Home NAS CPU?

[mrHoot1]

Im stumped, I'm planning on building a Plex Server for my brother and I don't know what CPU and Motherboard I should use, any recommendations?

 

p.s I don't mind the price points

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id probably just get a premade synology nas. There easy to use and work fine https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS416play-NAS-DiskStation-Diskless/dp/B01GB9ZJ3Q/ref=pd_lpo_147_tr_t_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FM5R9092Z8YQ0NKK73GT

 

Do you need transcoding on plex. If you don't you can use anything.

 

If you do, how many streams at once? The synology has handle 2 steams at once with transcoding, and much more without.

[adithyay328]

Any half decent quad core and a compatible mobo, nothing fancy. Maybe a nice dual core, but that's risky.

[mrHoot1]

3 minutes ago, adithyay328 said:

Any half decent quad core and a compatible mobo, nothing fancy. Maybe a nice dual core, but that's risky.

I was thinking of choosing an i5, maybe a 6600 (non K version)

[brandishwar]

1 hour ago, mrHoot1 said:

I was thinking of choosing an i5, maybe a 6600 (non K version)

For a NAS? Save some money and find a used 3rd generation or even a 2nd generation. Unless you're planning to have this thing transcode on the fly. Check out refurbished systems and see if you can find a decent i5 or even an i7.

[mrHoot1]

On 9/15/2016 at 0:22 PM, brandishwar said:

For a NAS? Save some money and find a used 3rd generation or even a 2nd generation. Unless you're planning to have this thing transcode on the fly. Check out refurbished systems and see if you can find a decent i5 or even an i7.

If i really wanted to, i could just get an AMD FX-8370 or 6300, 8350 or 6350.

 

 

Edited September 16, 2016 by mrHoot1

[Mikensan]

Is this going to be a NAS computer that runs Plex, or just a dedicated Plex server? Do you mind used equipment?

 

Honestly a NAS will do great with something like a G3220 or similar. Plex will even run and transcode a single 1080 stream with that CPU. What operating system are you thinking about running?

[mrHoot1]

Just now, Mikensan said:

Is this going to be a NAS computer that runs Plex, or just a dedicated Plex server? Do you mind used equipment?

 

Honestly a NAS will do great with something like a G3220 or similar. Plex will even run and transcode a single 1080 stream with that CPU. What operating system are you thinking about running?

( Plex dedicated )

 

Well, the thing is, he has 2 children that watch movies on the 1st floor of the house, and on the 2nd floor we (me and my bro) sometimes watch movies together. Sometimes at the same time, he is currently running an AMD Sempron.................................................Even tho most of AMD's processors overheat really easily, ill most likely be cooling it with a liquid cooling system anyway.

[Mikensan]

12 minutes ago, mrHoot1 said:

( Plex dedicated )

 

Well, the thing is, he has 2 children that watch movies on the 1st floor of the house, and on the 2nd floor we (me and my bro) sometimes watch movies together. Sometimes at the same time, he is currently running an AMD Sempron.................................................Even tho most of AMD's processors overheat really easily, ill most likely be cooling it with a liquid cooling system anyway.

Cool beans - with it being plex dedicated, I assume it'll be running windows?

One way to reduce stress on your plex system is to convert the movies so they do not need to be transcoded. Multiple cores is certainly important but you definitely want some speed. Looks like most the AMDs you listed are pretty peppy.

 

I don't know if it is still true today that AMDs run that much hotter. I know back in the barton core days (2500+) they were insanely hot. Liquid cooling will certainly help keep things quieter.

[mrHoot1]

24 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

Cool beans - with it being plex dedicated, I assume it'll be running windows?

One way to reduce stress on your plex system is to convert the movies so they do not need to be transcoded. Multiple cores is certainly important but you definitely want some speed. Looks like most the AMDs you listed are pretty peppy.

 

I don't know if it is still true today that AMDs run that much hotter. I know back in the barton core days (2500+) they were insanely hot. Liquid cooling will certainly help keep things quieter.

it will be running FreeNAS (Nas4Free) as the OS 

[Mikensan]

1 hour ago, mrHoot1 said:

it will be running FreeNAS (Nas4Free) as the OS 

Oh so not really Plex Dedicated then...  (although the focal point I'm sure) You may want to consider going the Intel route to grab some ECC memory (costs a little bit more but not like $100s more) if you plan to us ZFS - since a majority of FreeNAS features require ZFS. Nas4Free will support UFS which ECC is not as much of a big deal but you will want to check on the limitations of using UFS.

 

AMD has been proven to support ECC but on specific chips/motherboards and not really well documented - so do some digging.

 

Otherwise no harm in actually using Windows in combination with either Storage Spaces or FlexRAID if you're looking to pool some disks together. No ECC ram required and plays nicely with AMD. Which S hits the fan and you're not a unix/bsd/linux guy, windows is much easier (go figure). However if you want to learn more about unix/linux/bsd then when s hits the fan it's a great time to learn ^_^.

 

Also if you don't mind a little bit of extra noise and used equipment, the Dell R710 is dirt cheap and has variations that use 3.5" (which has mounting holes for 2.5 as well) disks.