Building a Plex Server

General Discussions
1

Hi everyone

I’m currently running a Synology Ds1010+ and it’s starting to fill up 20TB. So, I’m starting to buy parts for a new plex home server.

I currently run the synology for storage and the server app.

Basement consists of a 65" 4k Sony TV with Android Os and a 4k roku.
Workshop consists of a 43" 4k Vizio
Upstairs living room has a 65" 1080p Aquos with an Apple TV 4
Gym is a NEC commercial monitor 46" 1080 with a Apple TV 4

Basement Tv uses a roku 4k player which works but I hate the interface. I used to run a Mac mini 2009 with a 25’ hdmi cable to my tv… it was awesome! Plex home theatre was flawless in OSX.

So now, I’d love to build a dedicated server with 4k output capabilities for my main basement tv. Continue to push content to the two Apple Tv4’s

All my content is mkv, a few ISO’s.

So far, bought a Rosewill RSV-L4500 which give some 15 bays of storage.

Should I go with a 1150 or 1151 socket?
Should I go with a Xeon or i7 processor?

I’m thinking of either freenas, xpenology and doing it all via VM (which I haven’t run myself before)

Budget of 400-500$ Without drives if possible.

2

I would go with socket 1151 since that is more modern. And I’d go with Xeon since you’re building a server, and things like ECC memory (which the i7 and i5 do not support) become valuable. And if you go FreeNAS, you go ECC along with other server-class components which tend to be a bit more expensive than lower-end consumer and “gaming” level components.

Keep in mind that if 4K content matters to you, don’t plan on transcoding any of that. Keep separate 4K and 1080P versions in their own libraries so your 4K clients can just pull from the 4K libraries, while your 1080P and less clients pull from the 1080P versions. This may mean planning on larger capacity drives from the get-go.

$400-500 sans drives might be tight unless you skimp and go with lower-quality components than I’d feel comfortable with. A lot depends on how many streams you plan on needing to transcode at once (hence what CPU you go with).

3

Agreed!.. If you plan on transcoding any 4K, the kaby lake CPU which is what will do it… alone will be over your budget.

sremick is correct on everything he said