Server case usage

[Carcrasher89]

So im got me some old dell poweredge 2650 servers. I know the systems are older then a lot of things. I would like to replace the hardware inside of the case with more modern stuff. Looking to use it as a plex server for one and get a second one set up as a game storage and the 3rd for a nas or just combine game/nas since they only have 5 drive bays each. Any idea also to how i can go about replacing the front board with a sata one over scsi? I do have fios internet so not worried about that for upload. I am setting up a rack at my house for central storage/NVR. One step at a time.

 

 

 

 

Budget (including currency): build over time so not limit but within reason

Country: us

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: plex 4k transcoding with remote 4k access. 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

[Takumidesh]

A couple things I have learned about blade style servers.

 

A) They are absolutely huge, I have a big ol startech rack and it was still an absolute pain to put them in, they are very long (and these were 1u servers)

B) getting spare parts is tough for the form factor, getting consumer parts is much easier.

C) They are super loud, especially if you are going to use 3 of them.

C) Power consumption is higher than it needs to be, redundant power supplies, multi socket motherboards. etc.

 

If you are intending on just stripping them out and putting your own hardware, I think you will be much better off just buying a rackmount case.

 

I have this one, The variation I have i think has 14 drive bays, though be aware, with a full atx motherboard the drives can be pretty a pretty tight fit.

 

with a 5900x and 64Gb of ram I am able to run (all in docker):

Plex

2 Minecraft Servers

Factorio Server

all of the arrs (radarr, sonarr, etc)

nextcloud

some simple websites,

nginx reverse proxy

urbackup

crashplan

tdarr

unifi

home assistant

firefly III

trilium

photoprism

monica

netdata

ubooquity

wireguard

and many more things.

 

and I am nowhere near saturated, unless I am doing some specific heavyweight task like transcodes.

 

so there really is no need to run three separate servers

 

[Takumidesh]

Oh also, don't transcode 4k, it's not worth it. storage is way cheaper than a big graphics card, with plex you can make optimized versions for 1080p or lower and they will look better than on the fly gpu transcodes. (plus use less power).

 

Also to add: you shouldn't really be doing 4k to 4k transcodes.

 

the way I organize things is by encoding the videos to the preferred a/v codecs for my primary client. Then I will create alternate transcodes before hand that are significantly smaller for mobile clients and cheap hotel tv's and such.

so for example if the 4k rip is 40gb I will create a 1-2gb 1080p encode and sometimes even a 500mb 720p encode. this prevents the need to transcode 99.99% of the time, and takes up marginally more space.

 

This is especially helpful when you have multiple people watching or will watch a movie multiple times. Every time you do an on-the-fly transcode it costs you money in the form of cpu cycles, doing it ahead of time lets you schedule for cheaper times, as well as only needing to do it once.

[SpookyCitrus]

The Dell Poweredge 2650 uses a proprietary layout, so you can only use the motherboard they come with. Unfortunately they suffer from the same issue the Optiplexs and other OEM desktop builds do. They aren't compatible with most standard layout components. You are better off just building a whole new server over time using a standard rack mount chassis. I hope you didn't pay any money for the Poweredges or at least got a good deal, because they just really aren't worth much today even for rebuild purposes due to their limitations.

[Carcrasher89]

1 hour ago, SpookyCitrus said:

The Dell Poweredge 2650 uses a proprietary layout, so you can only use the motherboard they come with. Unfortunately they suffer from the same issue the Optiplexs and other OEM desktop builds do. They aren't compatible with most standard layout components. You are better off just building a whole new server over time using a standard rack mount chassis. I hope you didn't pay any money for the Poweredges or at least got a good deal, because they just really aren't worth much today even for rebuild purposes due to their limitations.

I’m getting all 3 for 50 including a rackmount kvm screen. Friend was cleaning out his basement. Figured 50 for the cases alone would be good to gut. Don’t know full specs of each one yet. Or if they run will find out when I get home in a few weeks. 

[Carcrasher89]

2 hours ago, Takumidesh said:

Oh also, don't transcode 4k, it's not worth it. storage is way cheaper than a big graphics card, with plex you can make optimized versions for 1080p or lower and they will look better than on the fly gpu transcodes. (plus use less power).

 

Also to add: you shouldn't really be doing 4k to 4k transcodes.

 

the way I organize things is by encoding the videos to the preferred a/v codecs for my primary client. Then I will create alternate transcodes before hand that are significantly smaller for mobile clients and cheap hotel tv's and such.

so for example if the 4k rip is 40gb I will create a 1-2gb 1080p encode and sometimes even a 500mb 720p encode. this prevents the need to transcode 99.99% of the time, and takes up marginally more space.

