New server to setup for Plex, Minecraft and maybe more

Vrakoupit · March 5, 2022

Hi everyone,

I have server currently running since 4 to 5 years now and an upgrade is overdue. I have one that is planned since almost a yaer (got all the stuff I think I need) but I need your help to do this the right way (I have tried some things but I am not convinced by how I did it). Also, I am quite new to this, I understand the principles so consider me as a beginner

MY CURRENT SERVER

Xeon E3 1240 v2
8 GB DDR3 1600
4 x 2 TB HDD (2 out of the 4 are IronWolf from Seagate) (yep no ssd but still doing his job)
Runs on Windows Server 2016
Ombi and Tautulli are obviously running alongside Plex
All my downloads are managed manually with JDownloader

My primary drive on which Windows is installed is not in his best shape, might fail anytime soon but I have this warning from CrystalDisk Info since more than a year.

I choosed to use windows server because it is easier for to use. I understand and can do things with a linux distro but it will not be without hickups. This server is intended to be replaced by the new one and should use as a backup.

MY NEEDS

I want to add up functionnalities/services to my new server such as running a minecraft server with my friends, having a network share (with remote access), monitoring for each service.

BUT I want to keep an ease of use close to what I currently have (such as remote access with RDP). I also want to keep and transfer all the data, metadata, database from Plex, Ombi and Tautulli to have a smoother transition. The technical challenge of a new infra excites me but I am scared to be overwhelmed.

MY NEW SERVER

Ryzen 5 5600X
8 GB 3200
1 TB m.2 nvme ssd
120 GB m.2 sata ssd (originally planned to be used as cache for Plex)
3 x 4 TB HDD (all from Seagate IronWolf)
GTX 1650

A friend of mine suggested to use Proxmox to setup vms in order to have the flexibility to add many services while allocating the performance I want/need.

I did managed to setup back in May :

A Plex vm running with Ubuntu server with GPU passthrough (with bypassing Nvidia's transcoding limitation)
An Open Media Vault vm with smb shares

It kinda worked, I was able to have more than 7 transcoding streams on a local network. But because of reasons, I stopped working on it and finally restarted it in October and my Plex vm was not working properly (the gpu passthrough did not perform as it did before). I still do not understand is how storage between vms works, how to properly allocate ressources ...

So here I am, today, with my current 8 TB server filling up and a bunch of parts laying around.

I think the safest route is to go with windows but this time with containers. Even then, I do not know where to start, which guide I should follow ...

Thanks to anyone who can help

LIGISTX · March 5, 2022

50 minutes ago, Vrakoupit said:

Hi everyone,

I have server currently running since 4 to 5 years now and an upgrade is overdue. I have one that is planned since almost a yaer (got all the stuff I think I need) but I need your help to do this the right way (I have tried some things but I am not convinced by how I did it). Also, I am quite new to this, I understand the principles so consider me as a beginner

MY CURRENT SERVER

Xeon E3 1240 v2

8 GB DDR3 1600

4 x 2 TB HDD (2 out of the 4 are IronWolf from Seagate) (yep no ssd but still doing his job)

Runs on Windows Server 2016

Ombi and Tautulli are obviously running alongside Plex

All my downloads are managed manually with JDownloader

My primary drive on which Windows is installed is not in his best shape, might fail anytime soon but I have this warning from CrystalDisk Info since more than a year.

I choosed to use windows server because it is easier for to use. I understand and can do things with a linux distro but it will not be without hickups. This server is intended to be replaced by the new one and should use as a backup.

MY NEEDS

I want to add up functionnalities/services to my new server such as running a minecraft server with my friends, having a network share (with remote access), monitoring for each service.

BUT I want to keep an ease of use close to what I currently have (such as remote access with RDP). I also want to keep and transfer all the data, metadata, database from Plex, Ombi and Tautulli to have a smoother transition. The technical challenge of a new infra excites me but I am scared to be overwhelmed.

MY NEW SERVER

Ryzen 5 5600X

8 GB 3200

1 TB m.2 nvme ssd

120 GB m.2 sata ssd (originally planned to be used as cache for Plex)

3 x 4 TB HDD (all from Seagate IronWolf)

GTX 1650

A friend of mine suggested to use Proxmox to setup vms in order to have the flexibility to add many services while allocating the performance I want/need.

I did managed to setup back in May :

A Plex vm running with Ubuntu server with GPU passthrough (with bypassing Nvidia's transcoding limitation)

An Open Media Vault vm with smb shares

It kinda worked, I was able to have more than 7 transcoding streams on a local network. But because of reasons, I stopped working on it and finally restarted it in October and my Plex vm was not working properly (the gpu passthrough did not perform as it did before). I still do not understand is how storage between vms works, how to properly allocate ressources ...

So here I am, today, with my current 8 TB server filling up and a bunch of parts laying around.

I think the safest route is to go with windows but this time with containers. Even then, I do not know where to start, which guide I should follow ...

Thanks to anyone who can help

If you go the proxmox route, you will likely want to get another 8 GB of RAM, but that is relatively cheap. Also, no reason to use a SSD cache for plex.... plex just reads data and transcodes it if necessary, none of that data needs to be "fast".

Also, what are you trying to transcode? You don't need to pass a GPU through, it can just use CPU transcoding. The homelab in my sig (I need to update that, I am now running on a e5 2660 v4 28 core chip) was able to do 3-4 transcodes, on 2 threads of a core i3.... 8 threads of my 28 core Xeon can do ~8+ transcodes, this is from 1080p already compressed data to 720p, the i3 also was able to do 1 full bluray 1080p to 720p for reference. All of this to say, your 5600x can likely transcode plenty fine on its own.... Unless your trying to transcode LOTS of things at once.

You don't understand how storage between VM's works? Like, you don't know how to get data from you openmediavault VM (which is where your movies would be) to your plex VM? You would just use a SMB network share just like you would access the data on the server from your PC - just the difference is since it all lives under proxmox, its all virtual networking and thus very, very fast. More or less....... when a guest OS wants to "share over the network" to another guest OS, if both OS's support the VirtIO driver (windows and basically all current debian (so Ubuntu) OS's will support it), proxmox just "network transfers" the data by "sharing the data via RAM, sort of. This is a very basic explanation bordering on not even technically correct, but you can easily get over 10 gigabit networking with virtually 0 overhead between VM's just by using a NFS or SMB network share like any other PC would connect to the fileserver with.

Make sense? Hopefully? I would also support the proxmox approach and its extremely flexible and allows for trying new things easily and expanding your horizons .