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Looking for Server for Personal Plex
Hey guys, I am currently looking for a new server for my personal Plex.
Currently running on an Old Xeon box with 8gb DDR2 and while slowish, gets the job done as it's purely personal.
My current problem is finding a server with ample disk space. Currently have 4TB and it's not cutting it. 
So i'm asking for you help!
I need something with similar or better Processor/Memory
Atleast 5TB Monthly bandwidth
And i'd like ~ 8TB+ in disk space.
Money wise, i'd like it under $50 but i'm taking the best offer i can find. If it cant be under 50 i understand but back it up with a decent server 
-Novalok
Comments
Location? Storage-wise, Hertzner is your go to but again depends on your location.
https://robot.your-server.de/order/market
ovh also have your requirement but like as ThracianDog said depends on your location
Single disk or you need RAID1?
Single Disk and Location US prefered but anything with decent latency to the US will work.
8TB storage for <$50 is not going to happen.
Check OVH Infrastructure line: https://www.ovh.com/us/dedicated-servers/infra/
I use an i7-3770 / 16gb / 2x3TB (sw-raid) / 34€ from [https://robot.your-server.de/order/market/sortcol/cpu_benchmark/sorttype/up/maxprice/40/limit/100#516176](hetzner auction)
I mount several storage boxes from time4vps (1.99€ / TB / month biennially) via nfs and use unionfs-fuse to make one virtual media-folder for ease of use in plex. It's working great for me with FullHD.
For 8TB it's around 44€ (~51usd) if u pay the storage biennially or 54€ (~62usd) for monthly payment.
I use two of the 2x2TB servers from Dacentec for Plex.
Hetzner is really the only one that I can think of that comes close. Not sure which part of the US you're in so latency might not be the best.
Ever tried transcoding media hosted on the T4V storage boxes to a lower bitrate and resolution? Let us know how that works out, as it could turn out to be a decent solution for quick / cheap expansion.
It uses a lot of CPU so you'd probably get suspended. I had a 1 TB storage box mounted to the M Plan that has 2 x 2.40 GHz CPU. That didn't work either, the app complained that "This server is not powerful enough to convert video".
No, I meant to ask if he tried transcoding on his hetzner box while having media stored on time4vps boxes mounted as local storage units using unionfs-fuse.
Ofc you cannot expect to Transcode or do anything remotely resource intensive on time4vps virtual servers due to throttling and other resource restrictions.
Ah, I see. I misunderstood you. Sounds like a decent idea.
For that money, why not invest in something hosted from home? I mean, if you calculate $600 for the first year, you can get quite a decent machine for that yourself and host it from home.
Plus, if there's any "questionable material" there, there will likely be less trouble if hosting it from home.
Personally, I would love to do this and would even be willing to put up with the dyndns hassle and the extra security I'd want to add if I'm serving from home, however...in many parts of the world, broadband is very async. 50 down/10 up for example, is what I have. That 50 is more than enough - but that upstream is always under pressure with Crashplan, Dropbox, etc.
It's working fine. Even with multiple concurrent transcodings.
I tried several stacks before - this is the first low budget plex that's working really fluffy for me.
Btw - you need to open a ticket for every storage server to get nfs activated.
not to mention that friends and family may want to stream too.
100/6 here - gotta love Canadian broadband! (not to mention the 400GB cap)
Most people are capped on around 100GB to 200 GB
I am doing it, for me, friends and family. 200mbps uncapped
Online and OVH both have a storage range that I have used with plex without issue. I currently have the online miniwopr with the st12 for storage. See desc for perform.
Then I should feel lucky
I've never gone over the cap though, surprisingly.
I should add that I'm watching plex content from NZ and it streams fine, so I'd guess most us States and isps should be fine too.
The cheapest way I could find what I needed to host my Plex server is
4TB Slot hosting with Delimiter VPS in ATL $100/yr
Ramnode 1024MB CVZ 4 Cores 200 GB 3TB $10/Month
Ramnode host is also in ATL which runs Plex server and mounts Delimiter drive via SSHFS. Ping times between the hosts are less than 1ms, so they are definitely in the same data center. 99% of my shows/films are x264/mp4 so transcoding is rare, but when transcoding is needed , it's no issue for the Plex server.
The one caveat is everything you stream will be counted twice as bandwidth (once to read over the SSHFS mount, the other to send to your device), but also not an issue for me because all my shows are SD and films range from 700MB - 2GB in size (I'm not a pixel whore and all looks great on my 55" TV). My average BW usage is ~600GB/month with ~15 friends who constantly stream.
I thought about this many times, but I ultimately decided to go with a hosting provider. If you take for example Hetzner (i7 3770, 16GB RAM and 6 TB of storage) you would end up paying no less than 500€ for a similar set up at home.
The real advantage of going with a hosting provider are:
1) the bandwidth; Hetzner provides 1Gbps in UP/DOWN. Excellent peering in EU, almost everywhere in the continent is 1Gbps.
2) replaceable components: 24/7 online components sooner or later die. I much rather have free components substitution than having to buy them myself.
3) Electricity: I really don't want to pay electricity for an i7 when it does 3 or 4 simultaneous transcoding of a 1080p movie.
4) available wherever you are. If I'd host at home, I wouldn't be able to stream with only 5 Mbps of upload.
Plus: you can use it to host a multitude of things that generally you wouldn't want /can't host at home (web server, mail server, etc.).
To me, paying the extra cash is worth it.