BUILD Hardware Recommendations for 4k Plex server?

[coalminer071]

Hello folks at FreeNAS,

I'm in need of your guys suggestions.
I'm trying to build a nas that would be able to hold all my movies, music, documents and any other files I come across. I won't likely be upgrading it for a while so I would like to put the best Cost/Performance hardware in it.

The hard drives I will be using for sure will be a 6x6TB or 8x6TB WD Red with a ZFS disk array.

Would I be needing a 2 core motherboard solution if I will be using it as a 4k plex server?
The issue I'm having is deciding on the CPU and Motherboard.

If you guys can give me your thoughts, that would be great.

 

[BigDave]

See my "show" links for my current hardware (X11) board, which I'm
very happy with. Also with Plex, I would recommend a Xeon CPU,
the faster the better. Speed is king when it comes to Samba shares,
as it is single threaded. The more users you have streaming the more
speed you need. I do recommend all the reading under "useful links"
as well. If after a bit of study, you can be a bit more specific about your
use case, we would be happy to discuss details. In summation, I like
the newer socket 1151 boards for the larger RAM capacity, vs. the older
boards limit of 32GB.

 

[Jailer]

Your CPU needs will depend on how many clients you will have streaming, whether they are local or remote and whether or not the 4k material will need transcoding.

If you are streaming to a client on your local network that has native 4k support then it will direct play and it won't place any stress at all on the server aside from serving the file. If you are streaming to multiple remote clients or local clients that don't support native 4k playback then each stream will need to be transcoded.

You'll have to figure that part out before you can pick an appropriate CPU.

 

[coalminer071]

If you are streaming to a client on your local network that has native 4k support then it will direct play and it won't place any stress at all on the server aside from serving the file. If you are streaming to multiple remote clients or local clients that don't support native 4k playback then each stream will need to be transcoded.

I will be streaming to a couple native and non native screens around the house.

 

[coalminer071]

See my "show" links for my current hardware (X11) board, which I'm
very happy with. Also with Plex, I would recommend a Xeon CPU,
the faster the better. Speed is king when it comes to Samba shares,
as it is single threaded. The more users you have streaming the more
speed you need. I do recommend all the reading under "useful links"
as well. If after a bit of study, you can be a bit more specific about your
use case, we would be happy to discuss details. In summation, I like
the newer socket 1151 boards for the larger RAM capacity, vs. the older
boards limit of 32GB.

I will be transcoding 4k for streaming on a local network, with an automated BT running in the background. Would going a double CPU motherboard be a better deal for me? I'm trying to future-proof this nas (want to get at least 5~6 years out of it)

 

[Jailer]

I will be streaming to a couple native and non native screens around the house.

What does that mean?

 

[coalminer071]

What does that mean?

God I was half awake when I wrote that.
What I mean is that I will be using the nas to stream movies to different screen resolutions around the house.

 

[INCSlayer]

God I was half awake when I wrote that.
What I mean is that I will be using the nas to stream movies to different screen resolutions around the house.

thats not really useful information what is more useful is what is attached to those screens that is what determines if you need transcoding or not.

 

[Dice]

From what I've gathered on the topic from the forum, this is a pretty normal plex-build, with the "slight" exception of 4k transcoding requirements.
This exception is no joke. 4k transcoding is an entirely different beast than 1080p in terms of horsepower required.
I cannot recall any build as of recently that has provided definitive proof of concept to multiple 4k streams.

 

[INCSlayer]

according to plex faq here:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201774043-What-kind-of-CPU-do-I-need-for-my-Server-
says that 1080p at 10Mbps is about a 2000 passmark score for a single one so i would guess that your looking at atleast around a 8000 score in passmark?
My Xeon 2620 v3 (6 core with HT) has a passmark score of 9921 so i would be able to transcode one 4k stream probably
and this is just counting for plex usage if you have anything else using the machine you would need even more power. No matter what cpu you choose to go for if multiple 4k streams is what you are after i would make sure the cpu or cpus have a combined score of atleast 20 000 in passmark

however passmark is just a rough guesstimate so unless we have someone on the forums that has already built a machine for 4k this is just more or less guess work

 

[Jailer]

Streams aren't the issue. It's how many of the streams need to be transcoded. And there's no way to know the answer to that until the OP figures out how many of his connected devices support native 4k playback.

 

[INCSlayer]

Streams aren't the issue. It's how many of the streams need to be transcoded. And there's no way to know the answer to that until the OP figures out how many of his connected devices support native 4k playback.

you are correct ofc my post based on the assumption that he would need to transcode the 4k streams and the power he would need for that if he can do the 4k playback natively then his cpu requirments fall sharply

 

[coalminer071]

I have 2 4k and 2 1080p around the house, but I estimate around 1 4k and 1 1080p would be running simultaneously off the the freenas.

 

[INCSlayer]

I have 2 4k and 2 1080p around the house, but I estimate around 1 4k and 1 1080p would be running simultaneously off the the freenas.

again this does not tell us anything really we need to know what devices will be actually doing the play back of the streams not just the amount of screens capable of showing the resolution
Device does not equal screen

 

[Jailer]

@coalminer071 it's the clients that are connected to those tv's that matter.

For example, I have 3 clients that I stream to. An Intel NUC 2820FYKH, a RPi 2 and an iphone. The NUC and RPi are both hooked to 1080p tv's but have different playback capabilities. It's the devices that are connected that determine whether or not they will direct play or require a transcoded stream.

You might want to head over to the Plex forums and do some research so you can accurately figure out what you are going to need for a server.

 

[coalminer071]

Plex is run through a 3rd party app on the tv itself. Why would I still need another device connected to the TV?

 

[Jailer]

You don't, that's considered a client. Anything the plex app will run on is a client.

You'll have to research the make and model of your tv for what it's capabilities are and whether or not you'll need to transcode for it.

 

[Stux]

find out what the plex forum guys think you need *just* for transcoding, turn that into a server grade option, add ECC ram and FreeNAS should run in the spare cycles just great.

 

[maglin]

Do you have the network bandwidth to transmit 4K streams? I honestly don't know the Mbs needed for a native 4K stream but I would venture it's quite a lot. Add a 1080p stream to that. Is a 1G network capable of that?

Best thing to do is try to transcode a 4K stream on your PC and see how it handles it. Check its pass mark score and you if you where at a 80% load with a 5000 pass mark CPU then you can do the math and get close. Always add more power so you have headroom.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Ericloewe]

Is a 1G network capable of that?

Of course it is. Only morons or studio techs transmit uncompressed video.

Blu-Ray x1 speed is 36 Mb/s. That's high quality MPEG4. Let's go all out and just quadruple that - despite the fact that h.265 should be roughly twice as efficient, so we'd only need to double it. That's on the order of 160Mb/s, which is easily doable even on my Sony laptop's crap Realtek NIC.

Let's say plex is using some silly format that is less efficient than h.264, which everything decodes in hardware these days. Double that and said laptop can still pull it off. Quality GbE gear wouldn't break a sweat.