Dedicated Plex Server Build

[bluepan]

I'm starting to put together a micro atx dedicated Plex server. I'm torn between two i7s.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007671%2050001157%204814%20600005573&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=343%7C19-117-369%5E19-117-369%2C19-117-402%5E19-117-402&percm=19-117-369%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B19-117-402%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24

I'm leaning towards the 5820K to get more cores for transcoding.

My other concern is proper cooling in a small case running an i7. Since this machine will only be used for streaming, I wanted to limit its footprint.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Poprin]

I can give you some first hand experience. Plex is actually a lot more optimised than it used to be, I currently have an unRAID (Linux NAS OS if you are unfamiliar) based home server that is running a Windows 8.1 virtual machine and Plex is running in a docker (which is like a compact virtual machine).

The core hardware I use for this machine is the following:

Asus M5A78LM/USB3 MicroATX motherboard.
8gb 1333mhz Crucial ECC RAM.
AMD FX-4100 quad-core CPU (Turbo disabled, undervolted @3.7ghz)
(5 HDD's, 1 SSD 400w BeQuiet PSU)

Now based on the fact that the FX-4100 is largly regarded as the worst FX processor you can possibly buy (I bought it second hand for £28!) I can run on my server my Win 8.1 box (dedicated one core, 2gb RAM) and the remaining three cores of my 4100 can handle three simultaneous Plex transcode streams within my local network. Basically one steam per core, but an Intel processor of newer vintage would likely handle multiple streams per core quiet easily but it does sometimes depend on your content. I have quiet modestly encoded media files and they are mostly around the 2-4gb size. If you are transcoding much larger files, you may have a different experience.

 

[bluepan]

Thanks for the information! I'm almost exclusively running multiple 720-1080p video streams, so size can vary. My daily use machine has:

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 R5
AMD FX-83208 8 Core Black Edition
Kingston HyperX FURY 16GB 1600MHz DDR3

It does well to transcode 1-2 streams but I'm looking at the possibility of up to 5 streams, hence the i7 and a dedicated box.

I considered setting up each TV with dedicated direct play clients but the cost would be comparable to building a dedicated server.

Thanks again, I really appreciate any input.

 

[bluepan]

I can give you some first hand experience. Plex is actually a lot more optimised than it used to be, I currently have an unRAID (Linux NAS OS if you are unfamiliar) based home server that is running a Windows 8.1 virtual machine and Plex is running in a docker (which is like a compact virtual machine).

The core hardware I use for this machine is the following:

Asus M5A78LM/USB3 MicroATX motherboard.
8gb 1333mhz Crucial ECC RAM.
AMD FX-4100 quad-core CPU (Turbo disabled, undervolted @3.7ghz)
(5 HDD's, 1 SSD 400w BeQuiet PSU)

Now based on the fact that the FX-4100 is largly regarded as the worst FX processor you can possibly buy (I bought it second hand for £28!) I can run on my server my Win 8.1 box (dedicated one core, 2gb RAM) and the remaining three cores of my 4100 can handle three simultaneous Plex transcode streams within my local network. Basically one steam per core, but an Intel processor of newer vintage would likely handle multiple streams per core quiet easily but it does sometimes depend on your content. I have quiet modestly encoded media files and they are mostly around the 2-4gb size. If you are transcoding much larger files, you may have a different experience.

Not to get off my own topic but I stumbled across this page on the Plex site and I'm wondering if you have any experience with it?

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/214079348

Maybe optimizing my entire library would reduce the transcoding load?

 

[Poprin]

I'm guessing your daily use machine is running Windows and you are running the Plex client on that? I would expect the 8320 to be able to handle 5 streams, have you tested it?

Sometimes you can be limited by your bandwidth rather than your CPU horsepower. I would definitely do some testing before splashing out on an i7. I would get multiple streams running and then check your machine to see what kind of load your CPU is under, I would argue that for home server use the AMD FX line is actually where AMD has a strong advantage over Intel. If you couple them with an Asus motherboard you get native ECC ram support and they do actualy perform well under multi-threaded workloads. If you are thinking of building a dedicated server and you use your current machine for gaming, you could even consider repurposing your 8320 into a dedicated server build and getting an i5 machine for gaming.

As for the relatively new Plex feature that allows you to create a cached copy of the transcode, I haven't tested it myself but it sounds like a good option. The only think to bare in mind is that is going to significantly increase your storage requirements.

 

[bluepan]

I'm guessing your daily use machine is running Windows and you are running the Plex client on that? I would expect the 8320 to be able to handle 5 streams, have you tested it?

