Help! New to the Server World

[Sir Asvald]

12 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

no. out of support operating systems are not a good idea. virusses and all that. 

 

OP, getting servers off of ebay is a bad idea, those machines were never really designed for home use and most models of datacenter server are really loud and consume quite a bit of power. 

I don't think you understand. Older Generation servers a loud and power hungry that use old Xeons. I've got 2 servers. 1 R210 II and an R710 both quite. @Lurick has one or he has the R720. The R720 at max uses 250W under full with 2 CPUs, while under idle load, uses less than 200W, the R210 II uses less than 100W. 

 

 

[Guest]

12 hours ago, Being Delirious said:

Windows Home Server 2011 is a good option for you. Yes mainstream support is gone but its great for what your doing.

No - so far out of support, can't be legally purchased anymore from a partner or MS direct either.

12 hours ago, Miguel552 said:

Hi everyone, I've been wanting to get a server for my family's storage with the ability to stream with Plex. I don't know if I should build from start, get an old server out of ebay or something, or go for something like Synology. What I want it to do is:

• Back up computers weekly.
• Assign users with restrictions to which files they can access from the backup
• Stream Movies and such with Plex.
• Create users with restrictions to Plex, like kids can only access kids movies and such.

I don't know if all this can be possible but this is something like what I want. Is it even something I can do? Thank you all for your comments! 

• What data were you attempting to backup weekly? It may be easier to look at one of two things:
  • A - use a cloud storage medium like Dropbox, Google Drive or my preference; OneDrive for the documents / photos etc that you're wanting to backup. Note that this can be a bit dependent on your internet connection if it's a lot of data but will offer far superior mobile integration from Android or iPhone compared to your own server.
  • B: look at either buying or building a NAS. I've personally got a QNAP NAS running a giant storage pool to which I've got drive mounts for Plex stores. Plex server itself is a HP ML10v2 which can be had pretty cheap brand new with an E3 CPU and a 120GB SSD in it.

As for the user restrictions, Plex can do this quite easily: seperate the libraries out OR use the content rating system: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/204232573-Restricting-the-Shares

 

11 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

Yes freenas is a VERY good choice for your needs, you could even run it as a VM form your computer. For general serving duties and plex a VERY basic CPU like the G4560 or similar is still a good choice, everything else for the build can be cheap-ish too if you like. IF you don't use your/or someone else's PC much it COULD be used from there, especially plex that will run off almost anything.

For multiple Plex trascoding streams you're going to struggle with a G4560: I've tried similar with bad results.

[paddy-stone]

3 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

For multiple Plex trascoding streams you're going to struggle with a G4560: I've tried similar with bad results.

I was talking in general about servers not necessarily plex, I did go on to explain about needs for transcoding with plex also. But for regular file serving that g4560 would be fine and support many streams at once if NOT using plex. OP I apologize if I confused you over that, I hoped I explained better than that... so just to clarify if there are multiple people going to be transcoding with plex at the same time, then you WILL need a pretty beefy CPU, IMO it's better to have different versions of the media to suit all people that may play it instead of transcoding. Transcoding with plex is in-elegant IMO... it just doesn't do a very good job on some files. For the majority it probably will be OK though, I use it every day to play back x264/x265 720p/1080p files and it works perfectly, I'm just saying for some files it WILL give you problems, and in that case you can alleviate this problem by having KODI as a backup player that doesn't need to transcode... just in case. I hope that clears it up, it's a complicated issue that I'm talking about and is my personal experience.

I LOVE plex, but at times I do want to scream and pull my hair out is what I'm saying

 

 

Freenas works fine with non-ecc ram. I have had my machine running for about 6 months or more with no problems at all that couldn't be sorted with a very quick config change. It DOES take a little bit to get used to, and you do have to do a bit of research now and again to get what you want, but there are people on here to help you for most things. I myself was new to freenas over a year ago, and have learnt loads in that time. I started with an HP proliant micro server, that I grew out of for the same reason as the q-nap ones, only 4 bays for disks.

The things I like about freenas, are that you can save the config before making any OS changes that you're not sure of, if somehting goes wrong you're not screwed, you can load the config you saved and you're back where you were. The storage is expandable, just add the disk(s) to the volume/pool, they don't have to be the same size either if you're not running raid... if you are running raid z1 or z2 (equivalent to raid 5 and 6) then they DO have to be the same size IIRC. I haven't gotten around to having mine in z1/z2 yet, I just use stripe across my volume. I don't really NEED the redundancy ATM, I have snapshots on the volumes datasets AND backups of them too, 1 on my old microserver that is now my backup server and only gets turned on when I update the backups from server 1. I ALSO keep another backup or 2, but only of my most important data that I REALLY don't want to lose... these are backed up like once a month or when needed and are cold stored the rest of the time.

