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Plex sever

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11 hours ago, Donut417 said:

AMD GPUs won’t do hardware transcoding period. So any low end GPU will work. You may want to research how many transcodes that CPU can do. Because you needed 6. I’d imagine you will be OK but I haven’t looked at the Benchmark data compared to what Plex needs for each transcode. 

 

AMD GPU's including Radeon & Vega / Integrated Vega graphics work on Windows, via the dxva2 API. 

So technically the OP could get a Radeon card, or more useful, could use a G series Ryzen like the 3400G to enable hardware acceleration. 

 

9 hours ago, lemoine7576 said:

Passmark says this cpu is a little above 1700. Okay ill do some research on gpu. Any suggestions on a power supply?

If you get a Plex Pass, or Emby Premiere and do hardware transcoding, then the passmark score of your CPU is largely irrelevant.

Stick with a CPU with integrated graphics and use hardware to do the transcoding. Intel i3 9100 or Ryzen 3200G can easily do what you want, without a discrete GPU and considerably less power. 

 

What PSU you get depends on if you go integrated graphics or discrete GPU, and what case you go for.

Really you need to decide how many drives you want, and what sort of form factor. From there you can work out what cooler & PSU you need. 

 

In my living rooms i have an i3-7100 with a Z270 in a RVZ02, and an i3-8100 with a B360 in a Node 202.

They both have Noctua L9x65 coolers, NVMe boot drive, Silverstone SFX PSUs and space for 2 x 3.5" hard disks (one of them has a GTX1070 instead). 

Theyre both easily capable of a dozen transcoded streams if they were Plex servers, using QuickSync (ones a Steam Gaming machine, the other is a Kodi Media Center)

 

Just pointing out you don't need such an expensive CPU and discrete graphics, and by eliminating these you can easily create a compact efficient solution if you use some high capacity disks. 

 

My Plex server does run on one of my servers with a Ryzen 3950x, but it only has 2 CPU cores & 4GB memory assigned, the GTX1070 does all the lifting and can easily do over 20 x 1080p transcoded streams. Most of the CPU & Memory assigned to my Plex VM is for the other ~12 applications I have running on there as well. 

Hello I'm going to be building a sever for plex to get all my movies and TV show in one location. Now that being said I have never built a pc but have been wanting to after watching everyone of linus's videos. What would anyone recommend for a server that might have no more then 9 streams at once. Up for any suggestions this will be in my livingroom so something quiet would be ideal. Thanks in advance 😁

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On 5/14/2020 at 5:35 PM, lemoine7576 said:

Hello I'm going to be building a sever for plex to get all my movies and TV show in one location. Now that being said I have never built a pc but have been wanting to after watching everyone of linus's videos. What would anyone recommend for a server that might have no more then 9 streams at once. Up for any suggestions this will be in my livingroom so something quiet would be ideal. Thanks in advance 😁

Im going to see if I can point you in the right direction. 9 Streams are quite a few. The big question will be how many of those are going to need to be transcoded? Because direct play doesnt require too much to run but transcoding espeically multiple transcodes can require a bit of power. 

 

Transcoding happens when the video or audio is not in a format that the device your streaming to understands. Video transcoding can be done software wise (CPU horsepower) or hardware wise (GPU horse power). GPU wise only Nvidia and Intel iGPU's can do transcdoing. Intel wise you need at least a 4th gen Intel CPU or above. Nvidia wise gaming cards are limited to like 2 trascodes at a time, from what I have read. Audio transcoding is CPU bound I belevie and doesnt require too much from what I have see. How much power you will need depends on the amount of transcodes going and the resolution of the media. 

 

Plex is very DIY. You have many ways you can set things up. For example I use my old gaming computer for transcoding but my media is stored on a NAS. 

 

This page has some guide lines for CPUs: https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/. Treat it more like a guide than set in stone. 

 

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200375666-plex-media-server-requirements/ this link has more general info on Plex. In terms of ways you can set it up and RAM and OS's you can use. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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On 5/17/2020 at 10:41 AM, Donut417 said:

Im going to see if I can point you in the right direction. 9 Streams are quite a few. The big question will be how many of those are going to need to be transcoded? Because direct play doesnt require too much to run but transcoding espeically multiple transcodes can require a bit of power. 

 

Transcoding happens when the video or audio is not in a format that the device your streaming to understands. Video transcoding can be done software wise (CPU horsepower) or hardware wise (GPU horse power). GPU wise only Nvidia and Intel iGPU's can do transcdoing. Intel wise you need at least a 4th gen Intel CPU or above. Nvidia wise gaming cards are limited to like 2 trascodes at a time, from what I have read. Audio transcoding is CPU bound I belevie and doesnt require too much from what I have see. How much power you will need depends on the amount of transcodes going and the resolution of the media. 

