Old pc into media server advice

[J___]

Hi everyone! so I'm in the process of transforming an old pc of mine and setting it up to be a media server. I have a few questions I'm hoping you all could answer.

 

First, I don't know if I should go for a nvme or sata ssd for the os. I'm leaning towards the nvme drive because the motherboard only has four sata ports but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

 

Second, the server is not going to be next to the router and I was wondering if a powerline powerline ethernet adapter would be alright or if I should try and wire a ethernet cable across the house. I know ethernet would be the best speed wise but I'm also hesitant to drill a few holes in the wall.

 

Third, the server only has about 8gb of ram. Should I swap it out for 16 or is 8gb sufficient?

 

Fourth, I was wondering if anyone here has used plex and jellyfin and if they could recommend one of them. I cant decide between the two. I like how jellyfin is open source and has no paywalls but from what I have read plex seems to be more mature and has more features.

 

Here is the old pc/server specs if you are curious:

Cpu: Ryzen 3 1200

Gpu: gtx 1050

Ram: 8gb

MotherBoard: Msi b350m gaming pro

 

Thanks in advance for the help!

[The_Hackintosh]

nvme is a lil bit faster but i think only Nasa would notice that, and i would too lean towards plex

[LIGISTX]

16 minutes ago, J___ said:

Hi everyone! so I'm in the process of transforming an old pc of mine and setting it up to be a media server. I have a few questions I'm hoping you all could answer.

 

First, I don't know if I should go for a nvme or sata ssd for the os. I'm leaning towards the nvme drive because the motherboard only has four sata ports but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

 

Second, the server is not going to be next to the router and I was wondering if a powerline powerline ethernet adapter would be alright or if I should try and wire a ethernet cable across the house. I know ethernet would be the best speed wise but I'm also hesitant to drill a few holes in the wall.

 

Third, the server only has about 8gb of ram. Should I swap it out for 16 or is 8gb sufficient?

 

Fourth, I was wondering if anyone here has used plex and jellyfin and if they could recommend one of them. I cant decide between the two. I like how jellyfin is open source and has no paywalls but from what I have read plex seems to be more mature and has more features.

 

Here is the old pc/server specs if you are curious:

Cpu: Ryzen 3 1200

Gpu: gtx 1050

Ram: 8gb

MotherBoard: Msi b350m gaming pro

 

Thanks in advance for the help!

I use Plex and have for MANY years. It’s fantastic software. The paywall is more or less irrelevant as most of the paid features are not needed by most folks. 
 

What OS will you be using for this? Nvme is fine to save on sata ports, but the speed of NVMe is relatively meaningless since the boot drive of a server for this type of use has 0 affect on performance. But seeing as nvme isn’t very expensive anymore, and you don’t have many sata ports, that’s a fine option. 
 

Ethernet is definitely preferred…. Can you drill holes down into a basement, run the cables through there and then up to where the router is? Run the cable along mounding? Go out through a wall, run it outside, and back into where the router is? Plenty of ways to get creative with wire runs. 
 

RAM depends on OS… for reference, my homelab in my sig runs many things, one Ubuntu VM for my Plex server which I only give 2GB of ram and it’s plenty happy. My file server is Freenas (truenas) and that needs more RAM… it gets 16GB. I have many things virtualized on an older i3 and 28GB RAM system and everything is happy. So 8GB may be fine depending on OS and how you plan to deploy this. 

[J___]

47 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

I use Plex and have for MANY years. It’s fantastic software. The paywall is more or less irrelevant as most of the paid features are not needed by most folks. 
 

What OS will you be using for this? Nvme is fine to save on sata ports, but the speed of NVMe is relatively meaningless since the boot drive of a server for this type of use has 0 affect on performance. But seeing as nvme isn’t very expensive anymore, and you don’t have many sata ports, that’s a fine option. 
 

Ethernet is definitely preferred…. Can you drill holes down into a basement, run the cables through there and then up to where the router is? Run the cable along mounding? Go out through a wall, run it outside, and back into where the router is? Plenty of ways to get creative with wire runs. 
 

RAM depends on OS… for reference, my homelab in my sig runs many things, one Ubuntu VM for my Plex server which I only give 2GB of ram and it’s plenty happy. My file server is Freenas (truenas) and that needs more RAM… it gets 16GB. I have many things virtualized on an older i3 and 28GB RAM system and everything is happy. So 8GB may be fine depending on OS and how you plan to deploy this. 

Thanks for the response! I'm going to be using windows 10 for this setup mainly because this is my first time doing this and I am very much a noob. I'm hoping to use Linux later on when I get more experience. The server is mostly going to be hosting media and occasionally torrenting.

 

With ethernet it would be more easier for me if I wire the cable outside but wouldn't there be a risk of the cable getting damaged being outside such as rain? 

 

In regards to plex I specifically don't like how you have to pay if you want to watch on different devices.

[LIGISTX]

2 hours ago, J___ said:

Thanks for the response! I'm going to be using windows 10 for this setup mainly because this is my first time doing this and I am very much a noob. I'm hoping to use Linux later on when I get more experience. The server is mostly going to be hosting media and occasionally torrenting.

 

With ethernet it would be more easier for me if I wire the cable outside but wouldn't there be a risk of the cable getting damaged being outside such as rain? 

