Virtualized Enviroment - Plex, Security, DNS, etc

[that1itguy]

Hey LTT Community!

 

I finally purchased my own home for the first time which will FINALLY give me freedom to build a virtualized environment!

 

My current system is an Asus P8Z77-V LK, 32GB Ram, Core i7-3770 3.40GHz and 2x 4TB data drives with Ubuntu 18.10 installed.

Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, SABnzbd and Lidarr are all running on the same machine.

At any given time, I have about 5 Plex users connected all at the same time.. so figured I'd need a beefy server to do trans-coding.

 

I'm wanting to purchase a somewhat cheaper Dell server that I can run a virtualized environment on (suggestions?)

Wanting to run Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, etc all of different VM's for the sake of consistency and backing up purposes.

 

I'm also wanting to install some Security NVR (potentially Milestone) so that I am able to live view and record up to 10 IP cameras.

What cameras would you recommend purchasing that wouldn't be really expensive, but are POE capable and have a good quality image?

 

So my main question in.. what would be a recommend Dell server with specs that would be able to handle all of that load above?

 

Thanks for your time!

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, that1itguy said:

I'm wanting to purchase a somewhat cheaper Dell server that I can run a virtualized environment on (suggestions?)

 

Budget? 

 

Probably r720 is yoru best bet.

 

You ca get dual 2011 chips, and 256gb+ of ram. If you need more, Id probalby go epyc or threadripper.

 

2 minutes ago, that1itguy said:

I'm also wanting to install some Security NVR (potentially Milestone) so that I am able to live view and record up to 10 IP cameras.

 

I like blue iris for this.

 

[that1itguy]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Budget? 

Was hoping to stay under $1000

 

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, that1itguy said:

 

Yea should be able to get a r720 for that amount with dual 8 or 10 cores. THen put something like 64 or 128gb of ram, and some ssds for vms, and some hdds.

[that1itguy]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea should be able to get a r720 for that amount with dual 8 or 10 cores. THen put something like 64 or 128gb of ram, and some ssds for vms, and some hdds.

How easy or hard would it be to move over my current Plex environment (settings, users, etc) to the new VM environment without having to set everything back up from scratch?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, that1itguy said:

How easy or hard would it be to move over my current Plex environment (settings, users, etc) to the new VM environment without having to set everything back up from scratch?

Is plex already in a vm? what hypervisor?

 

Normally moving vms is easy.

 

 

[that1itguy]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Is plex already in a vm? what hypervisor?

 

Normally moving vms is easy.

 

 

Negative, I just have a full blown version of Ubuntu installed on a desktop PC and have Plex and the other services currently installed and running on that. I wish I would have done a VM from the beginning but I never did.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, that1itguy said:

Negative, I just have a full blown version of Ubuntu installed on a desktop PC and have Plex and the other services currently installed and running on that. I wish I would have done a VM from the beginning but I never did.

Did you look up the migration guide? https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/

[that1itguy]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Did you look up the migration guide? https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/

I did not, but will check that out now. Thanks for the tips and info on the rest!

[Jarsky]

3 hours ago, that1itguy said:

How easy or hard would it be to move over my current Plex environment (settings, users, etc) to the new VM environment without having to set everything back up from scratch?

 

The *easiest* way, would be to P2V (Physical to Virtual) your Ubuntu install.. 

If you use ESXi  as an example, then you can simply setup the new server with ESXi, configure your storage etc....then install VMware Converter to a Windows machine (e.g your desktop), and target your Ubuntu server as the source, and then ESXi host as the destination. Change any VM hardware settings you want, and it will automatically create the VM and convert it. 

 

For QEMU based virtualisation (Proxmox, UnRAID, KVM, etc...) theres virt-p2v which is a similar CLI tool. 

 

Otherwise if you want something like UnRAID Docker, and want to create new docker containers for everything, then you'll need to migrate the appdata folder for your Plex, most importantly the database. 

[James Furie]

I am a newbie here, But if you are happy to purchase rather than build MY £380 Qnap NAS will do everything you want, Remote access, Security Camers, VM, Docker, Email ect Worth a look? Oh of course Plex.

Edited May 6, 2020 by James Furie
Forgot to mention Pex

[that1itguy]

13 hours ago, Jarsky said:

 

The *easiest* way, would be to P2V (Physical to Virtual) your Ubuntu install.. 

If you use ESXi  as an example, then you can simply setup the new server with ESXi, configure your storage etc....then install VMware Converter to a Windows machine (e.g your desktop), and target your Ubuntu server as the source, and then ESXi host as the destination. Change any VM hardware settings you want, and it will automatically create the VM and convert it. 

 

For QEMU based virtualisation (Proxmox, UnRAID, KVM, etc...) theres virt-p2v which is a similar CLI tool. 

 

Otherwise if you want something like UnRAID Docker, and want to create new docker containers for everything, then you'll need to migrate the appdata folder for your Plex, most importantly the database. 

Awesome! Thanks for that. I've done P to V migrations with windows before but never with Ubuntu. I'll have to try that as soon as I get a server delivered. 

[that1itguy]

8 hours ago, James Furie said:

I am a newbie here, But if you are happy to purchase rather than build MY £380 Qnap NAS will do everything you want, Remote access, Security Camers, VM, Docker, Email ect Worth a look? Oh of course Plex.

Thanks for that but looking at purchasing a Dell server regardless. Wishing you good luck on selling!