There are PLENTY of people using consumer grade hardware with no problems whatsoever... also there are loads that are using freenas virtualised (whcih also isn't recommended by freenas). I'm at the moment working on upgrading my config to run freenas virtualised with ESXi as the hypervisor, and also upgrade it to using raid z1 (raid 5 with 1 disk redundancy). I do need however to have a mini-SAS to SATA card for that to work for me, as I don't want to in the future have to re-copy over my data when upgrading. The mini-SAS helps with this is it should allow me to pass through the disks to freenas in ESXi. The only reasons I haven't done it yet is monetary mostly, the mini-SAS cards are not cheap.. AND I don't want to have to re-copy the data just yet as I have other projects ongoing that require my focus and time. Not least of which is my mining rig that I am running and upgrading.

 

Anyway, sorry for the WALL of text again.. just wanted to try and explain a bit better, and hope I have achieved it this time.

[Ashleyyyy]

2 hours ago, Abdul201588 said:

I don't think you understand. Older Generation servers a loud and power hungry that use old Xeons. I've got 2 servers. 1 R210 II and an R710 both quite. @Lurick has one or he has the R720. The R720 at max uses 250W under full with 2 CPUs, while under idle load, uses less than 200W, the R210 II uses less than 100W. 

 

 

i've got 3 servers, 2 2006 imb x3650's, single cpu dual core. both sound like jet engines. 

 

the last one is a hp proliant ml350 g6. even with 1 cpu in it it was loud, and when i upgraded to dual cpu it was crazy loud.. i had to modify the whole cooling system. 

[Misinthe]

14 hours ago, Windspeed36 said:

-Snip-

I want to back up my whole family's pictures/videos, plus run a Plex server to put all my movies and music in so everyone can enjoy them from any device. Which CPU would you recommend for like 3 (at most) playbacks at the same time?

14 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

-Snip-

I understood what you said, thank you for all the information. I do want to plan on multiple people transcoding Plex at the same time just in case my whole family desides to watch movies at the same time in different locations. What would be a good CPU to start with for that? I was thinking on starting with the Pentium and see how it does, it's only $75, then if needed I could try and find an Kaby Lake i5 or i7 without having to replace the whole system.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

I want to back up my whole family's pictures/videos, plus run a Plex server to put all my movies and music in so everyone can enjoy them from any device. Which CPU would you recommend for like 3 (at most) playbacks at the same time?

You could get away with a 4th gen or newer i5 or better. For reference I’m using a 1220v3 and it seems to be coping for 3 continuous streams albeit at speed preferred, not quality. 

[Misinthe]

28 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

You could get away with a 4th gen or newer i5 or better. For reference I’m using a 1220v3 and it seems to be coping for 3 continuous streams albeit at speed preferred, not quality. 

I don't know if I can afford anything that expensive right now. That's why I wanted to start with the G4560 for now and upgrade as needed.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

I don't know if I can afford anything that expensive right now. That's why I wanted to start with the G4560 for now and upgrade as needed.

Should be able to find them for like $200-$300: a Dell R210 ii would suit..

[Misinthe]

6 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

Should be able to find them for like $200-$300: a Dell R210 ii would suit..

Don't they only take like 2 Hard Drives? 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Miguel552 said:

Don't they only take like 2 Hard Drives? 

Stepping stone perhaps? Start with that and a couple of large drives. When you've then got some more money, get a seperate NAS: run the compute tasks on the Dell server and keep the storage seperate.

[Misinthe]

8 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

Stepping stone perhaps? Start with that and a couple of large drives. When you've then got some more money, get a seperate NAS: run the compute tasks on the Dell server and keep the storage seperate.

I don't know, I would have to shell out like $500 for a couple of drives. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

I don't know, I would have to shell out like $500 for a couple of drives. 

Well what's your budget and how much storage do you want and how much do you actually need?

[Misinthe]

2 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

Well what's your budget and how much storage do you want and how much do you actually need?

Well, for drives I was thinking about getting 2 4TB WD Red for now and expand later. I don't really have a budget set, but I don't want to spend crazy money. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Miguel552 said:

Well, for drives I was thinking about getting 2 4TB WD Red for now and expand later. I don't really have a budget set, but I don't want to spend crazy money. 

Speak to @Abdul201588 - he's got a few of them and can explain the drive layout better than I can. I'd assume there's 4 SATA harnesses meaning you could use 1 small disk for boot then either software (FlexRaid, Storage Spaces etc) for the 2 x 4TB drives OR use a hardware based RAID.

[leadeater]

17 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

i've got 3 servers, 2 2006 imb x3650's, single cpu dual core. both sound like jet engines. 

Stuff that old are really loud.

