build or buy NAS for plex server

[country2]

Wanting to buy / build a low power NAS to be used as a plex server. Have 6 devices (2 htpc, 2 roku xs and 2 android phones) some transcoding may be needed in the future as right now everything has been converted over and all can do a direct play but want to leave headroom for the future for the just in case.

Looking at building some types of a mini-itx system runing a low power Intel i3-3220T on a intel h77 motherboard.Freenas or whs2011 would be my OS. From my research I can build a decent one for around $400 -500.As I have the hard drives laying around.

I have also been looking at the ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 with Intel Celeron G1610T 2.3GHz 2C/2Twhich should handle transcoding on the fly (Ok maybe not as its a 2.3ghz but I can upgrade it to a i3-3220T for $120) and can be found for about the same and has a replaceable cpu so I can upgrade it later on if needed.

Are the pre-built NAS better as far as quality and running 24/7 verses a home built? Thanks!

Maybe this is better suited for the memory / storage forum? Hey mods feel free to move if it is.

 

[scoob8000]

I can't say for sure about running Plex, but I'm a fan of Synology NAS's. After trying the home built thing twice I went with a NAS device. After trying models from Buffalo and Netgear I landed on Synology.

Faster, more stable, less power consumption, smaller, and more flexible.

 

[country2]

I can't say for sure about running Plex, but I'm a fan of Synology NAS's. After trying the home built thing twice I went with a NAS device. After trying models from Buffalo and Netgear I landed on Synology.

Faster, more stable, less power consumption, smaller, and more flexible.

Thanks for the info but due to transcoding only the higher end Synology will work...but they are out of my price range right now.

 

[SheHateMe]

Check my sig.

Homebuilts are not hard at all. I had no clue what I was doing going in....but I used the guide at Assassin HTPC blog to get setup and then used the forums (unraid forums) for everything else.

Im running Sabnzbd, sickbeard, couchpotato, and Plex off of this. I have the plex mobile app on two tablets and I also have a Roku. Zero issues.

 

[PliotronX]

Pretty much all of the NAS boxes capable of HD transcoding are like $1700+. Definitely build! Too damn easy with all kinds of Youtube videos. It's just like a desktop with standard ports and whatnot.

 

[smitbret]

Built my NAS/Media Server and based it on WHS 2011. I run FlexRAID on it, which is far slower than a striped array on FreeNAS, but can still saturate my gigabit network.... much more speed than you'll need for serving up movies.

An i3 is great for what you want to do, or if you want ECC look into an AMD A3+ board from Asus, some ECC unbuffered memory and a 4300 or 6300 CPU.

Get a board with onboard video and you can keep the PSU smaller and the heat will be minimal. I have mine in a Fractal Design Define Mini and it is virtually silent with the stock fans turned down a bit and the drives stay nice and cool. I would probably get an R4 or XL R2 if I were gonna do it over again, but just for future expansion possibilities.

 

[smitbret]

I can't say for sure about running Plex, but I'm a fan of Synology NAS's. After trying the home built thing twice I went with a NAS device. After trying models from Buffalo and Netgear I landed on Synology.

Faster, more stable, less power consumption, smaller, and more flexible.

Well, less power consumption anyway.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Have you thought about replacing one of your HTPCs with a Roku and using the replaced HTPC as a Plex Server? Something to think about.

I got rid of my HTPC a few years ago and have focused on putting all the power on a backend server and using Roku 2 and 3 devices as the players. It has worked great for me and my next step is to add a network DVR which dumps recordings into a folder served by Plex and can be watched anywhere.

 

[country2]

Thanks everyone for their input.I have decided to just build one. Nothing fancy but good enough to serve plex, transcode if needed, handle atleast 2 -3 streams at a time and possible do back ups of 2 other pc in the house. I'll post specs later on what I have decided to buy.

 

[gorcorps]

Check my sig.

Homebuilts are not hard at all. I had no clue what I was doing going in....but I used the guide at Assassin HTPC blog to get setup and then used the forums (unraid forums) for everything else.

Im running Sabnzbd, sickbeard, couchpotato, and Plex off of this. I have the plex mobile app on two tablets and I also have a Roku. Zero issues.

I assume you're just using windows if you can run all of that, correct?

 

[noacess]

Depending on your uses, you may considering building an ESX server and virtualizing a NAS. Thats what I did and it works great.

 

[country2]

thought I'd give a update,

I built a server running WHS2011.Parts include

case Fractal designed Node 304 $76 shipped (new ebay)

motherboard Asus H87I-PLUS Mini-ITX Motherboard $70 shipped (used ebay)

Power Supply Seasonic SS350ET350 watt 80plus $20 shipped (used ebay)

CPU i3 4130 $107 shipped (new from newegg)

Memory G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 $53 (new from newegg)

Running fine headless even managed to get the plex media server running correctly with the plex service that someone had wrote so it will run as a "service"...so don't have to be logged in for plex server to run. Only hiccup is for some reason on WHS2011 I cannot log in as a guest even though its set up and is active..only can log in as admin but no biggy.

