Which is best for PLEX SERVER, TrueNAS core, TrueNAS scale, unRAID?

Plex Media Server
, , ,
1

Server Version#:
Player Version#:

Hi everyone. What should I install on my system if my chief use is for PLEX SERVER with transcoding? unRAID, TrueNAS Core, TrueNAS Scale?

Hardware:

Supermicro 4U 36 Bay SAS3 Server X10DRH-iT
Xeon 28 Cores
32GB ECC REG (I will probably be upgrading this to 128/256)
AOC-S3008L-L8E 2P
Nvidia P2000
24 x 18TB SATA 7200rpm drives

What would you recommend for the best use of these resources?

2

Neither are supported – that’s issue 1.

I have an X10SRA with E5-2690 and P2200
– Ubuntu server, Linux RAID (mdadm)

It’s unstoppable (until I run out of upload or GPU RAM)

Issue 2 – ZFS is not efficient with storage and it’s NOT fast with HDDs (it’s intended for SSDs only)

3

Are you saying that using straight Ubuntu Server is better than using containers or docs?

Is that what you mean by its not supported directly? I see a lot of people talking about unraid and plex, so I am confused.

Obviously I want the fastest system I can get, so if its Ubuntu Server and mdadm I am more than willing to go that way.

As for running out of GPU ram, under what conditions does that happen? How many streams transcoding?

4

Yes. Being on the bare metal is always best if you can be.

If you want to run any of those, you’re more than welcome to do so for your storage.
Our ability to help extends only as far as the Docker container you’re running in.
Any advanced features (hardware transcoding, etc) are your responsibility)

I will run out of things in this order:

  1. Upload speed
  2. Video Ram (after about the 7-8th concurrent transcode - dependent on video. The card has 5GB ram)
  3. LAN speed (Wifi devices will max out my 2.5 Gbps feed to the AP)
  4. HDD array speed (1.4 GB/sec)
5

I should probably add that, because of how I curate my media,

  1. I don’t transcode video on the local LAN. Some devices convert the audio but most are DirectPlay (stronger devices at the TVs. I will occasionally get “DirectStream” remux.

  2. I have Text (SRT) subtitles if at all.

6

I am confused about the upload, you mean serving streams over the internet right? My system will be serving on a local network, which for the most part is 10GBE backboned. The server will have at least 2 x 10GBE ports and most likely 2 x 40GBE QSFP+ ports. I have a bunch of 10GBE switches as well as one central 40GBE/10GBE QSFP+ switch.

Would it make sense to have the storage taken care of TrueNAS, on a seperate system and the PlexServer runing stand alone on its own machine? Or is it best to have them all on one machine?

Most of the clients are LG TV’s I don’t think their lan port is bigger than 1000Mbit, in most cases only 100Mbit… (which is silly considering some of these TVs cost like 5K when they came out and they only put in 100Mbit lan port… how short sighted when the silicone for 1000Mbit could be bought for a few cents in bulk)

Its a big cottage so there could be 10 streams going at max at some point, but most likely only 2 or 3 on the regular.

With a good Network, does it matter if the storage is local? Can it be taken care of independently? OR is it best to run Ubuntu Server on one machine and have ONE machine deal with all transcoding and storage.

Also, I have one of those shield boxes TV’s, is it possible to put that on the network, and will Plex Server utilize it for transcoding as a fallover to the P2000?

7

My use case:

  1. Yes, I share my server with my family. I run out of upload long before I exhaust anything here.

  2. I have a single 24 port 10GbE switch through which is all my media work (my workstation is also 10GbE as are the other NASes)

  3. My main NAS, where the PMS server resides, is is 20 GbE (2x 10GbE bonded). PMS accounts for about 10% of the total system load at peak usage.

Before throwing 40 GbE at it (which is just overkill in the extreme)… How about actually sizing the needs???

LG TV’s have 100 Mbps LAN - PERIOD. Gigabit is more than enough but won’t satisfy the requirements to play HEVC HDR 2160p

Count the number of ports you NEED, then add 50% for growth.

I used to use a converged appliance (QNAP w/ PMS running on the resident i7-7700).
It worked by PMS it was single point of failure as well as made upgrading technologies impossible.

Now, with storage and processing decoupled,

  1. I can pull the Nvidia card and put it anywhere I want + relocate PMS to that new host.

  2. Add more storage in a separate enclosure and pull the media over the 10GbE link… (in extreme cases where 1 GB/sec is actually needed) (remember most good 2160p averages about 80 Mbps)

8

If you have 10 concurrent streams.

  1. Can you curate (prepare) your media such that the problem is reduced to delivery only (network) ?

  2. Storage + Compute hose - VS - Hyper-converged appliance is ultimately your choice

10 streams is pretty trivial if you’re not hard transcoding every single one.

9

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.