Hi, I was hoping I could get feedback on a possible planned build I listed here.
Please guide me as needed in either the build or the right forum section.
Thanks in advance!
if this is going to be a dedicated server… then use a SSD drive for the OS… Night & day load times…
then use separate drives for TV, MOVIES and Music, …if your like me thousand of music, tv and movies… make sure you have a backup and everything…
How many users and devices?
How much transcoding and converting do you expect to need?
How much media do you plan to store?
What kind of media (720, 1080? x264, x265, xvid?)
Without listing the exact specs (need answers for those questions for that), I would recommend you a setup like this:
Plex Server
- Debian OS (light;server)
- Beefy CPU
- Very small but reliable SSD for OS Storage
- Medium SSD for PMS Data
- 8+ GB RAM (Transcode to RAM)
Storage
- FreeNAS OS
- Low Power CPU
- Small USB 3.0 stick for the OS
- WD Red Drives for media storage, in a ZFS array
- 16+GB RAM (depends on the amount of zfs storage)
Extra
- Large USB HDD for cold backups
(backup the most important stuff including the OS drives, PMS drive and other important stuff you may want to have a backup like documents or photos)
Chris, I already have exactly that in the build.
rbmaster7,
This is going to be an all-in-one. I’ve been running one for over a year but I want to move it off my main machine. If I am understanding your listing, you want me to go from one pc to 3, or at the very least have a NAS setup beyond the server. That’s understandable, but that is a much bigger budget and would take up more space, more electricity, and generate more heat for the room it will be in.
At the most I would be handing two simultaneous 1080p streams plus a 720p stream. Has to be able to direct stream a 4K video without transcode.
What do you think of the build I linked?
You would move to a plex server + nas, so, 2 machines.
It’s much better to have the media storage on a dedicated device. It’s better for management, it’s more versatile, it’s better for reliability, etc.
This option is not that expensive as you think.
You can buy an used hp microserver to work as a NAS (like this one), and do the rest of the build as I suggested you. Do the math, it’s not that expensive and you get much more this way 
Edit: Forgot to answer the rest of your questions.
A low power server like that HP microserver consumes very little power, and so generates little heat as well. The space should not be a problem too as it is very small as well.
Handling 2 1080p h264 10Mbits + 1 720p h264 6Mbits transcodes is something that even a ShieldTV as a server (using hardware accelerated transcoding). My current setup is an HP Microserver N40L as a NAS + ShieldTV as a Server/client. Very low budget setup, but consumes very little power, generating very little heat, even at full utilization. You would be surprised on how little power it takes, really. It is also very small.
I just can’t recommend that exact setup because the Shield as a server still has some issues (mostly PMS bugs, but the client has issues as well):
Putting the ShieldTV option aside, you would need to think you want to use hardware transcoding or just software (look here). If you go for the software transcode route a Rysen 5 would be a very good choice. If instead you go for the hardware accelerated transcode route then you would need to opt for an Intel CPU or an Nvidia GPU.
No, I will clarify - I want to build a transcoding pc. It would primarily run Plex and at the most it would simultaneously transcode 2 1080p movies and one 720p Twitch stream. It would also need to direct play a single 4K movie but not simultaneously transcode anything. I mentioned it as a possible NAS server as well which would just be a shared space within Windows (would have to go with Windows because of the Twitch services.) This wouldn’t be a separate dedicated NAS unit.
Naturally this rules out using a Shield. It’s not like a shield can use SLOBS software. CPU software transcoding is supposedly superior so QuickSync and NVENC aren’t really a concern. I haven’t purchased an AMD product since the Athlon, however I thought I would toss them some business due to the success of the Ryzen series and the cheapness of their additional cores. IPC is decent enough so I don’t know why I shouldn’t.
I hope that clarifies things - I appreciate your help so far.
I still recomend separating the storage to another dedicated machine. If you still want to go for the all in one route then at least virtualize that machine, one vm for the nas, another for pms and even separating another vm for your twitch transcodes. Freenas as the nas os and debian (light/server) as the pms os.
Can you explain why a VM? I assume there is a good reason to add the additional overhead tied to a VM.
I ordered nearly the equivalent of this build earlier today - the prices and PSU are wrong though. I ordered a Thermaltake SFX PSU to give more airflow above the included Spire cooler.
Wish I could understand why.
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