 

This is especially helpful when you have multiple people watching or will watch a movie multiple times. Every time you do an on-the-fly transcode it costs you money in the form of cpu cycles, doing it ahead of time lets you schedule for cheaper times, as well as only needing to do it once.

I’ma truck driver with good internet in truck and great at the house. I use an Apple TV 4K in truck at home also. And I’m playing on storing my mine shows on it for her to access when my parents move out. And want them to have full quality access at all times. 

[SpookyCitrus]

11 minutes ago, Carcrasher89 said:

I’m getting all 3 for 50 including a rackmount kvm screen. Friend was cleaning out his basement. Figured 50 for the cases alone would be good to gut. Don’t know full specs of each one yet. Or if they run will find out when I get home in a few weeks. 

Well you can't reuse the cases with anything else, so... Not really worth it in my opinion, like I said it's all a proprietary layout. You can't use the case with other motherboards and can't use the motherboard out of it in other cases. Sucks, but that's just how they're designed.

[Takumidesh]

13 minutes ago, Carcrasher89 said:

I’ma truck driver with good internet in truck and great at the house. I use an Apple TV 4K in truck at home also. And I’m playing on storing my mine shows on it for her to access when my parents move out. And want them to have full quality access at all times. 

You do not need to transcode 4k to play 4k. You should be using a client that can direct play 4k or at the very least direct stream 4k.

 

transcoding 4k - 4k means you are doing something wrong. you are actually getting WORSE quality by doing this.

 

edit. to explain a little more.

 

 

the plex server would rather just send the data to the client and let the client do the decoding of the stream. If you properly encode your media, this will happen no problem. the hardware on the client device (like an apple tv) will happily decode the media easy peasy, giving you full bitrate.

 

If the client is unable to play the media, then the server will kick in and start to transcode the video. depending on the power, and the device used, this can either mean slight loss in quality all the way up to huge loss in quality. even if you are transcoding 4k-4k.

 

transcoding is only meant for when something is wrong in the setup.

 

You will never get full quality if you are transcoding.

 

 

Additionally transcoding 4k is very CPU/GPU intensive.

[Carcrasher89]

1 hour ago, Takumidesh said:

You do not need to transcode 4k to play 4k. You should be using a client that can direct play 4k or at the very least direct stream 4k.

 

transcoding 4k - 4k means you are doing something wrong. you are actually getting WORSE quality by doing this.

 

edit. to explain a little more.

 

 

the plex server would rather just send the data to the client and let the client do the decoding of the stream. If you properly encode your media, this will happen no problem. the hardware on the client device (like an apple tv) will happily decode the media easy peasy, giving you full bitrate.

 

If the client is unable to play the media, then the server will kick in and start to transcode the video. depending on the power, and the device used, this can either mean slight loss in quality all the way up to huge loss in quality. even if you are transcoding 4k-4k.

 

transcoding is only meant for when something is wrong in the setup.

 

You will never get full quality if you are transcoding.

 

 

Additionally transcoding 4k is very CPU/GPU intensive.

I don’t have it set up yet I figured it would have to do it to send it over the internet for remote play. But since I can remote stream 4k directly I’m good. Thanks. 

[Carcrasher89]

1 hour ago, SpookyCitrus said:

Well you can't reuse the cases with anything else, so... Not really worth it in my opinion, like I said it's all a proprietary layout. You can't use the case with other motherboards and can't use the motherboard out of it in other cases. Sucks, but that's just how they're designed.

Would they be of use just as file storage/game storage as a placeholder until I can get something better? 

[SpookyCitrus]

1 hour ago, Carcrasher89 said:

Would they be of use just as file storage/game storage as a placeholder until I can get something better? 

I mean I guess, you could use them as a network file server. I wouldn't store games on it though. You want games installed directly on the machine you are playing them on. Bad idea to have games on NAS.

[Takumidesh]

19 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

I mean I guess, you could use them as a network file server. I wouldn't store games on it though. You want games installed directly on the machine you are playing them on. Bad idea to have games on NAS.

You can run a lancache docker to keep a cache of steam games on your server if you are constantly installing and uninstalling games

[Takumidesh]

20 hours ago, Carcrasher89 said:

I don’t have it set up yet I figured it would have to do it to send it over the internet for remote play. But since I can remote stream 4k directly I’m good. Thanks. 

Yep. Just make sure you set up the clients for direct play. Direct stream is ok also.

 

The difference is that direct play plays the media as is directly, direct stream does an on the fly remux, which doesn't really have much of a performance penalty.

 

Whenever you get plex up and running I and I am sure many others here can help with it. Plex unfortunately does a vey bad job imo in explaining how to set up the server and clients properly.