Plex media server

[Hebers81]

Giving serious consideration to building a plex media server. I have no experience with any type of raid array, but I have built several desktops. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[shifts]

How will you be using Plex?  Because if you want to make a media server as well as a file sharing server, you can always use Plex as a plugin with FreeNas.

[Hebers81]

Not really interested in file sharing. Just a media server for music and pictures. Maybe movies one day.

[johnny5c]

Not really interested in file sharing. Just a media server for music and pictures. Maybe movies one day.

If you're not using it for videos you won't be doing any heavy transcoding so something like a WD My Cloud running the Plex app would work great.  You could also have it running in the background on your current desktop/laptop and never even notice it if you're just using it for music and photos.

 

If you do want to build a server, what's your budget and how much storage space do you need?

[shifts]

If you're not using it for videos you won't be doing any heavy transcoding so something like a WD My Cloud running the Plex app would work great.  You could also have it running in the background on your current desktop/laptop and never even notice it if you're just using it for music and photos.

 

If you do want to build a server, what's your budget and how much storage space do you need?

couldn't have said it better myself  

[ultimatemythbuster]

I personally run Plex as a service on Windows Server 2012 R2.  The server also serves as my main data storage location with a RAID 6 array.  I also have free access to Windows licenses, so it works for me.

[Hebers81]

In the neighborhood of $2000 for a budget and storage size....I don't really know. 12tb maybe, with the ability to expand if I ever need to.

[johnny5c]

In the neighborhood of $2000 for a budget and storage size....I don't really know. 12tb maybe, with the ability to expand if I ever need to.

That's one healthy budget!  The following is complete overkill for just music and pictures but it will handle a couple video streams and the case holds up to 10 drives. 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($112.99 @ NCIX US)

Motherboard: Asus H97M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($99.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($37.88 @ OutletPC)

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($67.99 @ NCIX US)

Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($246.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($246.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($246.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($246.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($109.99 @ NCIX US)

Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($74.99 @ NCIX US)

Total: $1491.79

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-21 21:58 EST-0500

[Hebers81]

That looks fantastic, but do I not need a raid controller? This is the area I am very ignorant in.

[scottyseng]

That looks fantastic, but do I not need a raid controller? This is the area I am very ignorant in.

 

You'll be fine with software RAID for this. A hardware RAID controller is kind of overkill for this, especially if you don't plan to add a lot more drives in the future.

[johnny5c]

You'll be fine with software RAID for this. A hardware RAID controller is kind of overkill for this, especially if you don't plan to add a lot more drives in the future.

Well said, Plex streams real time so you'd never take advantage of the extra performance a card would offer.

 

Also with the system I listed above, you could always add a GPU and have a decent HTPC/guest gaming rig.

[Hebers81]

Ok that all makes sence and that's the route I will take. Just one last question, I don't want to have to upgrade every year and I would like to build in as much future proofing as I can so even though it wouldn't help much now, would a raid controller help in the coming years?

[scottyseng]

Ok that all makes sence and that's the route I will take. Just one last question, I don't want to have to upgrade every year and I would like to build in as much future proofing as I can so even though it wouldn't help much now, would a raid controller help in the coming years?

 

I probably missed this in the thread, but what OS will this be using? FreeNAS? Windows?

 

If FreeNAS, you need a HBA card not a RAID card. It's pretty much a RAID card that doesn't do RAID. It adds more ports to your PC for more drives and presents the drives as if you were just plugging them straight in your motherboard. FreeNAS likes this. It wants direct control of each drive.

 

Hardware RAID does the RAID itself and then just presents the completed RAID volume to whatever OS.  

 

If Windows, then you'd be okay with a hardware RAID card. A decent hardware RAID card with a battery backup is roughly $500-700 (Please stay away from the cheap RAID controllers...they aren't proper RAID cards). It would only help if you need a lot of drives (Over 8+...with a two port RAID card, you can get 8 drives, with a SAS expander, you can get even more, but keep in mind that you might be bottlenecked by the RAID card with a lot of hard drives (I think the limit is like 2.2GB/s for my 9260-8i controller)).

 

You can also use a SAS expander to expand how many ports the HBA card has as well. But this is only if you have a need for that many drives or plan to expand out to that many in the future. By then, you'd also need enterprise drives because WD Reds aren't meant to be used in a case with more than eight of them. Red Pros tap out at 16. The Enterprise drives you can cram all together and they don't care. They also run quite hot though.

 

You will also need to provide cooling for the HBA / RAID card, a basic PC fan will do. They're meant to be crammed in servers with high CFM fans, not so much being crammed in consumer PCs with silent fans. They'll overheat when placed next to a GPU as well.

[Hebers81]

It will be windows based. I am not familiar with any form of Linux or anything else for that matter. Also I will prolly run a max of 8 drives (again future proof) but I'm gonna start with 4 and am looking for a server rack case that allows for hot swap...I know a bit over kill but I'm lazy

[KuJoe]

It will be windows based. I am not familiar with any form of Linux or anything else for that matter. Also I will prolly run a max of 8 drives (again future proof) but I'm gonna start with 4 and am looking for a server rack case that allows for hot swap...I know a bit over kill but I'm lazy

 

Keep in mind that adding drives later will require a rebuild of the array unless your RAID controller explicitly allows it so make sure you check the RAID controller and the RAID level you'll be using. I personally only have 4x 2TB drives in RAID5 for my Plex server and it's plenty for me and half a dozen people.

[chitownbob]

I have been considering the same. Note there will be some cpu overhead for raid.

Good advice about staying away from cheap raid cards. You may want to bump cpu up to i5 or even i7, if you plan on transcoding or multiple streams.

Especially for a windows server. FreeNas is free, is built on Linux (i think), and i hear is very stable. It likely has a gui if that is what is bothering you. Take a look before you decide.

You can get around transcoding by storing multiple versions of your movies on your nas, but who wants to do that? I think plex has a place to calculate recommended CPU based on how you use it. Good luck!

[scottyseng]

It will be windows based. I am not familiar with any form of Linux or anything else for that matter. Also I will prolly run a max of 8 drives (again future proof) but I'm gonna start with 4 and am looking for a server rack case that allows for hot swap...I know a bit over kill but I'm lazy

 

Yeah, I picked up a used SuperMicro chassis from ebay. 24 hot swap bays with a LSI expander backplane for myself. Do note that they aren't quiet at all. haha.

 

I think you're still fine with the onboard software RAID though, even for 8 drives. I think when you go beyond that, or if you need breakneck speed, that's when you should consider a hardware RAID controller. If you do go software RAID, pick up a faster CPU. There's also other third party programs, like FlexRAID or Drive Pool that are pretty popular.