Plex Server Build

[nsinnott]

Hey!

I am looking to build a machine that I can use as media storage server, as well as a normal use desktop. Essentially, I am looking for any recommendations you have for a used CPU and motherboard combination with at least 8 SATA ports. 

 

Thanks!

[79wjd]

What's your budget (does that include drives?) and do you want some form of RAID for the media server drives? 

 

Btw, you don't need to worry too much about the number of sata ports since you will either be using a RAID card if you want RAID or you can use a simple PCIE port multiplier if you just need more ports.

[nsinnott]

I am looking for something sub-$200 (not including drives). One of the reasons behind this is that I would like to switch to Intel from my current AMD crap. Everything in my system currently was half-assed, and I am looking for a reason to redo it.

[Jarsky]

So you want it to be able to be a general use desktop, a plex transcoder, AND handle a large number of disks? Thats going to be difficult for under $200....

 

Ideally I would recommend getting an HBA for handling that many disks since I assume you'll want to be using Windows, it would be best to use Storage Spaces for handling the storage as a Software array. For Plex transcoding you're really going to want at least a quad core...and for general computing youre going to want an SSD and at least semi decent onboard/oncpu graphic. You'll want a bare minimum of 4GB of ram, but best for 8GB minimum for all of that....

 

At a minimum, i'd get at least an i5 3470 (has onboard HD2500 graphics), a suitable motherboard (this CPU is LGA1155), 8GB DDR3, and a 120GB SSD (Kingston SSDNow are cheap).

 

All of that including an HBA like an LSI 9211-8i or an AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 or something similar, you're maybe looking at just over $200ish if you shop smart for parts.

[nsinnott]

5 hours ago, Jarsky said:

So you want it to be able to be a general use desktop, a plex transcoder, AND handle a large number of disks? Thats going to be difficult for under $200....

 

Ideally I would recommend getting an HBA for handling that many disks since I assume you'll want to be using Windows, it would be best to use Storage Spaces for handling the storage as a Software array. For Plex transcoding you're really going to want at least a quad core...and for general computing youre going to want an SSD and at least semi decent onboard/oncpu graphic. You'll want a bare minimum of 4GB of ram, but best for 8GB minimum for all of that....

 

At a minimum, i'd get at least an i5 3470 (has onboard HD2500 graphics), a suitable motherboard (this CPU is LGA1155), 8GB DDR3, and a 120GB SSD (Kingston SSDNow are cheap).

 

All of that including an HBA like an LSI 9211-8i or an AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 or something similar, you're maybe looking at just over $200ish if you shop smart for parts.

 

I already have RAM, a GPU, and 16 GB of RAM. I was just looking for a new CPU and motherboard. I won't be running more than 4 disks for Plex (i have 2x 2TB right now, but am planning to get 2 more in the near future), and I have got Debian as my main OS with Windows 10 on a separate SSD.

[MasterChromatica]

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/JYnRM8

This is perfect no clue what your budget is though. Stay away from Intel for this.

[Jarsky]

27 minutes ago, StepinCurry said:

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/JYnRM8

This is perfect no clue what your budget is though. Stay away from Intel for this.

 

13 hours ago, nsinnott said:

I am looking for something sub-$200 (not including drives).

 

He quite clearly stated his budget....

 

 

1 hour ago, nsinnott said:

I already have RAM, a GPU, and 16 GB of RAM. I was just looking for a new CPU and motherboard. I won't be running more than 4 disks for Plex (i have 2x 2TB right now, but am planning to get 2 more in the near future), and I have got Debian as my main OS with Windows 10 on a separate SSD.

 

In that case, I would look at what motherboards you can find in the LGA1150/1151 socket as these are going to be what determine the CPU you can get as second hand motherboards are often the more expensive part with older builds. If you're going to only be using ~5 disks total then you can just use onboard SATA and use storage spaces. If you can get a 3rd disk and somewhere to move your data to temporarily, then i would really recommend creating a 1disk parity array in Storage Spaces, rather than individual disks.

