Challenge: If money was no object... what is the perfect build?

General Discussions
1

I have a conundrum. As usual, I’m probably overthinking things, so I present it to you sages for help.

I need to replace my Plex server lost in a fire. Practically speaking, money is no object. Or rather, it would be HARD to spend as much as I’m authorized for this without getting stupid.

My goal is a PMS running Linux as a headless server that meets the following criteria:

  1. Very low power consumption at idle. And this is the biggest stumbling block for me because it is difficult to find off the shelf power supplies that are efficient at low power, while also providing the necessary connections for modern motherboards.

2, No compromise w.r.t transcoding. I don’t need it often, but when I do, I don’t want to have hicups

  1. Lots of storage.

To meet 1, there are plenty of energy efficient and SMALL boxes out there that have great low-power CPUs like the 8700T and draw next to nothing… but I’ve not yet found one that is in a case that also has room for any sort of significant storage.

Building a tower from scratch solves that, but then I have the problem of no availability on low energy/high performance CPUs (can’t get an 8700T unless its in something) and poor performance when using a full size ATX PSU at low draw.

NAS looks interesting, but none of them really perform.

Should I instead do a hybrid two-device setup? Like a fanless tiny box that meets 1 + 2 and, separately, a NAS to meet need number 3? Does that sound like a good plan?

Thanks.

2

I think this is the better model rather than trying to put everything in one box. I use the following:

  1. NUC8i7HVK:Ubuntu Server 18.04.1 LTS:Headless for PMS
  2. Tower Server with 18x3.5" drive bays:Ubuntu Server 18.0.4.1 LTS:NFSv4+SMB3

This NUC can handle HW transcoding everything up to 4K HEVC HDR10.

3

Ok, cool. Thanks. I only just thought of this plan today so I’m glad someone doesn’t think it is stupid :slight_smile:

I have never had a dedicated NAS before. I/O performance isn’t a bottleneck in this scenario?

Thanks again for your input.

4

I/O performance should not be a bottleneck with either disk or network even with the highest bitrate content from premium 4K BDs of 128Mbps.

  1. 1000Mbps is the current standard Ethernet connection.
  2. 128Mbps = 15.26 MB/s of Disk I/O

Are these the I/O subsystems you are concerned with?

5

Yes, thanks for that!

6

Synology and Qnap have several NAS solutions that if money isn’t issue just work out of the box.
If you break it into two boxes your NAS can run on ITX form factor and use a laptop brick… for example my 12 bay server is using an old Asus C60M1-I… basically a potato with PCI slot for SATA controller but that 9W TDP!

Then all you need is anything with an iGPU… i3/i5 or find one of those Xeons with the iGPU built in. Even though it’s sever grade those Xeons can be very efficient.

7

I too would suggest splitting the Plex server from the NAS units. I have several Synology 12-bay NAS units, and a separate Plex server. You’ll just want a quality Plex server if you plan to do a lot of transcoding at the same time. My brother is trying to push Ryzen on me.

8

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