I’m thinking absolut getting a server

[Tottenstein]

Would the optiplex 790 be a good pc to use

 

these are the specs (sorry for Swedish namings)

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-2400 3,1Ghz

RAM: 4 GB DDR3

Hårddisk: 250 GB SATA 7200 RPM

Grafik: Intel HD Graphics 2000

Optisk: DVD+/-RW

Anslutningar:

USB 2.0: 10 st

RJ-45: 1 st

DisplayPort: 1 st

VGA: 1 st

Seriell: 1 st

 

 

im going to use the server as an Plex server and possibly as a media server 

[Oshino Shinobu]

If you're going to be transcoding with Plex, you may want to consider a more powerful CPU with Hyperthreading. You can get i7 3770's pretty cheap now.

[Master Disaster]

Or just get a Ras Pi 4 for £50 and save hundreds on electricity bills.

[Firewrath9]

4 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Or just get a Ras Pi 4 for £50 and save hundreds on electricity bills.

try plex transcoding on that. Try running that as a multi-user NAS. Try transcoding 1080p video on that.

Pi's are good for tinkering, but not much else.

Try not living in the middle of nowhere. 100W constantly is nowhere close to hundreds of dollars.

 

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Firewrath9 said:

try plex transcoding on that. Try running that as a multi-user NAS. Try transcoding 1080p video on that.

Pi's are good for tinkering, but not much else.

Try not living in the middle of nowhere. 100W constantly is nowhere close to hundreds of dollars.

 

I;ve got a Ras Pi 4 running OMV with an 8TB HDD and it runs Plex perfectly through Docker. I've had 3 users watching 1080p simultaneously with no problems. Heck it almost handles 4K transcoding.

 

The Ras Pi 4 is a MUCH MUCH MUCH more powerful device than the 3 was.

 

And no matter where you live running a PC 24/7 will cost hundreds per year.

[Tottenstein]

11 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Or just get a Ras Pi 4 for £50 and save hundreds on electricity bills.

I’m able to get that pc for £ 100 and we don’t play electricity bills in that sense where I live only pay an set amount every month 

 

[mariushm]

What's your budget/

 

The configuration is OK, but I'd recommend adding a SSD drive to it.

 

If you're gonna transcode often, it may be beneficial to have a video card, seems like nVidia cards would be supported by Plex.

 

Anyway 100 UK pounds isn't so great

[Tottenstein]

6 minutes ago, mariushm said:

What's your budget/

 

The configuration is OK, but I'd recommend adding a SSD drive to it.

 

If you're gonna transcode often, it may be beneficial to have a video card, seems like nVidia cards would be supported by Plex.

 

Anyway 100 UK pounds isn't so great

What kind of cards would be good to add if so 

[mariushm]

9 minutes ago, Tottenstein said:

What kind of cards would be good to add if so 

Anything except GT 1030, which has the hardware encoders disabled.

Basically, a card that supports nvEnc (see the nvenc support column) : https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

Scroll down and click on that green button GEFORCE / TITAN to see more down-to-Earth cards.

 

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, Tottenstein said:

Would the optiplex 790 be a good pc to use

 

these are the specs (sorry for Swedish namings)

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-2400 3,1Ghz

RAM: 4 GB DDR3

Hårddisk: 250 GB SATA 7200 RPM

Grafik: Intel HD Graphics 2000

Optisk: DVD+/-RW

Anslutningar:

USB 2.0: 10 st

RJ-45: 1 st

DisplayPort: 1 st

VGA: 1 st

Seriell: 1 st

 

 

im going to use the server as an Plex server and possibly as a media server 

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/

 

Should not be taken litternally. But that link provides info related to what CPU you will need depending on if your transcoding. My i5 3570K Plex server can transcode 3 1080P streams. Now transcoding only happens when the video/audio is in a format your streaming device does not understand. So if things are in the proper format, then no transcoding happens. Also, your machine will only be able to do software transcoding. Intel didnt start putting the tech in to the iGPU for better video transcoding until the 4th gen chips, and even then you would want to use a newer chip then that. But as stated above you can add a graphics card to take the transcoding duties. 

 

Id recommend looking on your streaming devices. Find out what formats for video and audio they support. Find a format that they all support and put your movies in to that format. That should solve any issues releated to transcoding or at least needing to do it for multiple streams. But Id also make sure the server has enough power to do as many transcodes you think it will need to do. For example my movies are in the proper format, BUT OTA TV is in MPEG 2, my parents 4K Roku's dont do MPEG2. So if they watch live TV, it has to transcode the content. 

 

2 hours ago, mariushm said:

The configuration is OK, but I'd recommend adding a SSD drive to it.

 

Yeah, but could you get one cheap enough and large enough to store a lot of data? Because with just the OS and Plex running on the SSD, I dont notice any diffrence from when I had my Plex server installed on a laptop with a SSHD. Id imagine if I had acutaly video data stored on the drive it would maybe be more responsive, but 8TB SSD's are still expensive LOL. And 1TB of storage is not a lot when you have shit tons of videos. 

[mariushm]

I recommend one not for storage, but for the operating  system ... even a 32GB one would be plenty.

It's just more reliable and silent, and the 250 GB drive that PC comes is most likely already years old and with tens of thousands of hours of operation... may die in 6 months or 1 year or 5 years... either way better piece of mind to use a SSD that doesn't have moving parts.

 

ex: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apacer-16GB-MLC-SATA-Module-HF-8C-F1DD2-LR10B/173991936388

 

 

 

[2FA]

16 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

I;ve got a Ras Pi 4 running OMV with an 8TB HDD and it runs Plex perfectly through Docker. I've had 3 users watching 1080p simultaneously with no problems. Heck it almost handles 4K transcoding.

 

The Ras Pi 4 is a MUCH MUCH MUCH more powerful device than the 3 was.

 

And no matter where you live running a PC 24/7 will cost hundreds per year.

You're Direct Playing or Direct Streaming which is not the same as transcoding. You're simply reading the media and sending it over the network. That's better than transcoding though because it maintains the quality of the media whereas transcoding will typically reduce the quality somewhat. Making sure all your media is in a common format that all Plex clients can play directly prevents transcoding from ever happening, usually. The ideal media format is H.264 (in either .mkv or .mp4, doesn't matter which) with AAC audio.