PMS 4.0...PMS 5.0...PMS 6.0...No PMS 7.0! Plex/Storage server upgrade [PICS]

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IamSpartacus

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Mar 14, 2016
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Ever since my latest upgrade/migration and the addition of a really nice OLED 4K HDR TV in my living room, my 4K library has been growing FAST. And being that full remux 4K HDR copies are in the 50-80GB range per file, my free storage space is shrinking quickly.

Welp...time to add a second JBOD. Tune in over the next week or two :D.
 
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DaddyGrant

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Jul 14, 2016
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Yes running Plex and Emby both as dockers and both sharing the same GPU for HW transcoding.
@IamSpartacus I just got my hands on a RTX 2060 so I'm going to see if their is a difference in quality over the p2000. Hardware offloading only really benefits my family, all my OLEDs have shields attached for direct streams.

Like you, I'm also pushing full steam ahead on 4k. While I'm currently "only" using 51% percent of my 108TB under UnRaid I already have an itch to scratch. "Storage Anxiety"

My grand plan of using a Ryzen 7 has worked out so far but I'm out of PCI slots for establishing DAS. I may have swap in my 1950x and acquire a new motherboard but I don't have a ton of placement options for the gear. I'm concerned about the heat since the current setup is in a guest bedroom. If I can find the ASRock Rack X399D8A-2T in stock somewhere it might just push me into swapping the Ryzen platform.
 

IamSpartacus

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@IamSpartacus I just got my hands on a RTX 2060 so I'm going to see if their is a difference in quality over the p2000. Hardware offloading only really benefits my family, all my OLEDs have shields attached for direct streams.

Like you, I'm also pushing full steam ahead on 4k. While I'm currently "only" using 51% percent of my 108TB under UnRaid I already have an itch to scratch. "Storage Anxiety"

My grand plan of using a Ryzen 7 has worked out so far but I'm out of PCI slots for establishing DAS. I may have swap in my 1950x and acquire a new motherboard but I don't have a ton of placement options for the gear. I'm concerned about the heat since the current setup is in a guest bedroom. If I can find the ASRock Rack X399D8A-2T in stock somewhere it might just push me into swapping the Ryzen platform.
Is there a reason you went with the RTX 2060 over the cheaper GTX 1660? They are pretty much equal when it comes to HW transcoding. I'm curious as to your results though as I'm considering swapping my 1080Ti for a 1660 myself.

nVidia Hardware Transcoding Calculator for Plex Estimates

I'm tempted to get that X399 server board myself if it wasn't for the fact that I don't want to tear my watercooling loop down.
 

DaddyGrant

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Is there a reason you went with the RTX 2060 over the cheaper GTX 1660? They are pretty much equal when it comes to HW transcoding. I'm curious as to your results though as I'm considering swapping my 1080Ti for a 1660 myself.
I got for free :)
 

maze

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Apr 27, 2013
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In case your Into it.. consider gdrive via rclone mount. My 4k remux plads directly from there.. no issues.

Mounted on a Windows 2016 VM that Also runs my plex with P2000 passthrough
 

IamSpartacus

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In case your Into it.. consider gdrive via rclone mount. My 4k remux plads directly from there.. no issues.

Mounted on a Windows 2016 VM that Also runs my plex with P2000 passthrough
Thanks for the suggestion but storing my media in the cloud is not attractive to me. I want my media readily available if my internet is down.

Besides how are you affording that? I'm showing it's $100 per month per 10TB of GDrive storage.
 

maze

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Thanks for the suggestion but storing my media in the cloud is not attractive to me. I want my media readily available if my internet is down.

Besides how are you affording that? I'm showing it's $100 per month per 10TB of GDrive storage.
Gsuite, unlimited if your 5 or more subs under an gsuite account. At iirc 10€/month/sub.

I only place 4K there since my own plex account is the only one allowed to Stream that. So its not that much though.

Have read about people having 100tb+ worth of plex archive there that they run solely on as storage.

Oh yeah.. and they dont enforce the 5 user limit, so even if you have just one sub on the account, its unlimited..
 

