Posted October 7, 2018 I am looking at building a dedicated plex/emby server. my current setup while works is over 10 years old and can't keep up. Now that fibre is in my area I need to do something. requirements are rack mount, i could do 4u but prefer smaller. Can a 2U server meet my needs? 1-2 GPU, will get one for sure but would like a 2nd slot if I needed.was thinking of mounting the cards horizontal and not vertical 10gbe Ethernet, over kill probably but I do have 10gbe switch on my network m.2 drive to access the media info in a timely manner. will be doing ram transcoding when needed. IPMI would be nice but not needed. right now I am thinking up to 10 streams. Client hardware is all x265 capable but most of my media is x264. I am also getting a 4k tv in the near future. I will be migrating over to emby in the future, I have no live TV yet but it is in the works and emby can transcode live tv. Still researching on the best options for that as I need some sort of HDMI capture card/iptv encoder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted October 7, 2018 Why would you need GPUs in a server for transcoding? You can add the M.2 on a PCIe card, so I'm gonna ignore that requirement to give you best value. Either way... CPU: Dual E5-2667s? Your choice there, really. Mobo: Gigabyte GA-7PESH2 - has 16 RAM slots, dual CPU sockets, 2 10gigabit ports + a dedicated IPMI NIC, plus two PCIE ports for a GPU, 2 onboard SAS2 sockets (up to 8 drives each). https://www.theitmart.com/GA-7PESH2-GIGABYTE-Intel-Rev10-LGA2011-E-ATX-Server-Motherboard RAM: 4-8x 8GB ECC DDR3; pick it up off ebay. Case: 4U Rosewill w/ 15 drive bays: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0091IZ1ZG/ PSU: Whatever you want, needs to have dual EPS power and a 24pin plus whatever you need for your GPU(s). (Though I guess you could use an EPS splitter but I really wouldn't recommend it) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted October 7, 2018 Author 14 minutes ago, Jade said: Why would you need GPUs in a server for transcoding? You can add the M.2 on a PCIe card, so I'm gonna ignore that requirement to give you best value. Either way... CPU: Dual E5-2667s? Your choice there, really. Mobo: Gigabyte GA-7PESH2 - has 16 RAM slots, dual CPU sockets, 2 10gigabit ports + a dedicated IPMI NIC, plus two PCIE ports for a GPU, 2 onboard SAS2 sockets (up to 8 drives each). https://www.theitmart.com/GA-7PESH2-GIGABYTE-Intel-Rev10-LGA2011-E-ATX-Server-Motherboard RAM: 4-8x 8GB ECC DDR3; pick it up off ebay. Case: 4U Rosewill w/ 15 drive bays: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0091IZ1ZG/ PSU: Whatever you want, needs to have dual EPS power and a 24pin plus whatever you need for your GPU(s). (Though I guess you could use an EPS splitter but I really wouldn't recommend it) with plex a gpu can do much more than a CPU can. M.2 was if the board only has 2 16x slots and that is it a m.2 spot is needed. it is just in the planning stages. While fiber is in the area will probably be 4 months till the network is turned on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted October 7, 2018 You will need quadro card if you wish to do gpu transcoding with more than 2 at the same time. Also most bottleneck when direct play/streaming is your going to be your hard drives. I would stick to stronger CPU, why don't you stick with x264 as this support way more devices compare to x265. Magical Pineapples