[Phate.exe]

If you didn't say you were going for general use as well, I'd recommend something like my Plex box with a bit more CPU muscle.

 

i3-3220 (does just fine for 1-2 transcodes, most of my stuff at home direct plays).  Maybe try to find an i5 or i7 S-chip since you'll be leaving the thing on all the time.

4gb ram (I'd bump this to 8 gigs)

I'm running the iGPU, because I don't do anything graphically intensive with it.

Linux Mint XFCE for minimalist GUI

120gb SATA SSD for boot and software

Currently just running a single 2TB Ultrastar for mass storage.  It can already saturate a gigabit LAN on large file transfers

 

Upgrades in the next few weeks:

PCIe X16 to 2 PCIe X8 riser card

4 port rocketraid card

Mellanox 10Gbit NIC (point to point link to my new PC build, latency aside should be about as fast as just plugging the drives into a sata port.

Mass storage migrated to a raid 5 with 4 2TB ultrastars.  I'm using a pile of those "refurbished" server pull drives that show up for $28 ever month or so, so the fault tolerance will be welcome (in addition to the extra speed and bump to 6TB capacity)

[79wjd]

6 hours ago, Phate.exe said:

Maybe try to find an i5 or i7 S-chip since you'll be leaving the thing on all the time.

There's no point in that as the CPU will downclock to whatever performance level is needed -- so a non-s-chip and an s-chip will yield the same power consumption at idle but the s-chip will have a lower peak performance.

[Phate.exe]

1 hour ago, djdwosk97 said:

There's no point in that as the CPU will downclock to whatever performance level is needed -- so a non-s-chip and an s-chip will yield the same power consumption at idle but the s-chip will have a lower peak performance.

For whatever reason I thought those idled a bit lower.

[nsinnott]

16 hours ago, Jarsky said:

In that case, I would look at what motherboards you can find in the LGA1150/1151 socket as these are going to be what determine the CPU you can get as second hand motherboards are often the more expensive part with older builds. If you're going to only be using ~5 disks total then you can just use onboard SATA and use storage spaces. If you can get a 3rd disk and somewhere to move your data to temporarily, then i would really recommend creating a 1disk parity array in Storage Spaces, rather than individual disks.

 

I found some good deals on LGA1150 MBs ($90 for a z97), but I am still not really clear on CPU choice... Also, like I said, I use Debian as my main OS, aka the one that I run Plex on, so Storage Spaces is a no go.

[Jarsky]

44 minutes ago, nsinnott said:

I found some good deals on LGA1150 MBs ($90 for a z97), but I am still not really clear on CPU choice... Also, like I said, I use Debian as my main OS, aka the one that I run Plex on, so Storage Spaces is a no go.

 

If you want that sort of setup then with a storage array that is compatible across OS - youre going to have to do it pre-OS, which means you need to do onboard RAID (e.g Intel RST) or to virtualise your system with something like unRAID/KVM which can do pooled storage using a cross-platform compatible filesystem (i.e NTFS) and virtualise your operating systems.

 

You'll find most Z97 boards have around 8 SATA ports - normally 6 on the Intel chipset (allowing 6 in RAID using Intel RST)

As for CPU's, whatever you can fit in your budget out of this list: https://ark.intel.com/products/family/75024/4th-Generation-Intel-Core-i5-Processors#@Desktop

[Phate.exe]

2 hours ago, Jarsky said:

If you want that sort of setup then with a storage array that is compatible across OS - youre going to have to do it pre-OS, which means you need to do onboard RAID (e.g Intel RST) or to virtualise your system with something like unRAID/KVM which can do pooled storage using a cross-platform compatible filesystem (i.e NTFS) and virtualise your operating systems.

This is why I just installed my OS onto a cheap 120GB SSD.  If I want to add storage (i.e. my RAID 5 array), all that is needed is to turn the computer off, add the physical hardware, turn it back on, configure, and migrate data.

 

At that point it's just a basic SMB share, and we're done.