 

Plex is very DIY. You have many ways you can set things up. For example I use my old gaming computer for transcoding but my media is stored on a NAS. 

 

This page has some guide lines for CPUs: https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/. Treat it more like a guide than set in stone. 

 

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200375666-plex-media-server-requirements/ this link has more general info on Plex. In terms of ways you can set it up and RAM and OS's you can use. 

The most i think that would ever be transcoded at one time would be around 6 at most. That being said I don't think that its going to happen often. Most of the videos and/or TV shows I have now are 1080 or less as well. I would also like something that will have a good upgrade path.

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7 hours ago, lemoine7576 said:

The most i think that would ever be transcoded at one time would be around 6 at most. That being said I don't think that its going to happen often. Most of the videos and/or TV shows I have now are 1080 or less as well. I would also like something that will have a good upgrade path.

But 6 transcodes is a lot still. If you doing software transcoding then you need to make sure you get a CPU with enough horse power. The links I provided will at least point you in a good direction. If your looking at Hardware transcoding then you might have to consider a workstation card, because like I said, the gaming grade Nvida GPU's will only do 2 trascodes at a time. I think their workstation cards will do more. BUT you also have to pay for Plex pass to have hardware transcoding. Not sure how many trascodes Intel can do on its iGPU but I doubt its 6. Also keep in mind that if you have the hard disk space, you could have the same movie in several formats. Such as one for your TV streaming devices and one for Mobile, ect. Thats what is advised when your doing 4K content. That you have 4K movies then you have lower res versions for devices that dont do 4K. 

 

As far as an upgrade path goes. Just know you will need to build a bigger system. Something with mATX or ATX to get a good upgrade path. Id probably look AMD, as there CPU's are pretty good value currently. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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1 hour ago, lemoine7576 said:

Do you think something along the lines of one of these would be over kill. Or would this be kinda on the loud and annoying side? https://www.ebay.com/itm/184100780109

 

While this seller seems to provide some nice refurbished servers, note that it is only an evaluation version of Windows Server installed. You will need to decide on which OS you intend to run. 

Also, if you are not familiar with server equipment, be aware that it is typically very noisy. This is not something you would want running 24/7 in bedroom or living area. Ideally you would want it stored away somewhere. 

You do not need server specific hardware to run Plex. Any standard PC will do. However I do understand the appeal of cheaper hardware for the processing power you are getting. 

 

 

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I thought you said this will be in your living room and needs to be quiet?

I wouldnt be looking at rackmount servers.

 

You can build an Intel i3 7100 or newer, and use the onboard HD graphics for hardware transcoding. 

Low power, low cooling requirement, quiet. Then just run Windows 10 or OpenElec

Spoiler

Desktop: Ryzen9 5950X | ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (Wifi) | EVGA RTX 3080Ti FTW3 | 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB Pro 3600Mhz | EKWB EK-AIO 360D-RGB | EKWB EK-Vardar RGB Fans | 1TB Samsung 980 Pro, 4TB Samsung 980 Pro | Corsair 5000D Airflow | Corsair HX850 Platinum PSU | Asus ROG 42" OLED PG42UQ + LG 32" 32GK850G Monitor | Roccat Vulcan TKL Pro Keyboard | Logitech G Pro X Superlight  | MicroLab Solo 7C Speakers | Audio-Technica ATH-M50xBT2 LE Headphones | TC-Helicon GoXLR | Audio-Technica AT2035 | LTT Desk Mat | XBOX-X Controller | Windows 11 Pro

 

Spoiler

Server: Fractal Design Define R6 | Ryzen 3950x | ASRock X570 Taichi | EVGA GTX1070 FTW | 64GB (4x16GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000Mhz | Corsair RM850v2 PSU | Fractal S36 Triple AIO | 12 x 8TB HGST Ultrastar He10 (WD Whitelabel) | 500GB Aorus Gen4 NVMe | 2 x 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe | LSI 9211-8i HBA

 

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1 hour ago, lemoine7576 said:

Do you think something along the lines of one of these would be over kill. Or would this be kinda on the loud and annoying side? https://www.ebay.com/itm/184100780109

Rack mount servers sound like Jet engines. Not quiet at all. Id recommend just a standard desktop build. 

 

4 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

onboard HD graphics for hardware transcoding

How many transcodes can the OP do with that? They were talking like 6. With up to 9 total streams. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

How many transcodes can the OP do with that? They were talking like 6. With up to 9 total streams. 

