Building a server advice

General Discussions
1

I’m sorry I’m sure this has been asked a million times but I’ve read so much I feel more lost than I was when I started.

I’m looking to have a plex server running 24/7 capable of streaming to 3 different family members simultaneously if needed at 1080p. I’m currently a lifetime plex member running a server off my iMac pointing to a wd cloud storage. 2 other family members each has a separate server running on their own iMacs pointing towards the same wd my cloud.

My thinking is I’d like to run one always on server with plex home so everyone can enjoy my plex pass features like trailers but separated by users and pins.

My original thinking was a NAS with PMS but I’m lost an which ones would be capable of providing transcoding to 3 devices at 1080p simultaneously, or maybe a simple Mac mini attached to my existing wd my cloud would be the answer. I’m pretty clueless when it comes to computers so an out of the box solution would be ideal, not afraid to spend a bit of extra cash if it means getting it right simply.

Any help would be appreciated

2

So if you are wanting cheap solution some of the old Dell Optiplex workstations offer a fast processing solution at a relatively low cost. Each 1080P transcode requires a passmark score of 2000 so to run three simultaneously you’d need a processor with a passmark score of 6,000 or above.

$250
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-990-Mini-Tower-Core-i7-2600-3-4Ghz-4GB-250GB-HDD-Windows10-10401-/311716715738?hash=item4893c39cda:g:i2sAAOSwvg9XUF1Q
$200
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-790-Intel-i7-Quad-Core-2600-3-4-GHz-4GB-Ram-500GB-HD-Win-7-Pro-/112165403155?hash=item1a1d943a13:g:DKkAAOSwh2xX~pTc

These old towers will run you about $200 and has a Passmark score of 8k.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2600+%40+3.40GHz

So after you purchase your hard drives external or internal you are looking at a total startup cost of about $400 not too bad for the performance.

A pricier solution but more sightly solution might be using a NUC Intel box attached to an external hard drive.

Your cost is about $750 not too bad at all especially if you have a wife that won’t let you put clunky old dell desktop in the home or you have space constraints.

The problem you are going to run into with the NAS is that the affordable units don’t come with enough CPU power to handle heavy transcoding.

Here is a NAS unit that would have everything you need with a significantly higher startup:

NAS no Hard Drives Passmark of just over 6K (3 Transcodes)


https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-4590S+%40+3.00GHz

NAS no Hard Drives Passmark of around 9K


http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4790S+%40+3.20GHz

You are looking at about 2k for a NAS with beefy transcoding power but have the processing power and expansion that you would need in the future. It really depends on what you are willing to spend and how much space you have.

3

Thanks for the reply that’s a huge help. I’ve been considering upgrading the my wd cloud as it’s a single bay so I’ve always taught once that dies I’l lose everything so the NAS options sounds appealing for backup and handling everything, just the pricing may hold me back.

How does a Mac mini hold up with the sort of tasks I’d be asking of it? I’ve heard good things about them on other posts.

4

yes !!! old dell optiplex pc with quad core are good for this project but remember those old pc are designed
on working environment only …but theirs way you can easily put 18 harddrives. 2 from motherboard and 16 harddrive from 2-pcie with sas controller cards.check this set up

[youtube.com/watch?v=A3AzPPma7MQ

5

To answer your question on the MacMini your experience will vary as far as transcoding is concerned. If you get a Generation 2012 i5 box ($280 on Ebay) you are in the Passmark range of 3k-4k (2 1080P Transcodes). If you invest in a more up to date box you will get comparable processing performance to that of the Intel NUC I referenced before.

One thing to be cognizant of if you plan to move your storage device from Windows/PC to Mac is often times the file structures aren’t compatible. Most Windows hard drives are partitioned in “NFTS” so your mac might ask you to reformat.

Koishake is correct the Old OptiPlex solution seems to be the cheapest but isn’t the most user friendly and takes up a lot of space.

6

That’s great thanks for your help. I think the qnap TVs-671 seems to be the best way to go for an all in one solution. I’ve been thinking for awhile about upgrading my single bay wd my cloud to a my cloud mirror so I don’t lose everything when it eventually kicks the bucket so in pricing up a mini pc along with a my cloud mirror it’s starting to get into a similar price range and the tvs-671 sounds like it’ll do everything all in one

7

A modernized setup like mine runs about $700-800 without drives but does everything you’d want (see my sig).

