Looking for energy efficient and silent PMS hardware

General Discussions
1

Dear fellow plex users,

I use plex on my old synology nas (413), but it does not get updated anymore. So it is time to look for an alternative.
Upgrading the NAS to a better one with intel cpu is not reasonable.

Since two weeks I try to find out, what the best hardware option is for running a PMS that is connected to my NAS. But without any success. The PMS should live in my rack case next to the NAS. An nvidia shield is overkill for me, since I do not plan to connect it directly to my tv.

Do you have suggestions for a “box” I can buy or build that is:

  • cheap
  • energy efficient with low excess heat generation (should live in my rack case)
  • possible to transcode one stream only (I do not have big MKVs, mostly I have m4v with Handbrake’s Apple-TV 3 preset)

Thank you,
Armin

2

@amueller80 said:
Dear fellow plex users,

I use plex on my old synology nas (413), but it does not get updated anymore. So it is time to look for an alternative.
Upgrading the NAS to a better one with intel cpu is not reasonable.

Since two weeks I try to find out, what the best hardware option is for running a PMS that is connected to my NAS. But without any success. The PMS should live in my rack case next to the NAS. An nvidia shield is overkill for me, since I do not plan to connect it directly to my tv.

Do you have suggestions for a “box” I can buy or build that is:

  • cheap
  • energy efficient with low excess heat generation (should live in my rack case)
  • possible to transcode one stream only (I do not have big MKVs, mostly I have m4v with Handbrake’s Apple-TV 3 preset)

Thank you,
Armin

SHIELD is not overkill. It’s currently one of the cheapest servers you can get…

3

@danjames92 said:

SHIELD is not overkill. It’s currently one of the cheapest servers you can get…

Is there a cheaper one?

But I am not recommending the Shield as a server until the bugs get fixed.
Too many issues (more with the 16gb version).
Maybe the next plex version and/or shield 3.3 might be more reliable.

4

@spikemixture said:

@danjames92 said:

SHIELD is not overkill. It’s currently one of the cheapest servers you can get…

Is there a cheaper one?

But I am not recommending the Shield as a server until the bugs get fixed.
Too many issues (more with the 16gb version).
Maybe the next plex version and/or shield 3.3 might be more reliable.

Not AFAIK.

5

transcoding is very processor intense, your not really going to be able to get a fanless server to handle this…

My HTPC currently has a Core i3 2nd generation and can handle 2-3 streams of transcoding at a time.

If i was going to truly set this up right, i would build a virtual server (in a RACK away from the media room) and have Plex as a Linux\windows VM with 4GB ish of memory and a couple cores then use the current NAS device as a mapped drive (or however you want to do it)… it doesn’t need a ton of power UNLESS it is transcoding. this option would still keep your NAS in place (for the time being) AND get you more expandability and\or tinkering.

if you want to build a cheap HTPC you will likely spend more\as much on drives for storage as you would the Motherboard, RAM and Proc. you can keep an eye on Woot.com or other sites for refurbished systems and see if that is the route you want to go. they had a Core i5, 24GB RAM 2TB HDD and a geforce graphics card for 5-600 a couple weeks ago. i almost purchased as a virtual server!