The Intel HD600 series and up can do 6-8 transcodes and supports h265, the i3-7100 has 2C/4T and the 8100 & 9100 have 4 real cores, so they can easily handle the audio transcoding & additional direct streams no problem.

 

Edit: As comparison heres a Celeron G4900 able to do 21 x 1080p simultaneous transcodes using Quick Sync

Spoiler

Desktop: Ryzen9 5950X | ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (Wifi) | EVGA RTX 3080Ti FTW3 | 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB Pro 3600Mhz | EKWB EK-AIO 360D-RGB | EKWB EK-Vardar RGB Fans | 1TB Samsung 980 Pro, 4TB Samsung 980 Pro | Corsair 5000D Airflow | Corsair HX850 Platinum PSU | Asus ROG 42" OLED PG42UQ + LG 32" 32GK850G Monitor | Roccat Vulcan TKL Pro Keyboard | Logitech G Pro X Superlight  | MicroLab Solo 7C Speakers | Audio-Technica ATH-M50xBT2 LE Headphones | TC-Helicon GoXLR | Audio-Technica AT2035 | LTT Desk Mat | XBOX-X Controller | Windows 11 Pro

 

Spoiler

Server: Fractal Design Define R6 | Ryzen 3950x | ASRock X570 Taichi | EVGA GTX1070 FTW | 64GB (4x16GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000Mhz | Corsair RM850v2 PSU | Fractal S36 Triple AIO | 12 x 8TB HGST Ultrastar He10 (WD Whitelabel) | 500GB Aorus Gen4 NVMe | 2 x 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe | LSI 9211-8i HBA

 

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I run a Plex server, I can server up to 8 clients with full H265 transcodes, and up to 9 clients with full H264 transcodes.

 

And this is on a 7 year old i7-4790k.  A current generation i7 CPU, or Ryzen 3700x will handle more than 10 without a hint of strain.

 

Or, you can do a lower power CPU like an i3, or Ryzen 3 series with a P2000 GFX card to offload the hardware transcoding to the GPU.

 

Plex does not need RAM, 8GB is perfectly fine.  Plex doesn't even need SSDs really.  However, hosting the Plex Database on a SSD will improve your browsing experience with a large library.   But the actual media files themselves can exist on spinning rust perfectly.

Home PC: Apple M1 Mini, 16gb, 1TB, 10Gig-E.  Adobe CC and Ripping things + Daily stuff.

Gaming PC: Ryzen 7 5800x, 32GB, Nvidia RTX 3080Ti stuffed into a Corsair 380T.

Asgard the FreeNAS Plex Server: AMD EPYC 7443p 24 Core, SuperMicro H12SSL-CT Mobo, 256GB DDR4 3200mhz, Norco 4224 Rack Mount. 100TB+ TrueNAS Core.

 

Toys:

2017 Focus RS | Frozen White | Daily Driver

1989 Pontiac TransAm | GM Triple White | Heads/Cammed LT1 + T56 swap | Suspension goodies up the wazoo. | HPDE Weekend Warrior toy.

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Thanks for all of your guys input this puts me on a better track. Anything other comments are more then welcome I'm saving money as of now. This was to just start a layout. Anyone have a recommendation on case that's not to bad to build in and has room for more drives to be added as needed?

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11 hours ago, lemoine7576 said:

How about something like this 

Screenshot_20200520-204028_Samsung Internet.jpg

You could make it work. But remember that chip has no iGPU so you would need  a GPU. Where as an Intel chip would have a iGPU and the ability to do hardware transcoding if you decide to pay for Plex pass. Not sure if I’d trust a fanless cooler however. Noctua makes excellent coolers and are quiet. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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So this would be a better cooler then. Also what would be your recommendation for a gpu i would prefer to stay with amd. 

Screenshot_20200521-102124_Samsung Internet.jpg

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13 minutes ago, lemoine7576 said:

So this would be a better cooler then. Also what would be your recommendation for a gpu i would prefer to stay with amd. 

Screenshot_20200521-102124_Samsung Internet.jpg

AMD GPUs won’t do hardware transcoding period. So any low end GPU will work. You may want to research how many transcodes that CPU can do. Because you needed 6. I’d imagine you will be OK but I haven’t looked at the Benchmark data compared to what Plex needs for each transcode. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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Passmark says this cpu is a little above 1700. Okay ill do some research on gpu. Any suggestions on a power supply?

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5 hours ago, lemoine7576 said:

Passmark says this cpu is a little above 1700. Okay ill do some research on gpu. Any suggestions on a power supply?