IamSpartacus

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Gsuite, unlimited if your 5 or more subs under an gsuite account. At iirc 10€/month/sub.

I only place 4K there since my own plex account is the only one allowed to Stream that. So its not that much though.

Have read about people having 100tb+ worth of plex archive there that they run solely on as storage.

Oh yeah.. and they dont enforce the 5 user limit, so even if you have just one sub on the account, its unlimited..
Oh nice. That's good to know. Not something I'm super interested in doing but that's definitely something I'll keep in the back of my mind. I also share out my 4K content to a few users with the required hardware and knowledge of how to play it so I like having my media local.
 

maze

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Yeah.. its a Way to have a somewhat cheap offsite backup aswell.. and rclone works quite well for a schedulet task that copies data every Night or week
 

IamSpartacus

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Yeah.. its a Way to have a somewhat cheap offsite backup aswell.. and rclone works quite well for a schedulet task that copies data every Night or week
Now for an offsite backup that is intriguing because while my main server storage is growing so much I'm not also upgrading my backup server storage so my 4K media will not be backed up at the moment.

What kind of speeds do you get to Gsuite with rclone?
 

maze

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Apr 27, 2013
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Now for an offsite backup that is intriguing because while my main server storage is growing so much I'm not also upgrading my backup server storage so my 4K media will not be backed up at the moment.

What kind of speeds do you get to Gsuite with rclone?
4 threads, 70-80MB/s or so. So yes, its very usefull. And same for Restore.

Keep in mind that the daily upload limit is 750gb, so upload might take a bit depending on your archive
 

IamSpartacus

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Mar 14, 2016
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Latest change of plans. Someone made me a great offer on my WC'd PC that I can't refuse. So the latest iteration of my Plex server is building a new dual Xeon server in a short depth chassis to go back in my small network closet. I'm keeping the U-NAS cases as JBOD's and will just be migrating my SSD's, HBA, and GPU (well new GPU) to the new chassis.

New Server build is as follows:

CPUs: Dual Intel Xeon E5-2680v3's
MoBo: SuperMicro X10DRi-T Dual socket E-ATX Board
RAM: 128GB (8 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 (well 2400 running at 2133)
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1660
Chassis: Norco RPC-431

So far I've got most of the build done. It's running some hardware tests to be sure the used hardware I picked up is good before I migrate my HBA and SSD's over. New GTX 1660 arrived today so that will be going in soon as well.

 
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jang430

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It really isn't, not at the smaller end of drive density. Large numbers of drives, sure, for density/serviceability reasons, you'll need it, but in the 4/6/8/12 drive range, not so much. And with current case options in that range there are lots of tradeoffs for hotswap - cost, cooling, and so on - in exchange for...not much. Slightly more convenient to exchange drives. You may not have to take the server offline for a few minutes. Big deal.



Just 1:1 on the HDD side, that's all you need. There is room for a lower intake but it'll be blocked by the power supply & cables, and also doesn't really do anything there. The two fans up top in a push/pull are all you need to cool the drive cages.

Motherboard side is a different story - there should be nothing blocking the lower intake, and it has a useful role in blowing cool air over your PCI slots/etc. If you have NVMe + 10GB cards it's a must.
Hi @Ixian @IamSpartacus ,

I am using the same Node 804, and soon, I'll be receiving my Supermicro X10SRM-TF, with 32 GB. Got it off eBay from this good seller, with Dynatron fan (at least in the pic) for USD 325. No processor. I see your recommendations for Xeon E5-2660 v3 and E5-2680 v3. Might go for the 10 core 2660 instead. I also have all drives populated on the drive cage side. I want to clarify what you mean by push/ pull setup? Which two fans up top are you pertaining to? I want to make sure that I'm also using the same push/ pull setup you mentioned here. On the motherboard side, I have it pretty tight. Current motherboard X9SCM-F, I have a Palit GTX 1070 Jetstream there (2.5 PCIe slots) and a Dell Perc H310 HBA installed. I also have 2 3.5" drives on the motherboard side floor. I have about less than a cm between the GPU and the 3.5 HDDs.

I'd like to seek advice on the push/pull setup you mentioned.