 

17 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

the last one is a hp proliant ml350 g6. even with 1 cpu in it it was loud, and when i upgraded to dual cpu it was crazy loud.. i had to modify the whole cooling system.

HP G6 and G7 are 1366 generation Xeons and fairly good. You can make them a lot quieter by going in to the bios and changing the power/cooling profile but at the time HP were a bit louder than Dell servers were. I've got an IBM x3500 M4 and it's not that loud, it's no gaming desktop but almost no server will be.

 

The quietest server I have is an Intel S5520HC + dual L5630 using Cosair H55 AIO coolers. 

[Sir Asvald]

19 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

i've got 3 servers, 2 2006 imb x3650's, single cpu dual core. both sound like jet engines. 

 

the last one is a hp proliant ml350 g6. even with 1 cpu in it it was loud, and when i upgraded to dual cpu it was crazy loud.. i had to modify the whole cooling system. 

Well, that explains your issue. You've got servers which are a more than a decade old. 

[Ashleyyyy]

Just now, Abdul201588 said:

Well, that explains your issue. You've got servers which are a more than a decade old. 

the hp server is from 2011 i believe. but yes, they are old. but the OP asked about getting servers off ebay, and those are old as well. 

[paddy-stone]

10 hours ago, Miguel552 said:

I want to back up my whole family's pictures/videos, plus run a Plex server to put all my movies and music in so everyone can enjoy them from any device. Which CPU would you recommend for like 3 (at most) playbacks at the same time?

I understood what you said, thank you for all the information. I do want to plan on multiple people transcoding Plex at the same time just in case my whole family desides to watch movies at the same time in different locations. What would be a good CPU to start with for that? I was thinking on starting with the Pentium and see how it does, it's only $75, then if needed I could try and find an Kaby Lake i5 or i7 without having to replace the whole system.

Well, I think the g4560 would suffice probably, it really will depend on whether the movies NEED to be transcoded.. and what I am trying to say is that IF that were needed, you might be better off either having different versions to suit whatever the devices can handle, Or maybe lowering the transcoding settings to like 720p maybe then ALL devices should be able to handle that, or making sure to have the videos codecs that all of them can play without the need for transcoding, or if the g4560 struggles with 3 simultaneous transcoding streams, then maybe switch one of them to playing with kodi instead that doesn't transcode to alleviate some of the strain.

There are multiple ways to try and get around some limitations of plex or the CPU transcode limit... IMO you could just try it and see what it could handle when you've first built it, set it at the highest transcode settings you would need/want, and see how it performs, if it's getting choppy playback, buffering or even worse glitching then dial it down and try again.

There really is no "one size fits all" with using plex really, everyone has different tastes when it comes to what they prefer for codecs on their videos and what they could put up with for video quality if transcoding. I think the g4560 is an excellent place to start personally, but I would seriously try plex on whatever you have available now to see what sort of transcoding settings you need for the devices you have in the house, and see what sort of load it is putting on the CPU... that should give you some indication of what might be needed hopefully. And then go from there...

You could consider going with one of the new APUs coming out from AMD in April, they will have an 8 logical core model 4/8 that should be plenty powerful enough for transcoding I would think.

 

I apologize for the abysmal punctuation above, it's one of those days

 

[Misinthe]

5 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

-Snip-

 

Thank you for all that information, I guess I'll set it up on my pc and run some streams on my TV, iPad and phone, which  would be my primary ones and see what it does to the CPU and decide what I need. 

[paddy-stone]

6 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

Thank you for all that information, I guess I'll set it up on my pc and run some streams on my TV, iPad and phone, which  would be my primary ones and see what it does to the CPU and decide what I need. 

Yeah, no worries, I hope that works out for you, I love plex BUT it's not very capable with the transcoding IMO, it was probably absoloutely fine years ago when everything was using x264 and 4K wasn't really prolific, but now it doesn't cope very well transcoding everything with x264 and needs an update soon. I don't stress too much about the 4k ones as I usually watch them in the lounge area, so I don't need to have resume play from elsewhere etc with plex and don't mind if I have to watch it on kodi instead. To be fair plex is a very good player and interface, it's just let down by only doing x264 transcoding/encoding IMO. To see what I mean, set up plex on your pc, try to find a video that isn't compatible with a certain device like a 1080p for a 720p device, and/or something in x265 and play it with plex and note the cpu usage. Then do the exact same video and device, but just create a share so the device can retrieve it in kodi... you'll see a massive difference.

Ok sorry for the wall of text again, it's really hard to explain the differences. And I'm not bagging on plex, just saying it has limitations especially with transcoding at higher levels like 4k. Kodi plays them flawlessly and with it barely registering on the NAS.

[Misinthe]

8 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

-snip-

Haha no worries, it's a lot to learn, I don't really know a lot about all of this. I guess I'll just have to do more research and testing.