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Help me decide between these two media server solutions
Hello!
I need a media server to use with Plex. I can't decide between a remote dedicated server or a small box at home.
What would you choose? Why?
The remote dedicated server has several advantages: no worries about electricity bill, in case of hardware failure I don't have to pay for substitution, available at great speed wherever I'm.
Here are the specifications:
- CPU: Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1356 (2.0 Ghz)
- HD: 2x2 TB
- RAM: 8GB DDR2
- Bandwidth: 100Mbps unmetered
Price: $ 20 monthly
The home server will have these advantages: more privacy, 8TB of storage ... well that's it. I'd love to reduce costs by opting for a Banana Pie or the like. But I doubt it will transcode.
This is what I had in mind:
AND
Consider also 8GB of RAM (approx. $35) and an external box for the hard drive (approx. $30).
Price: approx. $600 + approx. $30 for electricity yearly.
What would you choose? Do you have alternatives?
Thanked by 1geekalot
Comments
did you try zxhost https://zxhost.co.uk/client/cart.php?gid=4¤cy=2 at least for 1 month gives you an idea about their node with plex. maybe @AshleyUk can help you with offers!
Thank you for the answer @ehab!
I've tried before ZXHost and I find it great. But as you can see above, I have a dedicated server with 4TB and unmetered bandwidth for like €18. For the same price, ZXPlay has 750 GB storage for the same price (though it offers a more powerful processor).
All down to if you need to transcode, the dedicated server you listed above wouldnt be able to support a single 1080P transcode.
If you just want to Direct Play and not hit the PMS hard, should do you fine.
Generally I watch 720p. With that server I've been able to transcode two simultaneous streams without issues.
I also tried just now to transcode a 1080p (10GB movie) to 64Kbps: it takes 30-40s to start but then it goes fine.
Why not get something half-decent?
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-I3-4160-Processor-Hyper-Threading-BX80646I34160/dp/B00LV8U0VE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446755078&sr=8-1&keywords=core+i3
+
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-VESA-Mountable-Desktop-Barebone-ProBox23-006BUS/dp/B00L8LSN0O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446754996&sr=8-1&keywords=msi+probox
The Desktop-i3 outperforms the low-power i3 in your posted setup by a lot and the standby-power-consumption isn't that different.
Yes it will work just, and you may find your get buffering at a late date once the cache that took 30-40 seconds is empty.
Also some codecs are heavier than others, however the CPU is tight for a 1080P. However as said if you run 720P then you should be fine for your use case.
no need to waste money on the likes of I3-4160. go get a G3258, the G3258 will give you better core performance and unlocked, both are Dual core.
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G3258-BX80646G3258/dp/B00KPRWAZQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1446756977&sr=1-1&keywords=G3258
Do it at home, put $20 in your savings every month, it will cover your extra electric costs and build up some money to cover replacement drives etc. Only reason for a dedi I can see would be better connectivity for sharing with friends...
If you are planning to have the Media centre remote make sure the connectivity between you and the server is decent, particularly at peak time.
Also look at emby if you want to transcode and the CPU isn't beefy enough, you can use it's folder sync feature to do an offline transcode (I.e it will transcode and store the transcoded copies in the sync folder) . Obviously at the expense of diskspace.
That is a nice processor indeed. Thank you!
True, but if I use the dedi I can stream wherever I'm. If I go local, my upload bandwidth is only 5Mbps.
I already have the server and I can stream pretty well whenever I do. Consider the server is in the US but I live in EU. Direct download is always 100+ Mbps.
A media center sounds like a waste of money unless you make money by watching movies and ads.
Load those movies on usb drives/1/2/3TB external drives and/or get a laptop.
As long as you're not doing much transcoding, the dedicated server will do fine. It all comes down to source material and where you stream it (if you share it with friends, make sure you teach them how to select the max stream quality - so it doesn't bog down the CPU when they try to stream 720p stuff at 480p on their phone). 1080p -> 720p transcodes destroy the CPU.
Also keep in mind that with Plex you can have multiple servers on one account and they're all searchable, I have one of my colo boxes plus a i3 Kimsufi for extra storage/one-off stuff that doesn't fit my tight catalogue of TV shows & Movies - also: seeding linux ISOs. So you can always find another cheap high storage box and just add it to your account, which will help with bottlenecks of multiple streams from a lower powered box if your files are spread out a bit.
I use Plex with a Hetzner server and feed more than 10 people with it. It is easy to use and works great.
I managed to teach all members to use Kodi with the Plexbmc addon and the Amber skin as client so that server does not have to transcode anything. Plexbmc is tuned to not use transcoding and the setup works nice. The idea is to get multiple cheaper storage vps in future to cut costs.
I will soon test time4vps for this purpose and if the results are good we will move all media files to them and purchase 3 of their 2 TB plans (paid yearly).
400 IOPS won't enough
I started using Kodi last week, been very impressed with it so far. I had some MKVs that VLC wouldn't play but Kodi played no problem at all.
Depends on the number of users, but they don't guarantee the IOPS, its just a maximum. I was talking with one of their customers the other day.
What you found something VLC won't play? I've thrown a lot of things at VLC and its played it all. I use Kodi here at home for all of our TVs, we have a computer in the living room with a TV tuner in it and all of the Kodi machines access it and stream live TV over the network. Kodi is awesome but I wish it had its own way of accessing the tuner and recording from it. Instead of having additional software to handle the tuning and recording.
OP, I have a core i7 960 machine sitting at my house that is my file server, dhcp, dns, and plex and it runs plex just fine. I have a decent upload at home so streaming to my laptop and or phone over LTE usually isn't a problem. Though I wish I had a more efficient cpu the 960 does draw a little more power then its new counterparts.
I've test on my vps not based on other, just 1 user.
How many people does it need to serve?
At home I use an Odroid C1 running Kodi and the remote costs like £5 from their website.
It's also connected to OpenVPN 24/7 and it's used for torrents with my NAS drive mounted. It runs without any hiccups and does 1080 very nicely.
The annual power cost for this until are next to nothing..
No transcoding abilities though for unplayable files.
Those Linux ISO's .....
Just me..sometimes my brother.
They reduced that to 100 afaik.
As far as I can tell this is correct, which is a shame.
It's played anything I've thrown at it so far and it was a simple and cheap suggestion.
What I torrent is of little concern to you sunshine.
Cheers
Rarely my Nokia phone produces MP4 based videos that Quicktime plays but are just black in VLC - Other times they are randomly rotated in VLC while being correct in Quicktime.
It is rare but yes there are things VLC has issues with - I've even seen it crash a few times when you try to i.e. buffer a lot of subs.
it was a joke you retard.
Time4vps. Okay, I can understand, 100 iops to ensure fair share BUT somethings are unaceptable on any provider. The problem:
They advertise that will increase IOPS AND decrease iops limit from 400 to 100 without alert clients. Disrespectful.
It is a horrible attitude and i'm moving away to a serious provider =]
100 IOPS is the same as my external hdd.
So customers using it as backup storage(as intended) will not be affected.
Also, I like how they used a low-Ghz cpu for the NAS; naturally keeping the GHz fetishists away.
Fair guess : their hand was forced by the IO abuse from this crowd. Once they have the situation under control, they'll probably raise it again if enough people ask for it with justification.
I have a hunch this cut is part of their experiments to fix the recent bandwidth contention. Wait and see, I guess.
All that was, was me scanning the directories, moving a version of the backup, and then pushing in new backups. I hardly call that abuse of their IO. But I appreciate your concern. I choose to do weekly backups over the weekend.