Plex Server Build Plan

[dducharme]

Hi All,

 

I posted this on reddit a month ago but got no responses. First time building a server for Plex and just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something that would improve the specific use case.

I am planning on building a file server to host my Plex library instead of having it on my high end gaming desktop. My goals for the build are as follows:

1. Power Efficient

2. Should be able to ingest media and run it through handbreak

3. Storage, lots of storage

4. Quiet, if it is quiet it will be in the media room in order to direct cable into the wifi, otherwise I will need onboard wifi to put it in a location where noise doesn't matter.

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KxVPvn
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KxVPvn/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($294.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Asus - PRIME X370-PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($139.12 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($339.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($98.73 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($98.73 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($98.73 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($98.73 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GT 1030 2 GB Video Card  ($89.33 @ Amazon) 
Case: Silverstone - CS380 ATX Mid Tower Case 
Power Supply: Cooler Master - 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($141.62 @ OutletPC) 
Optical Drive: LG - WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($54.90 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1454.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-01 22:47 EDT-0400

I don't care so much about price, my main concern is how well it will perform with Handbreak and Plex. I am planning on running Unraid as the OS, but if Windows or another Linux distro will perform better I am open to suggestions for that as well.

[Spotty]

39 minutes ago, dducharme said:

Power Supply: Cooler Master - 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($141.62 @ OutletPC)

Why is that $141? Is that the V550? Get the Bitfenix Whisper M 450W instead. Lots of SATA connectors (for if you want to expand HDDs) and quiet. Also only $70.

 

39 minutes ago, dducharme said:

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor ($294.99 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: Asus - PRIME X370-PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard ($139.12 @ OutletPC)

Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($339.99 @ Amazon)

You could save over $100 with a 1700x instead of the 2700x. Still 8c/16t if you're ripping a lot of movies.

Why 64GB of RAM? You shouldn't need that much RAM for Handbrake. (Ah, unless you're running a couple of VMs in unraid?)
Here's a comparison of different RAM in Handbrake converting a 4k movie to x264. No difference between 16GB (4x4) and 64GB (8x8).

https://www.anandtech.com/show/8959/ddr4-haswell-e-scaling-review-2133-to-3200-with-gskill-corsair-adata-and-crucial/4 (Little bit old, but still applies)

 

---------------------------
 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 1700X 3.4 GHz 8-Core Processor	$185.99 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master - Hyper 212 Black Edition 42 CFM CPU Cooler	$31.00 @ B&H
Motherboard	Gigabyte - B450 AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0) ATX AM4 Motherboard	$109.99 @ Newegg Business
Memory	Crucial - Ballistix Sport LT 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$83.69 @ Amazon
Storage	Western Digital - Blue 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$89.99 @ Newegg Business
Storage	Western Digital - Blue 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$89.99 @ Newegg Business
Storage	Western Digital - Blue 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$89.99 @ Newegg Business
Storage	Western Digital - Blue 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$89.99 @ Newegg Business
Video Card	MSI - GeForce GT 710 2 GB Low Profile Video Card	$49.00 @ Amazon
Power Supply	BitFenix - Whisper M 450 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$70.98 @ SuperBiiz
Optical Drive	LG - WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer	$54.90 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$945.51
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-01 23:24 EDT-0400

 

All up you can save around $500. Just add whatever case suits your living room.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Spotty

[dducharme]

Great, this is exactly what I was looking for. Main reason for picking the PSU that I did was that it was a reputable brand seeing as how this will need to run 24/7. That said, any reviews on BitFenix as I do not recognize the brand, although with that price difference I could buy 2 and have a spare lol.

 

My goal is for this machine to be primarily dedicated as the Plex server and also hold a secondary NAS to backup some files to, so if the RAM will not effect Plex or Handbreak then I agree I should drop it down. I wasn't sure how important CPU speed and RAM was for handbreak and Plex's encoding the video at playback. I do expect that once the server is fully up and running there may be 2 to 3 video streams coming off of there simultaneously.

[Spotty]

58 minutes ago, dducharme said:

Great, this is exactly what I was looking for. Main reason for picking the PSU that I did was that it was a reputable brand seeing as how this will need to run 24/7. That said, any reviews on BitFenix as I do not recognize the brand, although with that price difference I could buy 2 and have a spare lol. 

The Cooler Master V550 is a good unit - certainly nothing wrong with it, but there's stuff that is just as good or better that would meet your needs that would be cheaper, in this case half the price which is not an insignificant amount.

Bitfenix Whisper M is a top end unit. They're also known for having a very good, quiet fan. 80+ gold efficiency as well since it will be running 24/7. The 8x SATA connectors that come with the unit will help with adding more HDDs as well if you expand your media library in the future, and if you really need to then you can add an extra 2 cables with 4 SATA connectors on each for a total of 16 SATA connectors (extra cables sold separately).

Review for the 550W (essentially the same as the 450W): https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bitfenix-whisper-series-550w-psu,4805.html

And also the Cybernetics report for the Whisper M 450W: https://www.cybenetics.com/code/pdf.php?id=pTP

 

58 minutes ago, dducharme said:

My goal is for this machine to be primarily dedicated as the Plex server and also hold a secondary NAS to backup some files to, so if the RAM will not effect Plex or Handbreak then I agree I should drop it down. I wasn't sure how important CPU speed and RAM was for handbreak and Plex's encoding the video at playback. I do expect that once the server is fully up and running there may be 2 to 3 video streams coming off of there simultaneously.

I have a NAS/Plex server that runs on 8GB of RAM and I have no issues with memory. During Plex 4K video playback I'm only seeing 5.7GB RAM used on the system. I don't do a lot of Handbrake encoding these days, but from memory when I did use it, it didn't use a lot of RAM. Might be a different story if you were using Adobe Premiere and doing lots of video editing, but for straight transcoding (converting a movie to x264/x265 or whatever) it shouldn't use much.
My advice would be go with the 2x8GB kit, and if for whatever reason you need to add more RAM further down the line grab another 2x8GB kit to give you 4x8GB (32GB). Though, for what you're doing I very much doubt you will ever need more than 16GB.
As for RAM speed, I think when I looked on PCPP the difference between 2666MHz 2x8GB and 3000Mhz 2x8GB was $3 or something, so I'd just go for the faster 3000MHz kit regardless.

[dducharme]

Perfect. I noticed that you simply stated that I should use whatever case suits, but any recommendations on cases with decent airflow and allow for large numbers of drives? I had been looking at the Silverstone CS380 but it didn't get great reviews on Newegg. As I mentioned in my first post, if this ends up being quiet enough I want to stick it right behind the TV stand so that I can wire it directly into the router. If it is a bit noisy that is fine as well as I will stick it with my gaming rig, but then it will require wifi.