Would replacement Media Server be up to scratch?

CeePeeBee

CeePeeBee

CeePeeBee

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Joined
15 Nov 2012
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94
Hi Guys

I have an old box that I've been running for a couple of years now as the media server for my house. It regularly has 3 Smart TV's connected to it (DLNA clients) streaming 1080p films and TV episodes, and a number of mobile clients streaming music (intermittently though).

Here's what I've got:

  • Q9550 Quad Core @ 2.8 Ghz
  • Asus P5Q Pro board
  • 8GB RAM
  • 2 x 4TB WD RED NAS drives (Hardware Raid 1)

I got rid of the main GPU I had and used a standard PCI VGA for the monitor.

Now, the Q9550 is an absolute beast as anyone will attest to...it really was a wicked chip back in the day and still copes with a lot of work now...but the cooler isn't silent (as the chip is quite hot being Yorkfield), and the case is quite large being an old gaming machine. Add to that the fact that energy consumption (despite me using a few apps to control the speed and voltage of components) is still quite high and I was wondering about getting a replacement.

Firstly I was looking at Micro Servers, and then at a Micro ATX or something....However I keep coming back to the same thing...will the chips that are made for inclusion in these smaller compact builds/mobos deliver the same performance across the range of concurrent devices we use at home?

Thoughts on a post please :)
 
I'm fairly certain that you'd be fine with the likes of a Microserver. Using DLNA means you're just serving the files to the client so disk and network speed will be the limitations. If you were transcoding first then the CPU would be of concern.
 
The grass is greener syndrome...
Is it on 24/7?
Is it only used for media streaming?
What OS (is it running off the raid or on its own hdd?
Do you have a backup of the data?
Stock heatsink fan?
Have you actually measured the power consumption with a power meter?
You really need to know the idle power consumption if its on 24/7.
 
Cheers for the replies guys.

Lude, in answer to your questions:

- yes it's on 24/7/
- It's used primarily for media streaming but also to download and as a file server on the odd occasion...for the most part it's a media streamer (95% of the time)
- Windows 7 is the OS running hardware raid (PCI raid)
- No backup, resiliency is acceptable for me.
- Not stock...an old after market one I had...cools plenty enough but isn't that quiet.

Not measured consumption but I recall I did "once" way back when this was my main rig and it wasn't great. Just wondered whether the improvements in thermals, threads etc would be a worthwhile trade. CPU bottlenecking was my main concern.
 
I bought a low voltage I3 for the purpose 2100t which is 35w and quite cheap at around £40 on the bay.

Matx board and case so I can use a sound and graphics card and a 350w 80+ gold superflower psu.
 
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