Best System (PC or HTPC or NAS)

General Discussions
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So right now, I have about 4 TB of files. I have my server set up on an old computer. Everything has been running fine until the past few months. Now, either something has changed where almost everything is having to be transcoded on the fly or my computer is just burning out. It is time for an upgrade. My first requirement is price. There is no set dollar amount, but I would prefer to keep it under $500. I think that I would prefer something to stand alone as the server that I can hook up to my ethernet cable(which is in a horrible location upstairs by itself). If I am replacing my PC, it will need to be able to handle playing games (the kid plays a lot of CSGO) as well as streaming. As it stands now, the transcoding kills the CPU and he can’t play at the same time. I would like something that has a low power consumption so I can leave it on 24/7. I travel a lot and would like to be able to access it always. It needs to be able to transcode/stream 4 1080p streams at a time. This hardly ever happens, but it does happen.

So, what is my best option here? Are there any small HTPCs that can handle that? Is there a NAS in that price range that can handle that? What is a good PC that can handle games and streaming at the same time, but still in my price range?

Thanks in advance!!

EDIT: I normally stream to a Roku, iPad, XB1, and PS4. Also, is there a way I can force direct stream so my PC is not constantly transcoding? I know another option is to change all my files to MP4, but just one movie on my slow PC took 6 hours to change over. I am not going to do that for 4 TB worth of stuff.

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@penguin47 said:

EDIT: I normally stream to a Roku, iPad, XB1, and PS4. Also, is there a way I can force direct stream so my PC is not constantly transcoding? ** I know another option is to change all my files to MP4, but just one movie on my slow PC took 6 hours to change over.** I am not going to do that for 4 TB worth of stuff.

But it might save you plenty of grief and some bucks

3

@spikemixture said:
But it might save you plenty of grief and some bucks

And with “Handbrake” you can just set it up, queue all the files and let it get on with it unattended…worth considering

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@penguin47 said:
So right now, I have about 4 TB of files. I have my server set up on an old computer. Everything has been running fine until the past few months. Now, either something has changed where almost everything is having to be transcoded on the fly or my computer is just burning out. It is time for an upgrade. My first requirement is price. There is no set dollar amount, but I would prefer to keep it under $500. I think that I would prefer something to stand alone as the server that I can hook up to my ethernet cable(which is in a horrible location upstairs by itself). If I am replacing my PC, it will need to be able to handle playing games (the kid plays a lot of CSGO) as well as streaming. As it stands now, the transcoding kills the CPU and he can’t play at the same time. I would like something that has a low power consumption so I can leave it on 24/7. I travel a lot and would like to be able to access it always. It needs to be able to transcode/stream 4 1080p streams at a time. This hardly ever happens, but it does happen.

So, what is my best option here? Are there any small HTPCs that can handle that? Is there a NAS in that price range that can handle that? What is a good PC that can handle games and streaming at the same time, but still in my price range?

Thanks in advance!!

EDIT: I normally stream to a Roku, iPad, XB1, and PS4. Also, is there a way I can force direct stream so my PC is not constantly transcoding? I know another option is to change all my files to MP4, but just one movie on my slow PC took 6 hours to change over. I am not going to do that for 4 TB worth of stuff.

If your Plex server is capable of transcoding on the fly but takes 6 hours to do an encode, then you’re probably using some unnecessarily CPU-hungry settings for the encode. Maybe just stick to VeryFast preset or something.

For the new hardware, choose two:

  • small/pretty
  • inexpensive
  • powerful (able to transcode up to 4 1080p streams simultaneously)

I checked CSGO’s minimum and recommended system requirements and that seems to fairly low so I reckon that’s not going to be a big problem (minimum: C2D E6600 2.4GHz, 1GB RAM, GT420; recommended: Pentium E5700 3.0GHz, 2GB RAM, GT630).

As for power consumption, unless you get a power hungry GPU or multiple HDDs, new builds use very little power when idle. On Clarkdale (1st gen dual-core Core i3, circa 2010), I’ve been getting just 30W idle on my build (per Kill-A-Watt). Newer Intel Skylake (Core 6th gen) processors should idle at even less.

Mini-ITX still tends to carry a small price premium over microATX. If you go uATX, you could likely build a quad-core i5 Haswell/Skylake at your $500 budget (integrated graphics only, OS/software cost not included). Probably less if you already have storage.

Bonus, while Plex doesn’t support hardware accelerated encoding on the PC yet, Handbrake does support QuickSync on Intel CPUs (Core 2nd gen and newer). On a $50 Pentium G3220 3.0GHz Haswell (PC built around 2014), Handbrake/Intel QSV (H.264) can usually convert a full quality Blu-ray rip (~20-30Mbps bitrate) to 1080p at ~120fps (~12 mins per hour of video) or to 720p at ~240fps (6 mins per hour of video). Same system can’t transcode more than one BD rip at a time on Plex without running into buffering issues.

