Low Power Plex PC $100

[NeroSphere]

Hi all I will try and keep it short,

 

I have a NetGear 104 with a sizable amount of films and series on. I supply myself and 5 other accounts on Plex for media. I'm after suggestions on something low power that will still run some transcoding of files. there's usually only 3 people using it at any one time. I've recently moved to a new house with terrible upload (welcome to the UK) and need to leave the NAS at my parents where upload is good so all can access it. 

Do I need an old cheap 4 or 8 core xeon? Then what board. This will be running all the time so it needs to be low powered. I am open to buying second hand laptop from ebay, or building a machine but then I'm not sure what CPU would have the power and if a low power desktop PSU would still consume too much electric.

 

Cheers,

Nero

 

[79wjd]

What resolution will the server be transcoding at? 

 

If you're talking about three 1080p transcoded streams you'll need something with a bit of power (a modern i3 for example). 

[NeroSphere]

3 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

What resolution will the server be transcoding at? 

Likely 720 each. The upload is 20Mb only so 1080 wouldn't fit through.

[manikyath]

If you can get your hands on a semi-recent i3 or (preferably) i5 cheaply thats the way to go.

 

If jet engine sounds arent a problem you could probably try to get your hands on a second hand server on the cheap. (Something like a proliant G6 or up should do the thing.)

[NeroSphere]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

If you can get your hands on a semi-recent i3 or (preferably) i5 cheaply thats the way to go.

 

If jet engine sounds arent a problem you could probably try to get your hands on a second hand server on the cheap. (Something like a proliant G6 or up should do the thing.)

I actually own at HP DL165 G7 with an 8-core Opteron which I don't use but was going to sell. It's a little on the loud side and I don't know what Watt it pulls from the wall.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, NeroSphere said:

I actually own at HP DL165 G7 with an 8-core Opteron which I don't use but was going to sell. It's a little on the loud side and I don't know what Watt it pulls from the wall.

I scrapped a pile of G6's and two quad-cpu sparc servers at work today. We're not destroying them *yet* because the entire team secretly wants to give them to schools.

(Had to count 'stock' today as well, we have 100-something servers rusting away, G2 trough G6)

 

Company policy is to shred them, but it's expensive and wasteful, so we want to figure out a few contact points that want to do the paperwork for 'a slice of the pie' most preferably schools and/or non-profit organisations.

[NeroSphere]

Does anyone think http://www.ebuyer.com/722189-hpe-proliant-gen8-g1610t-819185-421-4gb-ram-microserver-819185-421 might be a nice solution to the problem, with the cashback its £125 or $170. Would that dual core do the job of some transcoding? 

CPU is:

http://ark.intel.com/products/71074/Intel-Celeron-Processor-G1610T-2M-Cache-2_30-GHz

 

 

[Streetguru]

On 8/30/2016 at 8:48 AM, NeroSphere said:

I actually own at HP DL165 G7 with an 8-core Opteron which I don't use but was going to sell. It's a little on the loud side and I don't know what Watt it pulls from the wall.

Just use that man, it's probably around 100W which really anything is going to use that much power, assuming it can get the job done that is.

 

because for $100 I don't think you're going to be able to find a replacement performance wise

plus it's only going to use that power when it's actively transcoding