencies.

I've left Win10 on purely because I have the machine working as I need it. I don't leave it on so I wake it up at home with an app on my phone or log into the router whilst out. I can shut it down after using Chrome Remote Desktop.
 
EddScott said:
To be honest, I just chucked it back into the rack.

I've taken off the RAID and one drive just backs up to the other. I will probably use the Amazon Glacial storage and it's really only going to be for emergencies.

I've left Win10 on purely because I have the machine working as I need it. I don't leave it on so I wake it up at home with an app on my phone or log into the router whilst out. I can shut it down after using Chrome Remote Desktop.
Click to expand...
Fair plan mate. No money down and a working solution.
 
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