i wanted to ask before i build my Unraid server for my PLEX server. How well does it run on Server grade hardware ?. Will i need a GPU or is PLEX all dedicated to CPU encoding ?. Do note that the current server specs may change or be upgraded at a later date.
Plex CAN be used as either a CPU Transcode or Hardware transcode if available. So getting a GPU that does Hardware transcoding would be beneficial if you plan to have several transcode streams going. See here how to enable it (once you have the GPU) in UnRaid:
Also, not to nitpick or anything, but any particular reason you’re going with 10x1TB SSD’s instead of Multiple 10TB HDD’s? SSD’s are really only necessary when you need speed for Editing 4K and 8K video and hosting multiple editing suites. For long term storage, and running a Plex server, it’s almost always more beneficial to go with HDD’s. Especially if you plan on having to transcode, or you start doing DVR recordings and such… SSD’s wear out really quickly with transcoding…
As far as HDD vs SSD on Unraid you can setup a cache drive with as SSD and the rest are HDD.
Everything gets written to cache first and moved to the protected array on a schedule.
I have unraid with a 250 gig SSD and 10T total using 2T HDDs. New shows get recorded to SSD and copied to the protected array in the middle of the night.
As far as specs unless you plan to have lots of devices connected at once all needing transcoding or many other apps on the array running that build is an overkill.
i’m running 1TB’s because i can’t afford 10TB drives. that’s just way too much money for me to be dumping into my system let alone i already have to buy Unraid (Live in Canada) so the price difference is a bit more and also hardware in Canada isn’t very cheap due to our higher tax rate where i live 13% so i’m not about to just drop 1000$+ into drives of 10TB each. I don’t make a ton of money from my job so i’m on a very tight budget when it comes to drives. also i was given some hardware from a friends dad that just closed down his PC store here where i live and couldn’t sell everything off so he gave me a hand full of high read/write SSD drives for cheap.
It wasn’t about 1TB vs 10TB, it was about 10x1TB SSD vs 1x10TB HDD.
For 1TB SSD Drives you’re paying about $60-85 each for the cheapest finds. That’s $600-$850 at a minimum… For 10TB…
A Single 10TB HDD is ~$250… so you could get 2-3x10TB Drives, giving you 2-3 times the storage…
Getting 10x1TB Drives for cheap is good though… that’s a nice hookup
Edit: If it were me, I’d resell the SSD drives I got for cheap, turn a profit, and get HDD’s… Mostly because for Transcoding, SSD’s will burn out and die quickly… there’s ways around it, like running a RAM Drive for Transcoding… But the cost per GB for SSD is terrible, the performance increase in read/write is not something you’ll need unless you’ve got a 20Gbit+ Internet connection or you’re going to be doing 8K Video editing from multiple remote workstations, etc… It’s just not a good purchase… That’s my opinion, and you can definitely build your system how you want… It just seems wasteful in most cases… and if your SSD’s burn out… they’re much more expensive to replace…
