Plex Server

Deathjester · 19 Aug 2015 at 17:18

I'm considering building a Plex server (this will also house my other data).

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Xeon E5-1270 v3 3.5GHz Quad Core with Hyperthreading (Socket 2011-3) - Retail £274.99
1 x Asus Maximus VII Impact Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £182.99
1 x Silverstone SST-DS380B External 8x 3.5" SAT Hot-Swap ; 4x 2.5" - Black £116.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM WD30EFRX £94.99
1 x Silverstone Strider SFX Gold 450w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (SST-ST45SF-G) £79.99
1 x Samsung SM951 128GB M.2 PCI-e Gen3 8Gbps x 4 AHCI Solid State Drive (MZHPV128HDGM-00000) £71.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX318C10FRK2/8) £38.99
Total : £860.93 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

I will use Drivepool to install additional HDDs as required, will probably be a windows server of some variety.

HungryHippos · 19 Aug 2015 at 23:19

Why not buy NAS (to house storage), and buy NUC to run Plex from?

Would probably consume less power, and would be able to go reasonably powerful in a tiny box. Also fun toys to play with

Server is big and power hungry by comparison tbh.

Alternate suggestion would be to buy one of those HP microservers, should be able to house some storage and be powerful enough in one unit as well.

kayomani · 19 Aug 2015 at 23:26

I dont think the microserver would be powerful enough for decent transcoding and a nuc might also suffer a bit.

Deathjester · 20 Aug 2015 at 00:14

The recommendation for plex is 2000 pass marks / 1080p stream.
And I want to allow for 3/4 + OS
So it needs to have at least 8000.
The other option is to go X99 and get a 5820 and mini itx board.

quickshot89 · 20 Aug 2015 at 09:24

Most things run at 1080p now in the hosuehold, there should be no need for transcoding.

Deathjester · 20 Aug 2015 at 16:40

So, I should setup a Plex server on whatever I've got and try streaming to my devices and see what the CPU usage is I guess?

Kanifee · 20 Aug 2015 at 17:46

what clients do you plan on streaming to?

WYNIR0 · 20 Aug 2015 at 20:11

I run a Plex server on an old AMD Phenom x4 and have never experienced any issues when transcoding to 1080p ( although that is single stream to be fair) . Got to say that though your basket looks awesome, it does strike me as cracking a nut with an ICBM.

Audigex · 20 Aug 2015 at 20:39

kayomani said:
I dont think the microserver would be powerful enough for decent transcoding and a nuc might also suffer a bit.

It can handle a single 1080p stream, beyond that YMMV

Deathjester · 21 Aug 2015 at 01:03

I will steam to;

HTPC (nvidia 970 gpu)
Raspberry Pi
iPhone in and out side home
iPad
Surface pro 3 (away from home)

Audigex · 22 Aug 2015 at 19:55

Then yeah, I'd go for something more powerful than a Microserver - most of those devices will require transcoding so you can't just put everything in the right format and leave it to it.

GDL · 23 Aug 2015 at 10:53

Audigex said:
Then yeah, I'd go for something more powerful than a Microserver - most of those devices will require transcoding so you can't just put everything in the right format and leave it to it.

@stock I completely agree, however, It's worth a mention that you can get the Gen8 and drop a Xeon in it.

(Xeon E3-1230 V2 in mine)

demon8991 · 24 Aug 2015 at 00:04

As mentioned previously I would look at grabbing yourself a Synology NAS.

I have the 1515+ and it is a fantastic device.

- Low power consumption
- 5 drive bays
- SHR Raid (RAID 5 but allows differing size disks to be used)
- Comfortably runs Plex Server and can transcode too
- Loads of functionality with a host of apps
- Outstanding OS
- iOS and Android apps to allow for remote access and downloading
- Inbuilt Download Station for torrents
- Can be used with a VPN

I run Plex on mine and it is fantastic, my TV is a little older so doesn't have a Plex App in built so I use a Raspberry Pi 2 with Rasplex as a client and it works perfectly, uses a USB port on my TV for power and turns on when the TV comes on, so simple, small and super cheap.

Deathjester · 25 Aug 2015 at 18:20

I have a synology nas! Haha!
Although it's only a 213 I also have a Pi2 but I want something a littl "beefier"

D3K · 25 Aug 2015 at 18:42

you need something that can transcode hevc (x265). all i can say is that my hp n54l micro server cannot do it with a 1080p file without buffering every 15secs.

looks like hevc is the future and unless you have players that can decode it, your server is gonna suffer trying to do the job for 4 clients.

i dunno how people with nas are gonna fare

demon8991 · 25 Aug 2015 at 22:46

Deathjester said:
I have a synology nas! Haha!
Although it's only a 213 I also have a Pi2 but I want something a littl "beefier"

Does your current setup not work as mentioned above then? I don't see why it wouldn't unless you are doing lots of transcoding?

Deathjester · 25 Aug 2015 at 23:51

It does, but it only has 2 HDD's which doesn't really have sizing I'm looking for.

As soon as I start to transcode more than 1 stream then my NAS has issues.

demon8991 · 26 Aug 2015 at 00:06

Deathjester said:
It does, but it only has 2 HDD's which doesn't really have sizing I'm looking for.

As soon as I start to transcode more than 1 stream then my NAS has issues.

Out of interest when do you use transcoding?

If your home network is up to scratch then there should be no need to transcode, it would only really be needed when you are accessing some files remotely through Plex.

HungryHippos · 26 Aug 2015 at 00:26

Yeah most things should work with Direct Play.

I went Beast Mode and got the 1815+, it's mental, but awesome at the same time. I believe I can "Expand" it with 2 x 1515+ if I wanted, but I would probably upgrade disks from 3TB to 6TB+ one by one if space started to become an issue. Around 50% full at the moment

Actually the 1815+ is only £100 more than the 1515+, not too bad for 3 extra slots!

xxalxx · 27 Aug 2015 at 00:40

Deathjester said:
I will steam to;

HTPC (nvidia 970 gpu)
Raspberry Pi
iPhone in and out side home
iPad
Surface pro 3 (away from home)

I have a Gen8 Microserver and stream to my pi, ps4, iphone, and samsung tv's at work without any issues - though I do only use a single stream normaly.

However, I have streamed two movies to the office at the same time without problems