Server For Plex

ddbtkd456 · June 3, 2018

So basically I have no idea where to start on this one. I want to do a server for backups, plex, and store movies, so that way I can keep the main desktops noise to a minimum. This will run 24/7, which I don't think will cost that much in electricity. I've been looking into xeon, but it needs to be fairly low powered and have room for a raid 1 setup. Also I do not know what the passmark is for streaming outside your home network, but I would want to be able to stream to 4 TVs, plus one or two outside my network. Any suggestions would be helpful, thank you. Note: I will not be streaming movies in 4k, just 1080p.

MorganO · June 3, 2018

31 minutes ago, ddbtkd456 said:

So basically I have no idea where to start on this one. I want to do a server for backups, plex, and store movies, so that way I can keep the main desktops noise to a minimum. This will run 24/7, which I don't think will cost that much in electricity. I've been looking into xeon, but it needs to be fairly low powered and have room for a raid 1 setup. Also I do not know what the passmark is for streaming outside your home network, but I would want to be able to stream to 4 TVs, plus one or two outside my network. Any suggestions would be helpful, thank you. Note: I will not be streaming movies in 4k, just 1080p.

probably a coffee lake i5 would suffice then a case with good airflowm and a bunch of hard drive spots really

Light-Yagami · June 3, 2018

Sth like a i5-8400 will do you just fine. You don't need a strong system to power a server. Even an i3-8100 would do just fine. I'd actually recommend the new Ryzen 2400G, as it's a complete package (CPU&GPU). As for the case, make sure you buy sth that allows for a good airflow over HDDs, and buy 24/7 NAS HDDs from Western Digital or Baracuda or sth.. I'd spare no expense on a server, as you want it to be 100% stable. Electricity wise, you'll probably give around 5-10$ a month to run it 24/7 (50W*24=1200*30=36000*0.15 (average electricity price) = cca 5.5$ per month. Don't expect to give more than 10. If you shove enough HDDs into it, they'll probably draw more power than the rest of the system combined.

jde3 · June 3, 2018

4 hours ago, Light-Yagami said:

Sth like a i5-8400 will do you just fine. You don't need a strong system to power a server. Even an i3-8100 would do just fine. I'd actually recommend the new Ryzen 2400G, as it's a complete package (CPU&GPU). As for the case, make sure you buy sth that allows for a good airflow over HDDs, and buy 24/7 NAS HDDs from Western Digital or Baracuda or sth.. I'd spare no expense on a server, as you want it to be 100% stable. Electricity wise, you'll probably give around 5-10$ a month to run it 24/7 (50W*24=1200*30=36000*0.15 (average electricity price) = cca 5.5$ per month. Don't expect to give more than 10. If you shove enough HDDs into it, they'll probably draw more power than the rest of the system combined.

I agree with most of this. You DO want a CPU with a GPU.. but just having any is good enough for a console. (you can do headless and serial if you want though) and you want a lot of cores because each transcode thread will need a few, (two per user might be good) but they don't necessarily need to be the fastest thing out there. Any new commercial CPU will be fine really or even a quality one from last gen. As for drives.. you don't really need expensive drives. Expensive drives sometimes die right out of the box just like cheep ones. If the choice is between "Super Gold Ironwolf Pro's" or just having a couple spares.. go with spares. A better high end drive usually won't last longer than a brand new generic name brand drive.