Seasonic Focus Golds tend to have good ratings. Thats what I got in my gaming machine.

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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11 hours ago, Donut417 said:

AMD GPUs won’t do hardware transcoding period. So any low end GPU will work. You may want to research how many transcodes that CPU can do. Because you needed 6. I’d imagine you will be OK but I haven’t looked at the Benchmark data compared to what Plex needs for each transcode. 

 

AMD GPU's including Radeon & Vega / Integrated Vega graphics work on Windows, via the dxva2 API. 

So technically the OP could get a Radeon card, or more useful, could use a G series Ryzen like the 3400G to enable hardware acceleration. 

 

9 hours ago, lemoine7576 said:

Passmark says this cpu is a little above 1700. Okay ill do some research on gpu. Any suggestions on a power supply?

If you get a Plex Pass, or Emby Premiere and do hardware transcoding, then the passmark score of your CPU is largely irrelevant.

Stick with a CPU with integrated graphics and use hardware to do the transcoding. Intel i3 9100 or Ryzen 3200G can easily do what you want, without a discrete GPU and considerably less power. 

 

What PSU you get depends on if you go integrated graphics or discrete GPU, and what case you go for.

Really you need to decide how many drives you want, and what sort of form factor. From there you can work out what cooler & PSU you need. 

 

In my living rooms i have an i3-7100 with a Z270 in a RVZ02, and an i3-8100 with a B360 in a Node 202.

They both have Noctua L9x65 coolers, NVMe boot drive, Silverstone SFX PSUs and space for 2 x 3.5" hard disks (one of them has a GTX1070 instead). 

Theyre both easily capable of a dozen transcoded streams if they were Plex servers, using QuickSync (ones a Steam Gaming machine, the other is a Kodi Media Center)

 

Just pointing out you don't need such an expensive CPU and discrete graphics, and by eliminating these you can easily create a compact efficient solution if you use some high capacity disks. 

 

My Plex server does run on one of my servers with a Ryzen 3950x, but it only has 2 CPU cores & 4GB memory assigned, the GTX1070 does all the lifting and can easily do over 20 x 1080p transcoded streams. Most of the CPU & Memory assigned to my Plex VM is for the other ~12 applications I have running on there as well. 

Spoiler

Desktop: Ryzen9 5950X | ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (Wifi) | EVGA RTX 3080Ti FTW3 | 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB Pro 3600Mhz | EKWB EK-AIO 360D-RGB | EKWB EK-Vardar RGB Fans | 1TB Samsung 980 Pro, 4TB Samsung 980 Pro | Corsair 5000D Airflow | Corsair HX850 Platinum PSU | Asus ROG 42" OLED PG42UQ + LG 32" 32GK850G Monitor | Roccat Vulcan TKL Pro Keyboard | Logitech G Pro X Superlight  | MicroLab Solo 7C Speakers | Audio-Technica ATH-M50xBT2 LE Headphones | TC-Helicon GoXLR | Audio-Technica AT2035 | LTT Desk Mat | XBOX-X Controller | Windows 11 Pro

 

Spoiler

Server: Fractal Design Define R6 | Ryzen 3950x | ASRock X570 Taichi | EVGA GTX1070 FTW | 64GB (4x16GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000Mhz | Corsair RM850v2 PSU | Fractal S36 Triple AIO | 12 x 8TB HGST Ultrastar He10 (WD Whitelabel) | 500GB Aorus Gen4 NVMe | 2 x 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe | LSI 9211-8i HBA

 

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8 hours ago, Jarsky said:

AMD GPU's including Radeon & Vega / Integrated Vega graphics work on Windows, via the dxva2 API. 

So technically the OP could get a Radeon card, or more useful, could use a G series Ryzen like the 3400G to enable hardware acceleration. 

Must be a recent thing. Becuse when I built my server, specifically I was told Intel or Nvidia. Good to know Team Red is getting some love. The bad part of using Windows though, its it restarts when it feels like. Thats the reason I moved my Plex box off Windows. Because I cant have it recording a show and decide "Oh I think Ill just restart to install an update". 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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You can solve that by turning off updates in the services and use o&o shutup which will keep all services you disabled  off.

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So your saying something like this would run everything with no problem?

 

parts plex 1.png

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1 hour ago, lemoine7576 said:

So your saying something like this would run everything with no problem?

 

parts plex 1.png

I would go for a smaller SSD or a SATA based one to save money. I’ve had Plex running on a SSHD and now a SATA SSD and there’s not much of a difference in terms of performance. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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