Plex Server

[DJMK4]

Seems like a lot of money for a plex server :/

I have an old Dell 755 SFF with E8800 Dual core chip, and 10GB ram for all the VM's, running ESX 5.1, several VM's, one of which is a Windows Server 2008 VM which is running plex media server, and it works just fine streaming over the internet.

 

[Deathjester]

Seems like a lot of money for a plex server :/

I have an old Dell 755 SFF with E8800 Dual core chip, and 10GB ram for all the VM's, running ESX 5.1, several VM's, one of which is a Windows Server 2008 VM which is running plex media server, and it works just fine streaming over the internet.

Eventually it would become a fileserver / plex server / backup server.
I want something that will last me.

 

[Battery!]

MASSIVE over spec and a waste of money.

Buy a gen8 microserver and run everything from that, it's all you need.

 

[DJMK4]

Eventually it would become a fileserver / plex server / backup server.
I want something that will last me.

File server, plex server, backup server

Again you dont need to spend that much.

File and backup server needs no resource and plex server again would handle just fine.

Its your money at the end of the day, but thats a massive spend for little work

 

[xxalxx]

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

As well as doing the above, my Gen8 (with Xpenology installed) also acts as a file server, couchpotato + sickrage server, downloader, iTunes server, time machine host ...

You can do everything on them it seems, ideal for what they are

 

[Deathjester]

I don't really want to buy something "off the shelf" I'd much rather build something myself.
Even if the spec ends up being the same.

 

[Ace Modder]

@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)

Same here, that would be my suggestion also. Gen 8 with an entry level Xeon sorted you right out. My Gen 8 server has 16TB of space and I have had 3 video files streaming at once via plex no problem at all.

I use it to download using sabnzbd client using Xpenology with the Synology DSM software as the OS (with a plex app installed)

 

[Deathjester]

Ok, I'll take a look.

 

[CrispyXUK]

I use a mac mini as a Plex Server / Client, runs and transcodes everything no problem.

 

[ZXSpectrum]

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.

LOL As others have said its VERY overkill.. (even thought mine is ran on a 3960X, 32Gb etc.. lol)

Z97 board is not needed really you can get a H97 or even H81 board for less than £50! Neither is the SM951 as you really wont notice any difference between that and something like the Kingston 120Gb that's on offer this week only.

The Xeon is a lot of money if its not going to be utilised. I would go for a low end i5.

1600Mhz memory would be fine

And finally a bronze sfx 400w psu will do fine and be half the price of the Silverstone. If its out the way in a spare room or office then it will be more than adequate and quiet.

While I understand that you are looking for it to be capable server to last for a while it really is a waste of money. In just those changes I have suggested you have almost halved the price of your server and you will never notice the difference.

If you have got your heart set on that case then fair enough but you can get a Fractal Node 304 that will hold 6 drives and is nice and small and it will be £50 cheaper and you can fit a standard size psu.

Hope that helps

 

[MG42Maniac]

I built the following as a Plex Server:

NZXT H230 Classic Silent Midtower Case Black
Samsung 850 Evo 256GB SSD
HyperX Savage 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) 2400 MHz
Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX
Intel Core i5-4670K
Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler
NZXT FN-120 Enthusiast Performance Case Fan - 120mm
Corsair RM850w Gold Rated PSU

Is it overkill? Probably but I hate slow computers! I upgraded from a Q9650, 8GB with a D Link DNS-345 NAS and it's been a massive performance upgrade. Power saving is on so the i5 will downclock to 800Mhz when idle, all the drives spin down and I have no GPU so power consumption at idle is very good. If I need the power then it will clock up to 4GHz on all cores and I've got a very fast responsive server. I've also done a fair bit of encoding of high bitrate MKV files so friends can play them on their PS4/XBox and it rips through encoding as well which is a bonus.

I have 12TB worth of storage on my Server but as it is all just media that I can easily download again I have not bothered to RAID the drives as I don't need the redundancy.

Synology NAS are decent but for one with a decent amount of power they are hellishly expensive. It also lacks the power to do multiple streams and can't do other tasks that a dedicated server does.

The HP microservers are decent but they have really weak processors and lack the space to fill them up with HDDs. However, if you don't need to transcode they are very good value for money with the cashback.

 

[Ace Modder]

I built the following as a Plex Server:

NZXT H230 Classic Silent Midtower Case Black
Samsung 850 Evo 256GB SSD
HyperX Savage 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) 2400 MHz
Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX
Intel Core i5-4670K
Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler
NZXT FN-120 Enthusiast Performance Case Fan - 120mm
Corsair RM850w Gold Rated PSU

Is it overkill? Probably but I hate slow computers! I upgraded from a Q9650, 8GB with a D Link DNS-345 NAS and it's been a massive performance upgrade. Power saving is on so the i5 will downclock to 800Mhz when idle, all the drives spin down and I have no GPU so power consumption at idle is very good. If I need the power then it will clock up to 4GHz on all cores and I've got a very fast responsive server. I've also done a fair bit of encoding of high bitrate MKV files so friends can play them on their PS4/XBox and it rips through encoding as well which is a bonus.

I have 12TB worth of storage on my Server but as it is all just media that I can easily download again I have not bothered to RAID the drives as I don't need the redundancy.

Synology NAS are decent but for one with a decent amount of power they are hellishly expensive. It also lacks the power to do multiple streams and can't do other tasks that a dedicated server does.

The HP microservers are decent but they have really weak processors and lack the space to fill them up with HDDs. However, if you don't need to transcode they are very good value for money with the cashback.

My HP microserver hasd a Xeon installed and 16TB of HDD space. It also transcodes very well.

 

[MG42Maniac]

My HP microserver hasd a Xeon installed and 16TB of HDD space. It also transcodes very well.

But you've had to spend out extra money to get it to that state. Once you've performed the upgrade that you have done then you get a great little server. At stock though, it is lacking.

 

[Deathjester]

Just noticed the Silverstone CS02 case, which actually looks really nice.

I'm tempted to build into this case instead.