 

[smitbret]

thought I'd give a update,

I built a server running WHS2011.Parts include

case Fractal designed Node 304 $76 shipped (new ebay)

motherboard Asus H87I-PLUS Mini-ITX Motherboard $70 shipped (used ebay)

Power Supply Seasonic SS350ET350 watt 80plus $20 shipped (used ebay)

CPU i3 4130 $107 shipped (new from newegg)

Memory G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 $53 (new from newegg)

Running fine headless even managed to get the plex media server running correctly with the plex service that someone had wrote so it will run as a "service"...so don't have to be logged in for plex server to run. Only hiccup is for some reason on WHS2011 I cannot log in as a guest even though its set up and is active..only can log in as admin but no biggy.

I always found that logging into WHS 2011 under anything but 'administrator' was pretty pointless since most anything that can be done under a different user can be done from the dashboard on clients.

 

[raf051888]

How did you get Plex to run as a service? I had problems trying to get mine to work like that.

You may want to look into Stablebit Drivepool as an alternative to RAID. For me it was a no-brainer replacement for Drive Extender for $20.

 

[country2]

How did you get Plex to run as a service? I had problems trying to get mine to work like that.

You may want to look into Stablebit Drivepool as an alternative to RAID. For me it was a no-brainer replacement for Drive Extender for $20.

To allow plex server to run as a service automatically I found a script someone had wrote for it for WHS2011...I'll look around and see if I can find it...thought I had bookmarked it but guess not.


Check this link out https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/93994-pms-as-a-service/

Believe thats what I used. Only issue I had was setting up the login credientials I had to use .\username

I run mine headless and have restarted it 4 times now and not a issue with it running automatically as a service.

 

[sweenish]

Are you transcoding HD (720p, 1080p?) without issues on that i3?

 

[country2]

Are you transcoding HD (720p, 1080p?) without issues on that i3?

no already converted to mp4. From what I read should be able to handle 1 1080 or 2 720...again what I read but not done.

 

[smitbret]

I ran some tests about a month ago on my FX6100 that uses Mezzmo as the DLNA server instead of Plex. Mezzmo and Plex both use FFmpeg to do the transcoding so the results should be very similar. I would expect slightly better performance out of the i3 than I got with my FX6100

Anyway, I was able to transcode 4 720p streams at medium quality or 2x720p + 1080p streams. Of course a lot of it is going to depend on the original file size, too, but these were BR rips that I had already re encoded to a file size of 8GB-16GB.

The i3 should have no problem with 1 or 2 of these, regardless of resolution.

 

[country2]

Thanks for the info.Thats why I went with the i3 due to cost and figured worst case I may transcode 2 streams 720p and figured this cpu should handle it.Going to try and keep my movies down in size and as mp4 format so I should have no issues at all.

 

[sweenish]

no already converted to mp4. From what I read should be able to handle 1 1080 or 2 720...again what I read but not done.

I ran some tests about a month ago on my FX6100 that uses Mezzmo as the DLNA server instead of Plex. Mezzmo and Plex both use FFmpeg to do the transcoding so the results should be very similar. I would expect slightly better performance out of the i3 than I got with my FX6100

Anyway, I was able to transcode 4 720p streams at medium quality or 2x720p + 1080p streams. Of course a lot of it is going to depend on the original file size, too, but these were BR rips that I had already re encoded to a file size of 8GB-16GB.

The i3 should have no problem with 1 or 2 of these, regardless of resolution.

Good to know. Whenever I get around to building a server, I might have to go with an i5. I had never thought to take the transcode power needed into account.

 

[Zak_]

Depending on your uses, you may considering building an ESX server and virtualizing a NAS. Thats what I did and it works great.

This the way to build the most powerful machine. If you can run HDMI through the walls, or if the server is nearby, you can run NAS and HTPC on the same box. Either using XBMC paired with an IR repeater, or a tablet running a xbmc remote app.

But for most uses what OP went with will work great.

 

[omninate]

I built a server running WHS2011. Parts include
- case: Fractal designed Node 304
- motherboard: Asus H87I-PLUS Mini-ITX Motherboard
- Power Supply: Seasonic SS350ET350 watt 80plus
- CPU: i3 4130
- Memory: G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

Hey country2, what did you do about cooling?

 

[poofyhairguy]

I assume you're just using windows if you can run all of that, correct?

All of that will run on Unraid. I still think if we are talking purely media content then Unraid is the best economic option for a server.

 

[Rio Rebel]

I was transcoding blu-ray rips, 1080p, on an Ivy Bridge Pentium G2120. I never tried to do multiple streams, but for single streams, it never missed a beat.

 

[country2]

Hey country2, what did you do about cooling?

case cooling or CPU? On the case I'm just using the stock fan that came with it. I believe on cpu is also the stock HSF..I'll let you know for sure in a day or two as I want to open it up and clean it.