Building a Plex Server - UK

[creative-2008]

I watch very little live TV, but consume a lot of TV and movies via Netflix, catchup TV services and a sizeable DVD collection. I also have a selection of family footage that has been shot on a variety of devices (with varying levels of quality) over the years. I'm looking for a centralised way of sharing this media.

At the moment, I have a DVD player hooked up in the main room, but not the bedroom due to space, and I have the family footage on my laptop and backed up to a portable HDD which I have to move around the house in order to be able to view it in different rooms.

I've looked into a lot of options and come to the conclusion that Plex is probably the way forwards, and that specifically I'd like to build a Plex Media server and then purchase some devices to plug into each television - probably one of the Roku devices. Over time, I'd like to archive all of my DVDs onto some kind of storage so that they can be more accessible through Plex.

I've spent between five and six hours researching this in total, and reading up on different builds etc. Two of the problems that I'm running into are that often suggested builds are a bit outdated and some of the hardware is no longer available, and also that the majority are US builds and some components (mostly power supplies and cases) aren't available in the UK. I've put together a list of suggested components for my build, but I'm really open to feedback because this isn't my area of expertise. I think my main area of concern is regarding the case and also cooling options. I've started by thinking about what I want, and then taken the spec from there.

• A box with a small footprint
• A box that uses as little electricity as possible when idle
• A box that doesn't generate excessive heat/has good airflow
• A box that is as quiet as possible
• Comes in at under £400 - under £300 would be a bonus
• Has the capacity to store 4TB of data
• Run Plex Server and be capable of transcoding 2-3 1080p streams - which I believe means I'm looking at a processor with a benchmarking score of >6000

Originally, I had been thinking about a media server in combination with a NAS drive/server, but now I'm thinking that incorporating them into one machine would be neater and might also keep the cost down.


It's worth noting that I am 99.9% sure that I'm entitled to free Windows desktop licences through my employer (obviously I'd need to check into that), so the cost of the OS probably doesn't need to be factored into it.

I would be great if it could also do the following:

• Able to mirror the data from one 4TB drive to another - originally I thought that a RAID controller way the only way to do this, but my research has turned up that the more expensive versions of Windows 7 and 8 will do this if configured correctly.
• Allow for files to be accessed by Windows laptops (and Mac laptops too if possible - I believe this isn't much more difficult) that are running on the same wifi network
• Allow for remote access from my Windows 7 laptop, which again I believe isn't difficult.
• Allow for encryption of the disks, so that if the box is stolen personal documents can't be accessed

With that in mind, I've been looking at:

• Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise - I've not had good experiences with Win8, although if there are advantages of using it then I haven't closed my mind to it.
• Athlon 860k
• Asus A88XM Motherboard
• Corsair 250D Mini ATX Case - This seems like a lot of money to me for a case, but some websites seems to suggest that penny pinching on the case will lead to bad airflow, overheating, noisy fans etc
• I don't believe that the case comes with a PSU, so I'd need to source that too.
• RAM - I haven't sourced this yet, but I'm budgeting that a 4GB stick will come in at around the £40 mark - and seems like it's all I'd need for a Plex server
• A WD 4TB drive is around £100-£120 - I'd only be buying one for now, and adding the other later in the year, so I'm only budgeting for one at the moment

I'd genuinely appreciate, and take on board, any feedback. I've never embarked on a project like this before, so would be really interested to learn from other people's experiences.

 

[xLokiX]

A couple things immediately jump out at me:

1. The Athlon 860k doesn't have integrated graphics, you will need a GPU of some sort. You could switch the processor for a A8-7600 if you want to stay with AMD, and not buy a separate GPU. It costs 85.29

2. The motherboard is Micro ATX, the case you chose is Mini ITX. If you want to keep the motherboard, I would get this case. It is 77.50, only .05 more than the case you chose. However, if you want the smaller ITX footprint, then I would recommend this motherboard. It is 77.99

As for the PSU either This (33.85) or This (36.14) should be sufficient.

 

[rhansen5_99]

Personally, I would make the jump up to the maximum fm2 socket chip if you are going that route. So either the 7800, the 7700k or the 7850. That way you get the 4 cores. The problem with plex is that it is very cpu intensive for transcoding, so even with those chips you will maybe max out at 4 maximum 1080p streams. Basically the cpus in these things are pretty weak even vs the older amd bulldozer chips.
With that being said the 8320e with 8 cores might be a better cost alternative to the apu's. If you go this route you will be limited to a matx minimum size mobo. I would also get at least 4-8gb of ram for the beast. I just built one of these for my grandparents with 10tb of storage and it works great for the 3-5 devices around the house, 2 roku's, a couple of ipads and iphones.

If money was not an issue I would go with the haswell i7's the 4790k(maybe the 4670k), ITX, and WD RED 6TB drives for your storage.

The key thing to look for is the cpu mark score, and remember that 2000 is good for about 1 stream, so if you have 10k you could do 5 or so.

Also a small ssd for your index stuff for plex helps a lot for the scanning and tagging.

 

[rhansen5_99]

Also of note if you do not have an os you might check out Tretflix, as it is an all inclusive Linux / Ubuntu appliance that puts most of the goodies you would want in your server for you in a nice package for say a virtual machine.

 

[creative-2008]

Thanks to both for your replies - it's highlighted that, as I said, this isn't my strongest subject.

I think swapping to that case will be the best move. I hadn't realised about the GPU. Am I correct in saying that the either a processor with on board graphics or a standalone graphics card is necessary for the computer to function? Or would it just be a case of having a poorly performing system without the graphics included? From a bit of research online, I'm of the understanding that it would physically work without onboard graphics on the processor, but it would just be horrible to use.

The reason that I was shying away from a dedicated card was that I'd read that they can generate more heat, and also obstruct airflow, so in a system that I want to keep as quiet as possible this wouldn't be ideal.

I'm trying to keep the price down, but without skimping on the performance of the system. Is it necessary to spend as much money on the motherboard? Will it be a factor in the performance of the system.

I'm looking down this list on Dabs and wondering if I could buy something cheaper. Maybe one of the MSI boards that comes with USB 3.0. Or would that impact on the choice of processor too?

Also, I'm probably going to have to install the 4TB hard drive at a later date, and just run the videos off an external harddrive in the short term. Is there anything stopping me putting in a 2.5" laptop harddrive in the shortterm, or would I be better with a 3.5" recycled drive?

Finally, am I correct in saying that AMD don't manufacture any FM3 processors with integrated graphics? I can't see any for sale on Dabs.

@rhansen5_99 - Thanks for the OS suggesions. I'm hoping that I'll be able to grab a copy of Win 7 through work, but if not I'll look into those options. I may even play around with them some day just to have a look into them.

I've had a brief look into the other processors, and will do a bit more research later. At the moment, I think I'm leaning away from them on the basis that it's probably more power than I'll ever use. It's unlikely that I'll even be using two streams at the same time, let alone three. Although, it doesn't hurt to future proof I guess!

 

[The Lurker]

Maybe its just me but I found that plex blows chunks when it comes to hosting personal content. Personal content has no meta data and plex relies on it to present the media to the user. I have had nothing but problems setting it up, requiring each individual file to have meta data added within the plex application. For whatever reason, a file name is not enough. Without entering meta data, I would have duplicate names in plex for different files on the drive.

 

[FrozenFood]

Avoid ebuyer!

Bad delivery, Bad customer service

bunch of liars and cheats

I never thought I would say this, but stick to ebay! at least the sellers there have a reputation to uphold