Advice Making a media server

[Moriath]

I got a nas which doubles as a media server but its a bit clunky and slow.

i got an old pc i7 3rd gen or something and ordered a passive gfx card for it.

got ubuntu on it.
Now questions is what is the best media centre software to use.

plex, kodi, universal media thingy

i got a smart sony tv and some sony speakers all that can play stuff from a server.

got a ssd and gonna ram it full of hdd.

so enlighten me please

 

[caLLous]

I use Plex but it and Kodi are equally popular. Kodi is more open-source and extensible but I have a client/server setup and Plex just works well so I've never looked into switching.

 

[MYstIC G]

I got a nas which doubles as a media server but its a bit clunky and slow.

i got an old pc i7 3rd gen or something and ordered a passive gfx card for it.

got ubuntu on it.
Now questions is what is the best media centre software to use.

plex, kodi, universal media thingy

i got a smart sony tv and some sony speakers all that can play stuff from a server.

got a ssd and gonna ram it full of hdd.

so enlighten me please

Plex if you want something Netflix like

 

[Moriath]

Is there something i can do to make the pc spin down the disks and everything when its not serving anything?

 

[caLLous]

It should do that anyway, or do you mean like putting it to sleep?

 

[Scouse]

Plex FTW @Moriath.

Next time they pull oit a lifetime offer plex pass I'm going to buy it, but right now I'm using it's considerable utility largely for free (movies, tv shows, music casting to multiple devices - paid 3 quid for my phone app which is the casting control). Gave the admin logon to a few friends and they all have access to watch from different parts of the country (it streams well and isn't a noticeable overhead when playimg games on my PC).

 

[Moriath]

I added plex. They do a 99 quid forever for premium. @Scouse is that what you mean ? Whats added over standard apart from downloading / sync. On a spare pc so overheads not much of an issue.

any idea if vpn screws up the casting like i think it will if i use a vpn and a torrent client at times i guess streaming wont work?

 

[Scouse]

I added plex. They do a 99 quid forever for premium. @Scouse is that what you mean ? Whats added over standard apart from downloading / sync. On a spare pc so overheads not much of an issue.

any idea if vpn screws up the casting like i think it will if i use a vpn and a torrent client at times i guess streaming wont work?

I think you can work around it but you'd have to put it on different network segments etc.

I never torrent over VPN. You end up paying a VPN provider, so if the gvt. wants to know you're up to something they'll ask the VPN provider who's buying services off them. And if the VPN provider isn't british - do you trust them?

Meh. Not heard so much as a peep.

I think in terms of paid-for - you get multiple logons so if you want to give to mates they get their own logon (rather than me giving admin logon to them) and you can associate multiple devices with the phone app (multiple logons). At the moment I've only paid for the phone app for me - so the o/h would have to use my phone to cast (but tbh, I've not looked at logging onto her phone with my app-account so maybe that could be worked around too).

 

[Moriath]

I think you can work around it but you'd have to put it on different network segments etc.

I never torrent over VPN. You end up paying a VPN provider, so if the gvt. wants to know you're up to something they'll ask the VPN provider who's buying services off them. And if the VPN provider isn't british - do you trust them?

Meh. Not heard so much as a peep.

I think in terms of paid-for - you get multiple logons so if you want to give to mates they get their own logon (rather than me giving admin logon to them) and you can associate multiple devices with the phone app (multiple logons). At the moment I've only paid for the phone app for me - so the o/h would have to use my phone to cast (but tbh, I've not looked at logging onto her phone with my app-account so maybe that could be worked around too).

I got nord a while ago. Its good for being abroad and pretending to be in the uk. As i travel quite a bit. Most of the time for torrents i forget and never had an issue from virgin.

i paid for the client on ipad also for plex.

just dl’d a 4k movie at 11gb so will see how that streams across the network and wifi smart tv has the client on it too .

oh and vpn is good for getting to blocked torrent sites without having to find different proxys all the time. Of. Once you found the tracker you dont need it any more

 

[caLLous]

You also get access to all sorts of data about who's watching what and how much bandwidth they're using etc with the Plex Pass.

As for VPNs, there are regularly "which VPN is best" articles on sites like TechRadar, which will tell you what, if anything, they log (which is the pertinent issue when it comes to security). Also, if it's a half decent VPN service, they will have an app which will allow you to only have certain apps using it so you could bypass it with Plex.

 

[Moriath]

You also get access to all sorts of data about who's watching what and how much bandwidth they're using etc with the Plex Pass.

As for VPNs, there are regularly "which VPN is best" articles on sites like TechRadar, which will tell you what, if anything, they log (which is the pertinent issue when it comes to security). Also, if it's a half decent VPN service, they will have an app which will allow you to only have certain apps using it so you could bypass it with Plex.

Will have to see. Nord have app for windows. I installed the client for linux. Dont think its graphic tho. Will see. Tnx

 

[caLLous]

Huh, I just looked it up and, to my surprise, Nord doesn't offer split tunnelling (what I described). I use ExpressVPN, which does, and just assumed all the big ones did.

 

[dysfunction]

Another reason not to be using Nord VPN...
NordVPN confirms it was hacked – TechCrunch

TorGuard and VikingVPN also had similar breaches.

 

[Jupitus]

Holy Necro!! I am on this line of enquiry, but obviously this thread is almost as old as me (yeah yeah, ok) ... what would your updates be please folks?

 

[MYstIC G]

Holy Necro!! I am on this line of enquiry, but obviously this thread is almost as old as me (yeah yeah, ok) ... what would your updates be please folks?

What you after Juplar? Software recommendations?

 

[Jupitus]

What you after Juplar? Software recommendations?