Sometimes you can be limited by your bandwidth rather than your CPU horsepower. I would definitely do some testing before splashing out on an i7. I would get multiple streams running and then check your machine to see what kind of load your CPU is under, I would argue that for home server use the AMD FX line is actually where AMD has a strong advantage over Intel. If you couple them with an Asus motherboard you get native ECC ram support and they do actualy perform well under multi-threaded workloads. If you are thinking of building a dedicated server and you use your current machine for gaming, you could even consider repurposing your 8320 into a dedicated server build and getting an i5 machine for gaming.

As for the relatively new Plex feature that allows you to create a cached copy of the transcode, I haven't tested it myself but it sounds like a good option. The only think to bare in mind is that is going to significantly increase your storage requirements.

You are correct except I run PMS on it now but I think that's what you meant. To be honest, I recently upgraded to the 8320 in hopes of not needing a dedicated machine. I have tested it but I may have gone of course. Within my own network it handles a couple 1080p streams just fine. Outside my network things tend to slow down and you might be right about having more to do with bandwidth than CPU power. I went with the 8320 because of it's multitasking ability and the golden rule with transcoding seems to be number of cores over ghz.

I downloaded PMS 19.5 today and I am optimizing 10 1080p movies. I'll run some tests this weekend but I'm hoping that streams outside my network perform better since they will be "pretranscoded". Anything within my network should be easily handled with my current setup. I would rather increase storage than have a dedicated server. I will update the thread once I get some testing done. Thanks for bringing me back to my senses

 

[Poprin]

You are correct except I run PMS on it now but I think that's what you meant. To be honest, I recently upgraded to the 8320 in hopes of not needing a dedicated machine. I have tested it but I may have gone of course. Within my own network it handles a couple 1080p streams just fine. Outside my network things tend to slow down and you might be right about having more to do with bandwidth than CPU power. I went with the 8320 because of it's multitasking ability and the golden rule with transcoding seems to be number of cores over ghz.

I downloaded PMS 19.5 today and I am optimizing 10 1080p movies. I'll run some tests this weekend but I'm hoping that streams outside my network perform better since they will be "pretranscoded". Anything within my network should be easily handled with my current setup. I would rather increase storage than have a dedicated server. I will update the thread once I get some testing done. Thanks for bringing me back to my senses

Yes when you start streaming outside your network it's a different ball game, I live in the UK and I have a cable internet connection. The rated speed is 100mb/s but this is downstream, when you are streaming to external client you are using your upstream bandwidth and you may find a lot of internet providers have quite a limited upstream bandwidth. I think for example mine is only about 25mb/s. So this may likely be the source of your issues.

 

[bluepan]

You are correct except I run PMS on it now but I think that's what you meant. To be honest, I recently upgraded to the 8320 in hopes of not needing a dedicated machine. I have tested it but I may have gone of course. Within my own network it handles a couple 1080p streams just fine. Outside my network things tend to slow down and you might be right about having more to do with bandwidth than CPU power. I went with the 8320 because of it's multitasking ability and the golden rule with transcoding seems to be number of cores over ghz.

I downloaded PMS 19.5 today and I am optimizing 10 1080p movies. I'll run some tests this weekend but I'm hoping that streams outside my network perform better since they will be "pretranscoded". Anything within my network should be easily handled with my current setup. I would rather increase storage than have a dedicated server. I will update the thread once I get some testing done. Thanks for bringing me back to my senses

Yes when you start streaming outside your network it's a different ball game, I live in the UK and I have a cable internet connection. The rated speed is 100mb/s but this is downstream, when you are streaming to external client you are using your upstream bandwidth and you may find a lot of internet providers have quite a limited upstream bandwidth. I think for example mine is only about 25mb/s. So this may likely be the source of your issues.

Poprin you may be the only one who sees this but just in case anyone else stumbles across it. I did some testing and ended up with the following setup that works good so far.

I created an account for streaming outside my network. Then I created a library that points to a folder where only optimized copies are stored. I only gave the account access to that folder.

I started 3 1080p streams on 3 TVs in my house at the same time. I had the external user start 2 1080p (optimized) movies on two of their TVs and it all ran without a single stutter. I got the best results by optimizing to original format BUT you are right, storage will become an issue as the optimized copies are quite large. I'm OK with that for now.

Thanks again for all your input!

 

[Poprin]

Poprin you may be the only one who sees this but just in case anyone else stumbles across it. I did some testing and ended up with the following setup that works good so far.

I created an account for streaming outside my network. Then I created a library that points to a folder where only optimized copies are stored. I only gave the account access to that folder.

I started 3 1080p streams on 3 TVs in my house at the same time. I had the external user start 2 1080p (optimized) movies on two of their TVs and it all ran without a single stutter. I got the best results by optimizing to original format BUT you are right, storage will become an issue as the optimized copies are quite large. I'm OK with that for now.

Thanks again for all your input!

Hey Bluepan, no problem. Thanks for taking the time and posting back your findings because this is a new Plex feature and I'm interested in this myself. Glad you managed to get a solution in place with your existing hardware, I'm a big advocate of recycling!!