 

In regards to plex I specifically don't like how you have to pay if you want to watch on different devices.

8 GB will be fine for Windows to do this. So don't worry about that

 

Ethernet can run outside, as long as you don't damage the wire... They do make weather sealed ethernet cables, but honestly any cable will be fine.... Eventually the sun's UV light will deteriorate the cable, but it will last a long time... and the wire itself is not going to let water in as long as you don't cut it.

 

Plex allows you to watch on as many devices as you want for free, that is not behind the paywall. The paywall has features like bandwidth or quality limiting on the server side so if you share your Plex server with friends or family you can FORCE them to watch a lower quality then original so it doesn't eat up your upload bandwidth. But Pkex will automatically change quality settings based on internet speed so even without this paywall feature it will still work fine, you as the admin of the server just can't force quality or bandwidth limits. There are other features that are behind the paywall, but I have been using plex for almost 10 years at this point and still have not found a need to pay for it. I almost had to pay for it for my multi-subnet network I just set up, but that plex pass feature was recently put into the free version 

[J___]

12 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

8 GB will be fine for Windows to do this. So don't worry about that

 

Ethernet can run outside, as long as you don't damage the wire... They do make weather sealed ethernet cables, but honestly any cable will be fine.... Eventually the sun's UV light will deteriorate the cable, but it will last a long time... and the wire itself is not going to let water in as long as you don't cut it.

 

Plex allows you to watch on as many devices as you want for free, that is not behind the paywall. The paywall has features like bandwidth or quality limiting on the server side so if you share your Plex server with friends or family you can FORCE them to watch a lower quality then original so it doesn't eat up your upload bandwidth. But Pkex will automatically change quality settings based on internet speed so even without this paywall feature it will still work fine, you as the admin of the server just can't force quality or bandwidth limits. There are other features that are behind the paywall, but I have been using plex for almost 10 years at this point and still have not found a need to pay for it. I almost had to pay for it for my multi-subnet network I just set up, but that plex pass feature was recently put into the free version 

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer! I really appreciate the help. For plex I mainly didn't like how you have to pay or use a plex pass if you want to watch on mobile devices but I think you can get around that by watching through a web browser instead. I'm going to try to run a ethernet cable from outside and you have convinced me to use plex. Really excited to start working on this, thanks again for the help!

[LIGISTX]

6 hours ago, J___ said:

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer! I really appreciate the help. For plex I mainly didn't like how you have to pay or use a plex pass if you want to watch on mobile devices but I think you can get around that by watching through a web browser instead. I'm going to try to run a ethernet cable from outside and you have convinced me to use plex. Really excited to start working on this, thanks again for the help!

I use Plex on my iPhone, no need to pay   
 

Oh, hmm. I just checked their website to see for myself… it does say mobile app “has to be unlocked”. Hmm. I don’t know what that means exactly, it may be you can stream the Plex provided content. I just watched 2 minutes of a movie from my server on my phone to make sure it still works…. It still works. I’m pretty sure you can stream from your Plex server to the phone app for free.

[Blue4130]

9 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

I use Plex on my iPhone, no need to pay   
 

Oh, hmm. I just checked their website to see for myself… it does say mobile app “has to be unlocked”. Hmm. I don’t know what that means exactly, it may be you can stream the Plex provided content. I just watched 2 minutes of a movie from my server on my phone to make sure it still works…. It still works. I’m pretty sure you can stream from your Plex server to the phone app for free.

I don't know how you are able to. I can't use the app on my phone. 

[LIGISTX]

2 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

I don't know how you are able to. I can't use the app on my phone. 

Really? I just have Plex: Movies, TV, Music & More is what is called in Apple App Store. Maybe I just have had it for so long I am grandfathered in? I genuinely have no idea... I have been using plex for almost 10 years at this point.

 

You can't sign in to your account in the app? Or when you do it just asks for you to pay right away?

[Blue4130]

2 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

Really? I just have Plex: Movies, TV, Music & More is what is called in Apple App Store. Maybe I just have had it for so long I am grandfathered in? I genuinely have no idea... I have been using plex for almost 10 years at this point.

 

You can't sign in to your account in the app? Or when you do it just asks for you to pay right away?

It's been a while since I tried, but I recall being able to log in and then getting a message saying that the features I wanted needed a premium sub. Or something along those lines. (This is on an android phone)

[LIGISTX]

19 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

It's been a while since I tried, but I recall being able to log in and then getting a message saying that the features I wanted needed a premium sub. Or something along those lines. (This is on an android phone)

Hmm. Trying to google it, I can't really find any "good" info, which is sorta weird. Seems to be no real info either way. Maybe I am grandfathered in? I seriously have no idea, I know a bunch of folks who never paid for it and use the phone app... but then again, we have all been using it for years. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Blue4130]

2 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

Hmm. Trying to google it, I can't really find any "good" info, which is sorta weird. Seems to be no real info either way. Maybe I am grandfathered in? I seriously have no idea, I know a bunch of folks who never paid for it and use the phone app... but then again, we have all been using it for years. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here's the error 

[LIGISTX]

2 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

Here's the error 

That’s fascinating. I don’t have other Plex pass features, I guess somehow I just have this one. Well…. That’s good info. Crappy info, but good info. Thanks!