Project plex server

So I've never done a build thread before, but I've always enjoyed reading others so I figured why not post one.

The background for this build it I love plex and the wife enjoys the ability to remotely stream her dvds/blu rays while away (works 16 hour days and during lunch she likes to get away). So far my little HP mediasmart server has worked wonderfully and I haven't had one issue with my little 4 core xeon until recently with trying to transcode 4k files. I've decided to build a proper media server.

I picked up a cheap xeon E5-2630 V4 (10 core 2011-3) that the build will be centered around. The only other piece of the puzzle that I acquired was a Silverstone TJ08B case (ebay for $9.50!!!) - I've wanted one of these cases since they came out.

I am stoked for the build, just need a matx 2011-3 mb, ram, and a power supply. I have a cheap EVGA power supply that I may put in there, but I'd love to do something modular. MB wise I'm leaning toward the Asrock X99M. Memory wise I'm leaning toward eventually 4x 16gb sticks however I need to save money so I'll probably do them one or two at a time.

Will post some pictures and updates as they happen. Right now the case and CPU are on their way here.

Small update to this.

Just purchased a Corsair CX650M for $30 after rebate/gift card from newegg. Not the best power supply, and more wattage than I need, but it was cheap and has a 5 year warranty on it.

Also scored a Corsair H80i for $20 on ebay, should keep the 85w 2630 cool under load. A buddy is giving me a Quadro 570 that should work just fine for the build.

And finally purchased 2x 16gb crucial ballistix. I wish DDR4 prices hadn't hiked up in the last 2 months, oh well it wasn't a terrible deal ($125 thanks to an Amazon coupon).

Now I just need to get a good deal on the MB...

Sounds awesome. Plex unfortunately would not play my mkv's (read lots of my video files) so plex is not an option for me. I plan on a discreet no-moving parts build with networked/usb3 drives. I'm looking at MediaOS or a freenas type setup. But definitely no fans or any moving parts except for the data drives as ssd's of any capacity are $$.
TBH, my desktop case is similar to yours except I have soundproofing mat and a front panel. It would make for a sound server setup, xcept for the fans.

habbajabba said:

Sounds awesome. Plex unfortunately would not play my mkv's (read lots of my video files) so plex is not an option for me. I plan on a discreet no-moving parts build with networked/usb3 drives. I'm looking at MediaOS or a freenas type setup. But definitely no fans or any moving parts except for the data drives as ssd's of any capacity are $$.
TBH, my desktop case is similar to yours except I have soundproofing mat and a front panel. It would make for a sound server setup, xcept for the fans.

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Weird, 95% of my videos are .mkvs, I wonder why it would have issues using yours?

I do like the no moving parts idea, that would make it super quiet. I am lucky to have a separate room to house the server so noise isn't a big deal.

I'm getting anxious for the build, just got the ram and cpu in today...

I'll have to give plex and my smart tv one more try if you say it works. I have avi's, mp4's and mkv's only so it must play everything the pc can. I'll update if it works.

Thanks for sharing buddy! I'm actually also building an X99 (mATX) build right now. After much reading, I decided to go with the Asus X99m WS (workstation). It seemed to be the most feature rich board out there, with built in wifi, a M.2 SSD slot, and several USB headers (2.0 and 3.0). So that may be worth checking out for you. I'm going to be putting it into a Bitfenix phenom (whole reason behind this build is downsizing).

mokrunka said:

Thanks for sharing buddy! I'm actually also building an X99 (mATX) build right now. After much reading, I decided to go with the Asus X99m WS (workstation). It seemed to be the most feature rich board out there, with built in wifi, a M.2 SSD slot, and several USB headers (2.0 and 3.0). So that may be worth checking out for you. I'm going to be putting it into a Bitfenix phenom (whole reason behind this build is downsizing).

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That board is amazing, I looked at it and really considered it. My only issue is Asus doesn't have great support for engineering sample CPUs so it got ruled out right away
I also looked at the phenom, I really like the case. There are so many cool matx cases out there now. What cpu are you considering for your build?

I'm thinking I'll go with the i7-5820k. Don't really need the extra PCIe lanes, and can't justify the price jump to get there... Really wish there were some more options, but I don't think I'll have too many complaints on the 5820

What did you pay for your Xeon? Maybe I'll have to check that out too!

I'm running my server on an LGA 1150 Xeon...works great!

I take all of my mkv files and convert to MP4.

mokrunka said:

I'm thinking I'll go with the i7-5820k. Don't really need the extra PCIe lanes, and can't justify the price jump to get there... Really wish there were some more options, but I don't think I'll have too many complaints on the 5820

What did you pay for your Xeon? Maybe I'll have to check that out too!

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The 5820k would be a great processor. I went with the xeon because you can get them dirt cheap (engineering samples) on ebay. I paid $145 for my 2630 v4.... The difficult part is finding a motherboard that works with the ES processor. A workstation motherboard shouldn't have any issues, but I wouldn't recommend a consumer asus x99 if you want to run a v4. Here is a good place if you want to learn a little bit more about xeons:

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/es-xeon-discussion.5031/

On edit, forgot to mention that the stepping makes a big difference in these engineering sample processors. Earlier steppings can be difficult to make work and often have much lower clock speeds.

custom90gt said:

So I've never done a build thread before, but I've always enjoyed reading others so I figured why not post one.

The background for this build it I love plex and the wife enjoys the ability to remotely stream her dvds/blu rays while away (works 16 hour days and during lunch she likes to get away). So far my little HP mediasmart server has worked wonderfully and I haven't had one issue with my little 4 core xeon until recently with trying to transcode 4k files. I've decided to build a proper media server.

