Converting old sytem to Plex server?

[PineyCreek]

This is a bit of a debate type thread...feel free to voice your opinion, give advice, tell me I'm a lunatic, tell me your hopes and dreams, provide constructive criticism, etc.

 

At this point I've accepted that my old system is not likely fit for a NAS setup unless I also buy a decent RAID card.

 

Old system specs:

Core i7-930

16GB DDR3

GTX 770

various HDDs running at SATA II, using onboard RAID in some cases.

X58A chipset motherboard (Gigabyte X58A-UD7 I think? It's honestly kind of crap for a flagship board IMO)

 

I'm curious what makes more sense in terms of cost outlay and/or power usage.  I want to have both a NAS and a Plex server.  The Plex Server would be used remotely to some extent, and the NAS would be syncing with several other NAS units.  I was thinking of grabbing some 10TB+ drives and maybe a NAS from QNAP or Drobo or Buffalo, or trying to get a RAID card for this old system.

 

Looking at least 25TB minimum with potential expansion.

 

So, options to achieve my end goal:

 

1) Buy a decent used server from ebay/other site.  Cost would vary, modification cost would also vary.

2) Buy a basic NAS enclosure and some drives.  Use old system to run the Plex server.

3) Buy a basic NAS enclosure and some drives.  Buy a used desktop with better specs than my old system to run the Plex server.  Or maybe a NUC or Raspberry Pi.  Not great for remote.

4) Buy a high-end NAS enclosure and some drives that has Plex functionality built in.  May have issues with transcoding/remote access depending on type.

5) Build server in a 4U storage enclosure along with some drives (best and most expensive option, and probably overkill).  Both NAS and Plex run on same unit. Maybe use parts from old system here.

6) Buy a RAID card and shove the drives in the old system (full tower, plenty of power).  Run Plex and NAS setup with syncing off of same unit.

7) Other?  I might be overthinking things.  I usually do.

 

Not really thinking budget limits at this point, although that is a concern.  Thank you in advance for your feedback.

[Electronics Wizardy]

38 minutes ago, PineyCreek said:

At this point I've accepted that my old system is not likely fit for a NAS setup unless I also buy a decent RAID card.

Why? Software raid will work fine.

 

Id just make this a NAS and a plex server, it should do both fine. How many drives do you have? How much storage do you need? 

[PineyCreek]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Why? Software raid will work fine.

 

Id just make this a NAS and a plex server, it should do both fine. How many drives do you have? How much storage do you need? 

I was worried there would be some transcoding delays due to the older video card primarily.  I'd need to buy the drives.  However, if I went with the older system I'd want a RAID card anyway because all the onboard ports are SATA II.  Probably do 3-4 10TB or larger drives to start.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, PineyCreek said:

I was worried there would be some transcoding delays due to the older video card primarily.  I'd need to buy the drives.  However, if I went with the older system I'd want a RAID card anyway because all the onboard ports are SATA II.  Probably do 3-4 10TB or larger drives to start.

Unless you have plex pass, all transcoding is on the cpu. But that cpu can probably do 2 streams or more at 1080p just fine, so i wouldn't worry about it.

 

Sata II won't be a problem at all, no hdd is faster than sata ii, so it won't limit you, also you limited by the 1gbit network, and video is very low bandwidth.

 

Id just add the drives and install plex and your os of choice(windows, linux(unraid, or just a normal distro), freenas and others will all work fine here. Use what you like the most.

[PineyCreek]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Unless you have plex pass, all transcoding is on the cpu. But that cpu can probably do 2 streams or more at 1080p just fine, so i wouldn't worry about it.

 

Sata II won't be a problem at all, no hdd is faster than sata ii, so it won't limit you, also you limited by the 1gbit network, and video is very low bandwidth.

 

Id just add the drives and install plex and your os of choice(windows, linux(unraid, or just a normal distro), freenas and others will all work fine here. Use what you like the most.

While I am somewhat leery of a potential drop in HDD performance, I appreciate this feedback very much.  It makes my goal much more reasonable to attain.  If I only need to purchase HDDs and spend some time setting things up, that will cost way less than I anticipated...

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, PineyCreek said:

While I am somewhat leery of a potential drop in HDD performance, I appreciate this feedback very much.  It makes my goal much more reasonable to attain.  If I only need to purchase HDDs and spend some time setting things up, that will cost way less than I anticipated...

the sata speed won't be a issue at all here, there is no hdd that can even fill a sata II bus for sale, and its not like your doing anything that needs the performance.

[PineyCreek]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

the sata speed won't be a issue at all here, there is no hdd that can even fill a sata II bus for sale, and its not like your doing anything that needs the performance.

Nice!  Then I can run several large drives off my onboard RAID in RAID 5 perhaps, get the NAS to sync with the others and run plex with just the cost of the drives!  Thank you!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, PineyCreek said:

Nice!  Then I can run several large drives off my onboard RAID in RAID 5 perhaps, get the NAS to sync with the others and run plex with just the cost of the drives!  Thank you!

Don't use the onboard raid, its bad, but software raid will work well here. 

 

What os do you plan to use? Setting of a network share is pretty easy?

[PineyCreek]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Don't use the onboard raid, its bad, but software raid will work well here. 

 

What os do you plan to use? Setting of a network share is pretty easy?

Mmm, well, ok...if I can get the job done with software raid that's fine too.  Right now I'm thinking of FreeNAS and then running the Plex server on that if I can.  It's either that or some flavor of Linux.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, PineyCreek said:

Mmm, well, ok...if I can get the job done with software raid that's fine too.  Right now I'm thinking of FreeNAS and then running the Plex server on that if I can.  It's either that or some flavor of Linux.

FreeNAS has ZFS, and thats a very good software raid solution, better than hardware raid in many ways with more feautres. Id give that a go here.

[Slayer3032]

X58 is a great platform if you already have the hardware, I'd recommend grabbing a westmere hexcore xeon though. You should just need a bios update and that's it. Switching from a i7-930 which made like 560cb in Cinebench at 3.8ghz to a X5675 at 4.6ghz which makes over 1050cb was like night and day. You can get a E5649 for like $10 off ebay which should easily do upto 4ghz and keep all of the power saving options still enabled. You can also pick up westmere and nehalem quad core xeons for less than $5 shipped, moving to 32nm westmere could help with power consumption too.

 

You can find tons of used sata3 raid cards on ebay, even if you don't use them for raid they should be significantly better than the addon sata3 junk. There's an LSI card which is fairly popular with X58 users, I think it's a 4 port sata3 card that is like $20 on ebay.