Media Server PC

Pho3nix

Pho3nix

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Hi all,

Looking for a tiny media/file server PC like the hp n40nl but with a little more grunt. Dual core with 4gb ram, tiny case aswell. Pre-built is pref.

Edit: Going to be running SABnzb,Plex and Sickbeard off this beauty so going to need it to automatically copy some files(movies and the like) onto my PC once a week or as they come in as I prefer to watch media locally.

Plex is rather for tablets and laptops to stream the media. Any applications able to do the copying or can Sickbeard or SABnzb do all I require?
 
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Well the Proliant Microserver does have a dual-core CPU and you can put in up to 8GB of RAM if you want. If you want something more powerful for some bizarre reason, you'd probably have to build it yourself, home media servers aren't really available in SA pre-built from what I've seen. Pretty easy to do but expensive - just the case will probably cost more than the microserver.

Sickbeard etc. should be able to download to any location on your network, provided the target PC is on of course. Which raises the question, why not just let your other PC download it then?
 
Don't want to leave my PC on 24/7. Also my PC is connected via WiFi at the moment and streaming to Plex from my connection isn't to great at all; streaming via ethernet cable does a pretty great job of this.
Just to be a little clearer, I want to leave the downloaded video on the media-server but copy the file onto my PC aswell. Will look into Sickbeard etc's settings.
 
But to copy stuff, the target PC would need to be on anyways... Unless you can somehow set it to copy only at certain times, I don't really know Sickbeard but you'd probably need some 3rd-party software or something to do that.
 
Sickbeard or SABnzb can move and rename the downloaded files, no need to get additional applications for this.
 
What you need the grunt for? I'm sure the microserver will be fine? It's fine for everything I throw at it...
 
Niren_M said:
Sickbeard or SABnzb can move and rename the downloaded files, no need to get additional applications for this.
Click to expand...

At pre-defined times? Because as far as I know it moves them immediately after download. Won't work if the PC is off.
 
Mike Smit said:
I used one for quite a while and it was fine with a single 1080p stream or 2 720p streams.
Then my kids started to stream and can sometimes have 5 X 720p streams going which killed the HP.
I then moved Plex Server to my Core2Duo machine, and while a little better, it still choked sometimes.
I now run the server on my dev machine which is an i7 Sandybridge. Plex is also installed on the 256GB Vertex 4 SSD which has made the starting of movies instant. I can work on this machine while the family are watching stuff and smooth experience all round.

So, short version is how you intend to use it. :D

Note that depending on the client, transcoding may not be necessary.
Click to expand...

Looked at using something more beefier after reading this post from Mike on his experiences with the HP. If I'm to do a custom job what kind of motherboard would I need? mini-ATX or something? Looking at a budget of R5k, can you guys suggest some hardware I could use. How good are the AMD all in one systems?
 
I'm running XMBC on a laptop, which is connected to my downloads server. Everything syncs up very nicely and has a great UI, maybe think about that?
 
Budza said:
What you need the grunt for? I'm sure the microserver will be fine? It's fine for everything I throw at it...
Click to expand...

Not for Plex. You need something with at least a dual core 3Ghz Pentium or equivalent.

Game has these small desktop prebuilt PCs (cannot remember exactly which brand they were, might have been Acer). Way over priced for what you get but it's a nice small footprint and all prebuilt. Maybe go and take a look.


EDIT:

Here, I think it's one of these: http://www.acer.co.za/ac/en/ZA/content/series/aspirex

You'll just have to check the specs, I can't find it on this site but it does say Intel Core processor so it should do.
 
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DrJohnZoidberg said:
Not for Plex. You need something with at least a dual core 3Ghz Pentium or equivalent.
Click to expand...

Not true. Plex Media Server runs great on my N36L microserver with Windows 7. Unless you mean the player? People who do run the player on it say it's fine if you add a cheap graphics card.
 
TJ99 said:
Not true. Plex Media Server runs great on my N36L microserver with Windows 7. Unless you mean the player? People who do run the player on it say it's fine if you add a cheap graphics card.
Click to expand...

No I mean PMS. Running PMS on a N36/40L is pushing the limits, any added load from a RAR extracting or some python process happening in the background is going to cause issues if you're transcoding something.