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So using Roku, XB1, PS4 and my apple products, what would be the best settings on handbrake to convert my videos? I only use the apple products when I am away from home. I would think that the other three would be able to direct play my mkv files no problem, but plex still finds the need to transcode them. Do I maybe have something setup wrong somewhere?

I would prefer small and powerful. Something I can just hook up to my router behind my TV and let it do all the work. I think that a good NAS would be the best option, but I am not sure which one to look for.

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@penguin47 said:
So using Roku, XB1, PS4 and my apple products, what would be the best settings on handbrake to convert my videos? I only use the apple products when I am away from home. I would think that the other three would be able to direct play my mkv files no problem, but plex still finds the need to transcode them. Do I maybe have something setup wrong somewhere?

I would prefer small and powerful. Something I can just hook up to my router behind my TV and let it do all the work. I think that a good NAS would be the best option, but I am not sure which one to look for.

Unless you have some really old Apple products, the AppleTV3 profile on Handbrake should work on all your devices (I’m assuming you have one of the newer Rokus). To make things easier on your old CPU, change the x264 preset from Medium to Very Fast or something.

As for NAS, you’re paying for NAS software, warranty and support. A DIY server build will give you much faster processing power as a similarly priced NAS but you’re pretty much your own support.

Right now, only NAS that supports hardware accelerated encoding is the WD PR2100/4100 (quad-core Pentium N3710 Braswell) and it ain’t cheap for what you’re getting. At $400 for a 2-bay model, you can probably build something with dual-core Pentium or Core i3 Haswell/Skylake for the same price. PassMark for the Pentium N3710 is just 566 single-threaded (ST) and 1868 multi-threaded (MT). PassMark for a $50 Pentium G3240 Haswell is 1780 ST and 3242 MT. Something like the QNAP-TVS-471-i3-4G is more capable but even with a 15% coupon from Plex (newsletter), that’s still $925 without any drives.

Before I make component recommendations though, are you comfortable building your own computer? Also, how do you want your storage? Internal, external/direct attached (DAS: e.g. USB, eSATA), hotswap, NAS? I think there are probably plenty of users here who use a two-tiered approach to Plex: PC to run Plex Media Server and separate NAS for storage.

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I am comfortable building a PC, but have never done anything with a NAS. Right now, I have internal storage on my PC so that is what I know. However, I am happy to learn something new. I think a PC with separate NAS storage would be ideal. Especially if its form factor is small enough I can throw it on the TV stand to be hardwired to my modem.

Stupid question, but since the MAC and PC use two different formats for file storage will that cause a problem if I convert the video on my mac and then move it to my PC? Should I just do that over the network or would it be better to put the files on a external HDD and move them back and forth?

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It can be really hard to build a combined/singular NAS+PMS box within your price range that also meets your power requirements. A modern (Skylake/LGA1151) version of my box (see my sig) would still be $700-ish without drives.

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@penguin47 said:
I am comfortable building a PC, but have never done anything with a NAS. Right now, I have internal storage on my PC so that is what I know. However, I am happy to learn something new. I think a PC with separate NAS storage would be ideal. Especially if its form factor is small enough I can throw it on the TV stand to be hardwired to my modem.

You can actually build something pretty powerful in a small form factor. Just look at Intel’s Skull Canyon ($600).

720×405 169 KB

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-kit-nuc6i7kyk-features-configurations.html

Since we’re going with off-the-shelf desktop parts, I don’t recommend going that slim, though. Skull Canyon uses a mobile CPU with lower max TDP. If you’re transcoding 4 1080p streams on the fly, go for something a little bit chunkier to allow for better cooling.

Case choice/aesthetics is a personal thing so I recommend looking through Newegg or manufacturer websites for a case that you like. SilverStone and Lian-Li make some pretty nice SFF/HTPC cases.

Stupid question, but since the MAC and PC use two different formats for file storage will that cause a problem if I convert the video on my mac and then move it to my PC? Should I just do that over the network or would it be better to put the files on a external HDD and move them back and forth?

The file/encode itself is not gonna be an issue. Formatting for the external HDD may be a problem as Windows does not support HFS+ and FAT32 has file size limitations (must be less than 4GB). Can Macs read/write to NTFS-formatted drives?

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Macs can read but not write to NTFS. I will just see about setting everything on the network and then transfering them like that. I know there are third party options for getting the mac to write to NTFS, but I havent looked into that really.

