Media server died, starting a plan for a new one

[Mr. Analog]

As long as it's quiet

[Tom]

As long as it's quiet

One of the main reasons its a tiny mini-itx based system. It'll chew up a max of 200w, and most likely 150w or less. Which means the whole thing could probably run with a single 120mm fan going at its lowest speed. It'll just sit there and chug away. Noisy part might be the 7 HDDs in there clunking away.

[Melbosa]

I think for myself I'm going with a Synology 1812+ for the good old storage server.  Runs Plex natively and is an 8 Bay, 3.5" with expandable ram.  Will be ideal for my home needs and I'll soon have a Drobo for sale if anyone is interested.

But Tom your wish list there looks really nice!

[Tom]

That synology is /very/ nice. But also twice the price of my little build If I were to spend that much I'd want to get myself a 16-20+ bay hotswap 4u server case.

[Lazybones]

Synology 1812+ for the good old storage server.  Runs Plex natively

I would double check how much transcoding you are depending on with your content and devices... The 1812+ has enough CPU to trans-code up to a point.

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/38419-plex-on-new-synology-models-1812-1512/page__view__findpost__p__244340

720p MKV x264 5.1 DTS : no problem playing back on ATV2 (plex Client), Klexi on Ipad and IPhone. -> CPU while transcoding @ 80% usage (45 min Episode too around 20 mins for complete conversion. Seems Plex does the conversion as fast as it can and stores the converted filde in a temp-folder to stream it to the client)

1080p MKV x264 5.1 DTS : Playback stopped after 25 secs on ATV2 (plex Client). On IPad and IPhone using Klexi it stopped after 33sec. CPU while transcoding @ 95% usage

I then had the idea to pause playback directly after starting it (to let the CPU transcode a bit more) and resume playback after about 2 mins.
That lead to the fact that I was able to watch around 5 mins of the movie without stuttering. After 4.57mins it stopped again. CPU usage was again around 95%.

It seems there is not much we are missing there, but still, the CPU is not powerful enough :-(
Maybe something can be done on the software-side of things...

Server side trans-coding is the main reason i use Plex and also why I am looking again at building a small CUSTOM NAS from standard parts to get more CPU.

[Melbosa]

Most of my content is 720p, and the CPU in the Synology 1812+ is bigger than the one in my current Plex media server.  With the expanded RAM I am hoping not to see much issues.  My Drobo is full, and after it crashed I don't really trust it anymore (I know no reason for that - just my gut feeling).  I have bought a couple of these 1812+ for client sites that wanted small foot print NAS devices with lots of storage.

I'll keep you guys posted when I get my 1812+ and I'll let you know how it goes with the Plex stuff.  If it doesn't do Plex justice... well it still gives me an 8 bay NAS device that is highly rated.

Yeah I could build a comp for a bit cheaper (I can get an 1812+ with 3GB ram for $899 CDN) but meh, I don't want another computer - I have 5 running all day at my house... I want small, compact and no hassle updating.  My preference.

[Lazybones]

Yeah I could build a comp for a bit cheaper (I can get an 1812+ with 3GB ram for $899 CDN) but meh, I don't want another computer - I have 5 running all day at my house... I want small, compact and no hassle updating.  My preference.

I hear you... The only thing that bugs me about those units is the price vs build... You can slap a Linux NAS distro on top of standard hardware and get most of the easy benefits of management, but when it comes down to it, it is really nice knowing you just need to slap some disk in and away it goes.

720p tends to be my upper limit for content as well and even then most of my endpoints natively play  h.264 so trans-coding is less of an issue. I am very interested in what your results are. There are also some nice personal cloud features offered standard from those Synology and QNAP units, including iPhone apps etc.

[Tom]

The set and forget aspect is something that really attracts me to those units. Something I may yet still do.

[Tom]

Good news everyone!


(bet you can't not read that in his voice)

My Mediabox died today!

It's a fun story too. I install the ram, and it won't post. so I try removing one stick at a time till it does post. Then I try to see exactly which stick or sticks are dead, and it turns out its just one stick. In the middle of all that I wanted to see if maybe, possibly my old board's bios was maybe not happy with the full 8GB ram. So I updated the bios. Then when I boot into linux, the machine seems to stall in a couple places during boot. So I go try to run memtest86+, but memtest86+ won't boot from grub, it complains that there isn't enough low mem available. Seems that error is common with newer bios's, they have started using memory they really shouldn't. So I then go downgrade the bios and it fixes the memtest86+ error. After memtest86+ finished (successfully), I went to go reboot the machine.... And nothing. No post. Fans and drives spin up, but no post. It's at this point that I realize that I can smell something a bit odd, a bit like magic blue smoke, and I just swore. Also at that point, I notice that the memory is quite hot.

As a last ditch attempt to get the box running, I try my old ram, and nope. no post there either. I think the motherboard is dead.

Somewhat of a crappy day. But it's given me an excuse to pick up that NAS hardware I priced out. Put the order in already, and managed to save a bit by buying most of it at ncix. Only thing I had to buy from newegg was the case.

Fun times.

[Mr. Analog]

Bleh! That sucks, reminds me of my own battles with RAM

On the plus side new machine!

do you have a video card for it too?

[Thorin]

Yeah, so, this is why we work - to afford new hardware purchases!

Sucks that it borked, but cool that you get to buy a new machine.  Will you still get to craft mines on your big screen with the new media server?

[Tom]

Bleh! That sucks, reminds me of my own battles with RAM

On the plus side new machine!

do you have a video card for it too?

Yeah, so, this is why we work - to afford new hardware purchases!

Sucks that it borked, but cool that you get to buy a new machine.  Will you still get to craft mines on your big screen with the new media server?

Here's where it gets even better.

I just realized, as I woke up today that.. Get this... The board only has four sata ports, and one pcie port. I can't both use it as a nas and a mini gaming rig. Either I can put my SAS card in there or my new GPU... Not both. Bloody hell.

So yeah, no. no gaming on it. But I think I'll just have to figure something else out. Cheap ass mATX board or something. cheap ass corei3 or one of amd's new things. We'll see.

Man, this is why I shouldn't get all trigger happy.

[Mr. Analog]

Well, if you need a new vid card I have a GeForce 470 GTX up for grabs.

It's pretty good for most stuff.

[Tom]

Well, if you need a new vid card I have a GeForce 470 GTX up for grabs.

It's pretty good for most stuff.

Thanks. The problem is there's no place to put a gpu in that box if it's going to be a NAS as well. mITX board means one PCIe slot, and it only has 4 SATA ports, and I need a minimum of 7-8. And yeah, I just recently bought a NVidia Gforce GT640. Nice little card.

My only real solution at this point is to either cancel my order(s) and rethink things, or let it go through, and also pick up a new cheap ass media box setup.

[Mr. Analog]

I'd slap together a new media box setup if I had the choice. Generally you won't use your NAS for anything else anyway.