By “modernized” I mean making the following changes:

Motherboard: ASRock Rack E3C236D2I
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1270 v5
RAM: Crucial CT16G4WFD8213

8

I’ll second the ASRock Rack E3C236D2I, it’s a pretty well rounded board. However, I’d suggest the Xeon E3-1240 v5 instead of the 1270. It’s meaningfully cheaper (at least here in the UK) and a touch faster (at least according to CPU Benchmark) for the same power consumption.

I wouldn’t recommend my choice of case for an inexperienced builder however - it’s all a very tight fit and assembly is not trivial.

9

@MacGriogair said:
However, I’d suggest the Xeon E3-1240 v5 instead of the 1270. It’s meaningfully cheaper (at least here in the UK) and a touch faster (at least according to CPU Benchmark) for the same power consumption.

These are identical-generation chips separated by 0.1GHz in performance. The difference should be linear. The only logical explanation for the reverse variation in benchmarks is due to the much-too-small sample size at cpubenchmark.

10

I’m in the same position and actually, currently have the TVS-671 but I’m about to return it to Amazon and build my own. The PSU on my HP EX-485 finally went after about 10 years so I needed to upgrade. I did the research and ordered the 671 with the first one being DOA. I got another one and was really underwhelmed initially with the ease of getting it up and running (configuration, setup, storage pool – NOT the actual hardware or Apps as I never got that far).

I grew used to the WHS 2011 running 4 Hitachi Deskstar NAS drive (HGST-0S03664-4TB) with DrivePool and it met my needs so perfectly it almost seemed like a step back to go to a RAID solution with a piece of hardware that runs only a native NAS. I simply didn’t see the tradeoffs of RAID making sense – performance decrease; uptime not being important; time to build/rebuild; drive space lost; and the fact I don’t need a backup solution — and RAID is NOT a backup (as 2 minutes on the QNAP forum will teach you).

What I liked about DrivePool was that it took everything I threw at it and balanced it across all the drives. I liked this because it naturally/technically allowed me to risk only a portion of my entire library if a drive failed. While I would not want to lose the entire collection (currently at 12TB) or an entire share (movies, television shows, etc.), I was fully fine with losing one drive, and possibly, a portion of each share. Over the years I’ve had 1 drive failure and caught another just before failing. I would pull it out, replace it, recover what I could from the bad drive, then put it back in the pool to again balance across the old drives and new. I do off site backups of the shares that are important to me.

In the end, I realized there was going to be a learning curve, be it the QNAP (RAID, snapshots, thin or thick provisioning, LUN’s, single vs. static) or building my own server, so I thought why not have that curve be the hardware side and just build my own and run the same system I had been (WHS). For me, then I can upgrade it at will AND have the flexibility to run a 3rd party NAS (or Linux, W7, or whatever else) or even make it a a desktop if I decide to go that route. Also, it’s looking like it’s going to be about $500 less for a more powerful machine.

I ordered the Fractal Design Node 804 and it’s coming this Friday so we’ll see. I was really impressed with https://pcpartpicker.com/ since it’s been over 10 years since I built my own and initially, would not have done it this time if it weren’t for a site like this.

Hope that helps and if anyone sees any failed logic in my plan that could help Keith182 or myself, please poke holes. This was just my thought process.

Thanks!

John

11

Would this be capable of handling 3x simultaneous 1080p streams?
https://www.serversdirect.co.uk/p/1116944/qnap-tvs-671-i5-8g-10gbe-ready-intel-i5

And also is there any advantage to the 871 apart from the extra 2 bays?
https://www.serversdirect.co.uk/p/1116945/qnap-tvs-871-i5-8g-8-bay-nas-10gbe-intel-i5

Realistically a 2 bay nas would do me fine but I need the power that looks like I can only get from a big one.