So you think building a HTPC and adding a NAS for storage would be the best solution? What should be the minimum specs I look at to make sure I get what I need?

11

You may take a look at unRaid software for your NAS. Just build a custom PC with the required power for your needs and install unRaid with the Plex Media Server Docker.

https://lime-technology.com/what-is-unraid/

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@penguin47 said:
So you think building a HTPC and adding a NAS for storage would be the best solution? What should be the minimum specs I look at to make sure I get what I need?

Matter of personal preference but this is the route I take now. Makes it easier for me to separate functions and keep things modular. Also, I suck at tidy wiring and want all hotswap bays (or at least externally accessible HDD bays) so nowadays, I prefer to just buy an off-the-shelf NAS instead of building a server myself. SFF PCs are easier to build as I can get Mini-ITX motherboards with mSATA or M.2 slots so only wiring is front panel headers and PSU (and even that can be minimized by using a PicoPSU or opting for Thin Mini-ITX).

Mind, if Lime-Tech were still offering pre-built unRAID servers, I’d probably just buy one of those (they were very reasonably priced). The $2,700-3,100 QNAP wants for their higher end NAS with i5 Haswell and bells and whistles I don’t need? Much harder to swallow.

For simultaneous 1080p transcoding, minimum i5-4460 or i5-6400. i7-4790K or i7-6700K if the budget allows it and case has enough space for adequate cooling. Or maybe something in between. RAM, 8GB is probably plenty but 16GB likely costs just a little bit more. One thing you don’t want to cheap out on is power supply. You don’t need a lot of wattage (even 300W is likely overkill for Mini-ITX, iGPU-only, single drive build). You do however want quality. SeaSonic is consistently good.

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And I wouldn’t really need a GPU or sound card or anything fancy since it’s going to be used strictly for processing and streaming right? What would be a good NAS for storage?

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Re: [Plex Forums] What do you use as Plex Media Server ?

This post is asking /giving the same answers. Maybe they should be joined!?

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One last question… What about like a business type computer(off lease computers). No dedicated GPU, but 2x xeon quad core and 12-16 gb of ram. You can get them pretty cheap too. Would something like this work well?

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@penguin47 said:
One last question… What about like a business type computer(off lease computers). No dedicated GPU, but 2x xeon quad core and 12-16 gb of ram. You can get them pretty cheap too. Would something like this work well?

Rackmounted servers? If you’re okay with higher power consumption and noise (or if you’ve got somewhere you can stash it where noise wouldn’t be a problem), then sure. Bonus, those probably come with ECC RAM which is good when you’ve got a parity protected array.

@spikemixture said:
Re: [Plex Forums] What do you use as Plex Media Server ?

This post is asking /giving the same answers. Maybe they should be joined!?

This thread is asking for hardware advice on a specific use case (on the fly transcode of up to 4 1080p streams simultaneously). Other thread only needs a single stream. Probably not good to have the recommendations mixed up.

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Not rackmounted but like what a business would get for their offices. Like this… http://dellrefurbished.com/product/systems/desktops/cat61198/dell-precision-t5500-18gb-ram-160gb-hdd/si6870856

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PassMark comparison of E5606, i5-4460 and i5-6400

Assuming perfect scaling, processing performance of that dual-CPU workstation just about matches a modern quad-core. Alas, probably has higher power consumption and missing nifty new features such as QuickSync. While it may not work in Plex right now, it can really speed up Handbrake encodes if you ever decide to just convert your videos.

By the way, that T5500 does have dedicated qraphics (NVIDIA QUADRO 4000). It’s not small, either. I’m assuming you’re now opting for inexpensive and powerful instead. :stuck_out_tongue: Personally, I’m more inclined to get one of the OptiPlexes with quad i5 or i7. Those are pretty good prices particularly when you consider it already includes a Windows license. :slight_smile:

Are you still planning on getting a NAS or is this intended to be an all-in-one Plex Media Server with internal storage? If the latter, whichever model you decide on, do your research on how many drives it will be able to hold (SATA ports and drive bays). That’s a caveat when buying pre-built hardware.

When in doubt about the CPU, just check out PassMark scores on cpubenchmark.net. Note: Don’t just look at the multi-threaded (MT) PassMark scores (default displayed). Check out single-threaded (ST), too. Even if two processors have similar MT PassMark, you’d generally get better performance from the CPU with the higher ST PassMark. Also, not all tasks can be multi-threaded anyway (e.g. VC-1 decode).

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@penguin47 said:
Macs can read but not write to NTFS. I will just see about setting everything on the network and then transfering them like that. I know there are third party options for getting the mac to write to NTFS, but I havent looked into that really.

I use Tuxera NTFS for this & it works perfectly