I picked up a cheap xeon E5-2630 V4 (10 core 2011-3) that the build will be centered around. The only other piece of the puzzle that I acquired was a Silverstone TJ08B case (ebay for $9.50!!!) - I've wanted one of these cases since they came out.

I am stoked for the build, just need a matx 2011-3 mb, ram, and a power supply. I have a cheap EVGA power supply that I may put in there, but I'd love to do something modular. MB wise I'm leaning toward the Asrock X99M. Memory wise I'm leaning toward eventually 4x 16gb sticks however I need to save money so I'll probably do them one or two at a time.

Will post some pictures and updates as they happen. Right now the case and CPU are on their way here.

Click to expand...

While that sounds absolutely spectacular and awe inspiring (as well as envy-inspiring), your plans bring to mind the song "Overkill" by Motorhead.

Theocnoob said:

While that sounds absolutely spectacular and awe inspiring (as well as envy-inspiring), your plans bring to mind the song "Overkill" by Motorhead.

Click to expand...

Hah, thanks! I wasn't planning on building a 10 core, but I couldn't pass up the deal. I'm getting excited, I've got everything except for the motherboard which should be here Wednesday.

A big update to this (silly school kept me from posting it for the past few days)

I received the Asrock x99m Extreme4 from newegg and for an asrock board it looks pretty nice. It will be my first build using something other than gigabyte/asus/msi.

I also found an old x850 pro XT from the long long ago that I didn't even know I had.


The build
The stack of parts:


Not a bad deal for $9.50:


Gotta love removable motherboard trays (especially in small cases):


How everything fit:



After everything was nicely placed I attempted to fire it up and got nothing to the monitor. Great, why did I build it all the way through and not test it first... Turns out my poor little x850 didn't want to work. Off to craiglist I went. I ended up finding a GTX 650 (non-TI) for $30 and I was back in business:


Powering on for the first time:



Great success! I installed Windows Server 2012 R2 datacenter since I still had my technet key. The 250GB evo drive that I decided to use was something that has been sitting around for a bit just begging for a project. The drivers took a little modifying to get to work with server, but it functions well. I also was able to load up plex and configure everything (like backing up the wife's laptop/music).

Here is how she sits:



Initial impressions:
going from an aging (but awesome) mediasmart server with a quad core xeon to this 10 core x99 with 32gb of ram is a huge different. Plex doesn't even come close to stressing it out. I need to try some remote transcoding of 4k files just for fun, but I don't imagine it being too stressful for the 2630. I thought about doing some benchmarks, but that will likely have to wait for winter break (already put school on the back burner enough, lol). The H80i does a phenomenal job of keeping the CPU cool, I have yet to see anything over 50*C.


Parts list:
E5-2630 V4 - $145
Asrock x99m Extreme4 - $169.99 (after MIR)
32GB crucial ballistix - $125
TJ08B - $22.50 (after shipping)
Corsair H80i - $27 (after shipping)
Corsair CX650M - $30
Nvidia GTX 650 - $30
2xHGST 4TB Deskstar NAS drives - already had
1xHGST 2TB Ultrastar 7K3000 - already had
250GB Samsung 850 evo - already had

Total: $550 - a little more than I wanted to spend, but selling the mediasmart server should help me recoup a decent portion of it.


Just a fun pic:

Very nice setup there. Have you ever considered moving to a ZFS raid? Its basically the most reliable file system out there right now.

All in all its a very nice system. Im sure you will enjoy it.

ssjwizard said:

Very nice setup there. Have you ever considered moving to a ZFS raid? Its basically the most reliable file system out there right now.

All in all its a very nice system. Im sure you will enjoy it.

Click to expand...

I had considered running unraid for its expandability compared to ZFS, however I wanted to stick with a windows environment so I could use it for any future projects (say running solid works on it). I also like the ability to easily back up the wife's laptop. I also don't mind setting up manual backups of things vs doing raid either. It's not as quick to restore, but I'm fine with that.

Tried some 4k streaming to my phone last night and things worked wonderfully. It uses about 50% of the cpu but doesn't step up the clockspeed (stayed at 1.2ghz) and was cool and quiet (~20w cpu). I ran prime95 on it for a bit to see what temps would look like and they never went above 49*C.

Also just ran Cinebench on it to see:



While not an amazing score, it is double what my i5 scores.

Are you seriously using a 12 year old GPU with your epic-as-hell monster machine?


Interesting side note- I lusted after that very card when it came out shortly after my 21st birthday, but sadly, I could not afford...

Theocnoob said:

Are you seriously using a 12 year old GPU with your epic-as-hell monster machine?


Interesting side note- I lusted after that very card when it came out shortly after my 21st birthday, but sadly, I could not afford...

Click to expand...

Lol no I ended up having issues with the x850 so I purchased a GTX 650 from craigslist for cheap. Really the server doesn't need much GPU power, just something for display. I also have a lead on a cheap quadro 4000 that I may throw in there just to make it an official 3d modeling machine.

I know what you mean about lusting after the x850. My buddy organized a massive lan (350+) people when the x800 pro came out and ATI sponsored it. They gave away 30 or so of them, but I wasn't one of the lucky ones... It was a blast and some people scored some seriously good hardware.

My 9800 pro was pretty epic back when I got it. Unreal Tournament 2004 at 1280X1024 on my epic 17" Viewsonic CRT baby. Good times.

Theocnoob said:

My 9800 pro was pretty epic back when I got it. Unreal Tournament 2004 at 1280X1024 on my epic 17" Viewsonic CRT baby. Good times.

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Lol I to remember when the 9800 pro was the card to have. My buddy owned one and it was a big step up from my 4600 ti. I was pretty jealous of him, lol.