I know the 671 was suggested above but I know there’s different types of processors and I am completely clueless when it comes to computers. Was also gonna wait till apples keynote on Thursday and see if they bring out a new Mac mini and run that with a wd mirror. I know there’s cheaper alternatives but apple products just seem to run seemlessly for me so an all in one solution like the qnap or a Mac mini seem like an ideal solution for a computerphobe like me

12

@Keithm182 said:

Realistically a 2 bay nas would do me fine

Only if you don’t care about your data. You want 6+ drives on RAID6/RAIDZ2 or better, otherwise you have a false sense of security with any RAID solution using fewer than that.

13

Ok great, sorry this is all new to me still learning the ropes. What’s your opinion on those 2 devices listed above? Is there any advantage to the 8 bay over the 6 bay? My sole needs for this is movie storage and plex server to 3 simultaneous devices. Also for someone as clueless as me are they easy to manage or would you think a Mac mini and external drive would be better for a novice. The only reason I keep going back to Mac mini is because my whole home eco system is apple, macs, iPads and apple TVs will be the main devices used for streaming

14

What are the specs of the macs you already own? You may not need a nas or other device as you can use the computer you already own.
I used a 2011 imac as a plex server and it worked great. Multiple simultaneous streams too.
Depending on your clients and the video you have you may not be transcoding at all. And streaming alone uses almost no power. Something to look in to.
For storage I use a drobo 5D attached to the computer. Tons of storage and brain dead simple to manage.

15

I’m currently running my plex server on my 2011 iMac with my movies stored on a single bay wd my cloud. I want to set up a server for the whole family to use, most streaming to be done on apple tvs and iPads. Problem is I don’t like having to leave my iMac on 24/7 and also I want to replace the wd my cloud to something more protected against drive failure.

Was briefly looking into the WD my cloud pr4100 but I’ve read it has quality issues.
I’ve read nothing but good things about the Qnap TVS-671, more expensive than I originally planned on spending but it sounds like the all in one piece of kit capable to doing it all.
Also heard a Mac mini is a great low power device that could handle my needs as an always on device with external storage attached.

16

The drobo is protected against drive failures. You can set it to protect against one or two drive failures. And you don’t have to use matched drives.
Most devices, including the apple tv, support h.264. Depending on the audio and container of your movies you may not be transcoding at all and thus don’t need a powerful machine. On PMS you can look under now playing and for each video there’s an info icon that will let you know if a video is transcoding or not. And there are apps for the apple tv such as infuse, VLC, etc. that support more formats.
The mac mini isn’t the way to go. I bought one to test for plex and promptly returned it. It got loud and hot with just one stream.
Your imac will work fine. Just leave it on. It’s not a big deal. It’s not going to hurt anything. I set mine to let the display and hard drives sleep after a period of time. So just the drives spin up when someone accesses it. I had people both inside and outside my home streaming from my one imac with no issues.
Honestly I would just shutdown your other plex servers, just run the one, and have everyone connect to it for the purpose of testing. Even with people streaming from mine I still used it at the same time and had no idea there was any streaming going on.
Now I use a PC I built. Stream, gaming, encoding, photoshop, etc. all at the same time. I leave it on 24/7.

I have built servers, one with 22 hard drive bays and a SAS controller. Too much hassle. Dumped the servers for a drobo plugged into the computer I use.

17

@Keithm182 said:
Ok great, sorry this is all new to me still learning the ropes. What’s your opinion on those 2 devices listed above? Is there any advantage to the 8 bay over the 6 bay? My sole needs for this is movie storage and plex server to 3 simultaneous devices. Also for someone as clueless as me are they easy to manage or would you think a Mac mini and external drive would be better for a novice. The only reason I keep going back to Mac mini is because my whole home eco system is apple, macs, iPads and apple TVs will be the main devices used for streaming

I’d imagine you’d be ok with the 6-bay. 8 bay can obviously support bigger arrays using smaller drives. Allow 2 bays for redundancy (RAID6 unless you’re lucky enough to get to use RAIDZ2).

It all depends on your storage needs and budget. I started off with 6x3TB which gave me about 12TB storage. If I had had 8 bays I would’ve filled them and started with 18TB. Now I’m looking to replace all my 3TB drives with 8TB which will give me 32TB of storage.