I needed a small, rack mountable PLEX server with lots of room for storage. I could not find an off the shelf version the right size that I needed, so I made my own. I think it turned out pretty nice!
Is this 19" or narrower?
That looks awesome!
19” wide
16” deep
This really does look great. are you willing to share the final specs ? I see you have 8 bays for storage but i am curious what you have for the compute power and memory as i have been starting to look at what i am going to move to next. i currently run plex on a 2009 era Mac pro (the Plex server folder on a SSD) and the media folders connected to my different libraries via smb shares from a FreeNAS Mini (4 bay) connected via gigabit hardwired ethernet.
The idea of a rack mounted solution is were i am thinking about as I do not need the computer on my desk and I like your idea.
There are indeed 19" solutions available off-the-shelf.
But cheap they aren’t.
http://www.norcotek.com/
I am sure there are I am amazed that once you go past the “home” user world its funny to watch how quickly the price increases. I do believe that one day soon (and for many people that might be now) that there were will the central home server for media servers like plex , home automation , and general computing. it been fun to watch we started with these big machine and dumb terminals then we moved to microcomputers now we have a collection of microcomputers in a rack 
Thanks sojoknuckle. I built this with budget in mind and tried to use what I had without buying too many things.
The specs are:
Motherboard: Super Micro X10SAE
Processor: Intel I7 4770S
Memory: 16 GB
OS drive: Samsung 860 EVO SATA M.2, 256GB
Power Supply: Thermaltake 750W, cable management
Hard Drive Bays: Rosewill 3 x 5.25-Inch to 4 x 3.5-Inch Hot-swap Hard Disk Drive Cage
The whole build centered around the Motherboard and processor that I had. I really liked it because it has 8 sata ports on it. I used a Sata M.2 drive with a PCI adaptor for the OS so that I could use all 8 sata ports for storage drives.
I chose the Rosewill hard drive cages because they have big 120mm fans on each one, and they were only $50. I 3d printed a fan bracket that goes in place of where brackets for the pci cards would normaly sit. This let me add an additional 120MM fan to the case. I was concerned that cooling would be an issue, but with 4 120mm fans, its not a problem now.
Since I had to make the case, I decided to 3d print the center panel and make it custom to plex. You might be able to see it in the pics, but the PLEX is back lit, and even has half of the X yellow/orage, like the logo.
I ■■■■■■■hate you right about now…
Man, that is AWESOME.
WANT.
@Freqster, what about this case?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147233&Description=rosewill%20rack%20case&cm_re=rosewill_rack_case-_-11-147-233-_-Product
Thats the Case I used but i didn’t get it with the hot-swaps ( The same ones you’re using by the way ), i figured i would get them as time goes on, plus I already had one. I mean, I love your work but just saying that there were solutions. Heres my system in the same case.
Will eventually add the 3rd hot swap when i have the $$$$ to get more drives. Will post specs if anyone is interested. Also had my PCIe to 4 sata port card die 2 days ago, luckily, I had a mini SAS adapter card, just had to order the SAS to sata cable.
Looks great.
Would you be able to post your models?
I’d like to see if I can make one myself, I work at a machine shop and this would be a great project for me.
A+
Solid effort
That is amazing! It’s got a nice clean look.
What is the benefit of running Plex off of an SSD?
I’m running Plex as a VM on a server running a RAID5, and everything seems to be pretty instantaneous.
Loads thumbnails and library info faster. If your raid can do 500mb/s you should be fine.
I am very curios on how to make the body itself. I see you can just cnc cut the front
Wow, that is brilliant. Nicely done, sir!
Awesome! Thanks for the reply.
That looks awesome!