Here is my cpu activity while starting to stream an episode of a tv show to my iPad (this is a dual core Pentium 3GHz):

Screenshot%20from%202013-06-19%2022%3A20%3A20.png
 
I have an N36L with 1gb ram and a gt210. I run xbmc for playing to avr and plex ms for streaming to a smart TV. Can't say I've had issues due to any cpu limit and I've managed to play on tv, phone and tablet simultaneously.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
No I mean PMS. Running PMS on a N36/40L is pushing the limits, any added load from a RAR extracting or some python process happening in the background is going to cause issues if you're transcoding something.

Here is my cpu activity while starting to stream an episode of a tv show to my iPad (this is a dual core Pentium 3GHz):

Screenshot%20from%202013-06-19%2022%3A20%3A20.png
Click to expand...

PMS works like a charm, plays HD movies to my BD player, phone and ps3 simultaneously, no problem.

Then again, Plex's transcoder has MASSIVELY improved in performance over the last few versions, and these days none of my stuff transcodes anyways.
 
TJ99 said:
PMS works like a charm, plays HD movies to my BD player, phone and ps3 simultaneously, no problem.

Then again, Plex's transcoder has MASSIVELY improved in performance over the last few versions, and these days none of my stuff transcodes anyways.
Click to expand...

I just tested two simultaneous transcoded 720p streams (you can force transcoding by enabling subtitles), one to my iPad and the other to my Android phone and it completely maxes out both CPUs on my machine. If a RAR archive needed to be extracted or repaired during this it would have completely broken my streams. Would most likely be worse with 1080p streams. The benefit of more processing power would also mean syncing Plex content to your devices will go much faster too.

I'm not saying the MS cannot handle light Plex streams but there isn't nearly enough headroom when you consider all the variables.

EDIT: Oh and I used all latest Plex software including the latest PMS ver 0.9.8.0
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
I just tested two simultaneous transcoded 720p streams (you can force transcoding by enabling subtitles), one to my iPad and the other to my Android phone and it completely maxes out both CPUs on my machine. If a RAR archive needed to be extracted or repaired during this it would have completely broken my streams. Would most likely be worse with 1080p streams. The benefit of more processing power would also mean syncing Plex content to your devices will go much faster too.

I'm not saying the MS cannot handle light Plex streams but there isn't nearly enough headroom when you consider all the variables.

EDIT: Oh and I used all latest Plex software including the latest PMS ver 0.9.8.0
Click to expand...

Sure you CAN, but why would you want to make things difficult? And why would you extract archives on a media server? Surely you'd run that from the desktop PC which has many times the power?

The point is, yes you can make the thing slow down if you really want to, but for standard use, the microservers perform perfectly and there's no real need to spend 3 times the money on a mini desktop.
 
TJ99 said:
Sure you CAN, but why would you want to make things difficult? And why would you extract archives on a media server? Surely you'd run that from the desktop PC which has many times the power?

The point is, yes you can make the thing slow down if you really want to, but for standard use, the microservers perform perfectly and there's no real need to spend 3 times the money on a mini desktop.
Click to expand...

Just trying to accommodate the OPs request:

.. Going to be running SABnzb,Plex and Sickbeard ...
Click to expand...

Sab requires the system to extract RARs everytime a download completes and sometimes needs to do archive repairs which eats CPU.

I also no longer really recommend Microservers because they are not cheap anymore. You can get yourself a system 10 times more powerful for the same price as a new MS - the footprint and power consumption might be nice but not that nice.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Just trying to accommodate the OPs request:



Sab requires the system to extract RARs everytime a download completes and sometimes needs to do archive repairs which eats CPU.

I also no longer really recommend Microservers because they are not cheap anymore. You can get yourself a system 10 times more powerful for the same price as a new MS - the footprint and power consumption might be nice but not that nice.
Click to expand...

Well, I also have Sickbeard, Couchpotato and an ftp downloader running full time on mine with no issues, it's really surprising how much you get out of those low-power CPU's.

The price of the new ones does seem to be a problem though. R2000, are you freaking kidding me? I guess it was inevitable with the large numbers they were selling after everyone caught on, sooner or later, good old SA greed would kick in.
 
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