Basically, yes. I'm not very au fait with the world of media servers or indeed tv tech. I have a smart Samsung TV with soundbar hooked up to a sky Q box. I could get all of this onto a wired LAN without issue. Next I have my old PC:

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 19045) (19041.vb_release.191206-1406)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: 2104 (type: UEFI)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 7874MB RAM
Page File: 2776MB used, 7017MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 12

This doesn't have a massive HDU, my main pc holds anything important on a raid array these days.

I'd like to be able to store all of *my ripped DVDs of films and tv shows on the old machine, and find software to run on it which will stream nicely to the TV. Nice touches like categorization of media and so on would be nice also... it's not a fab machine, but I'd like it to have some use!

Thanks Megz0r!

PS I do have an ATX 570 GPU which isn't installed on that at the moment - if the box would use that to improve performance that could easily be added to the mix. Currently it is just using on board video output.

 

[old.Osy]

Plex is the most user-friendly and easy to setup of the bunch.

Now, Plex without plexpass means no transcoding, which for regular 1080p content should work fine with that 3570K (in theory, at least).

I would advise TrueNas Core + Plex plugin (container, they call it jail - same thing really). Meaning you would run TrueNas Core as the OS on the old box, and plex as a container on it. Should be fairly simple to setup.


View: https://youtu.be/zMQdsC4LE9g


Running just Windows as OS and Plex media server on it would consume too much resources in my opinion - but you could try that aswell.

 

[MYstIC G]

Osy is pretty much on the money. For me the software order goes: Plex, Emby, Jellyfin

Plex is the easiest but most costly. I paid for lifetime so that doesn't bother me so much. It pretty well takes care of itself and you'll find an app for it everywhere you go. However as the most popular it's always out for something new to make money so every now and then you'll probably need to disable the latest guff you don't actually want.

Emby is more akin to what Plex used to be. Again it's got a cost but they get you by making the apps on your TVs function badly without the license, no good transcoding, etc. Less likely to fiddle with it's service offer than Plex but needs a bit more attention to detail get it running.

Jellyfin is a fork of Emby by people who had enough of features being put behind a paywall, it's no more complex than Emby to get up and running but the app support is patchy, I can't get it on my LG without sideloading for example.

TrueNAS with a Plex jail is how I run my setup, it's installed on hardware much older than yours, I very rarely run into any issues.

I'd suggest chucking Plex server on your existing widows install and having a play around to start off.

 

[Jupitus]

Thanks folks - I suspected Plex would probably be the top choice so I'll start doing some research

 

[Jupitus]

Running just Windows as OS and Plex media server on it would consume too much resources in my opinion - but you could try that aswell.

Oh, just picking up on this - can Plex utilise the GFX card I mentioned for more resources?

 

[MYstIC G]

Oh, just picking up on this - can Plex utilise the GFX card I mentioned for more resources?

Honestly, that is a minefield: Using Hardware-Accelerated Streaming | Plex Support

Personally, I've always found it's just better to have your DVD conversion software output to a sensible format

 

[old.Osy]

Oh, just picking up on this - can Plex utilise the GFX card I mentioned for more resources?

Not without forking for the PlexPass (and don't even bother with anything else other than lifetime).

However, as I said - you may not require plexpass after all. If you only consume locally, and 1-2 streams at a time, the hardware you have should be enough without gpu transcoding (which you can only get with plexpass).

So in short, no. Long answer, yes - but it might not be required.

 

[old.Osy]

To put things in perspective, I run Plex off a E-2640 Xeon 6 core / 12 threads CPU, with 32GB ECC RAM (no integrated video). I have a Nvidia Quadro P400 specifically acquired for gpu transcoding for Plex.

There is no need for it in 90% of the cases in my home. At most we run 2 concurrent streams, and only if one is 2K+ have I seen transcoding kick in. There's a lot more to it though, like encoding protocol, resolution, whether it's HDR, 10bit vs 8bit, the way subtitles are applied, so on and so forth.

You'll do fine without transcoding I think. Have a play with it, design the storage bit first, see how plex runs off it, then test various content (h264 vs h265) and see how you go, then take it from there.

 

[Jupitus]

Thanks folks!

 

[Embattle]

Like others I got the PLEX lifetime license, it works out great value at the time.

 

[Jupitus]

Hey gang! So, I have my plex server running and I am very pleased with it... so much so that I may need to up the HDD storage on the old server it's running on... what are we thinking about best 6TB drives on the market - i reckon they are a reasonable budget size for what I need....

 

[MYstIC G]

If your tolerance for losing stuff is high, you can shuck the WD usb storage products, they go on sale regularly

 

[old.Osy]

Hey gang! So, I have my plex server running and I am very pleased with it... so much so that I may need to up the HDD storage on the old server it's running on... what are we thinking about best 6TB drives on the market - i reckon they are a reasonable budget size for what I need....

Jupitus is spot on with the external WD drives. It is what I'm using for my own box. Specifically, the 8TB flavour, which looks to be the best price per TB ratio currently, as well as quite decent and reliable drives.

Let me point to this google sheet which people use to report on their WD external shucked drive experience. The input form, should you choose to go this route and help others is here.

One would of course test the drives _before_ shucking them, by running extensive test (the kind that reads every sector, writes zeros to all sectors, then reads them again). Should any inconsistency be reported during testing, RMA, otherwise you're good to go. Some people have reported failures in pre-shucking testing, but nothing worrying percentage wise.

If the drive can sustain 1-2 extended test passes, it will live a long life provided it is adequately used and housed.

Sample from one of my drives purchased more than a year ago:

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     POSR-K   200   200   051    -    0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            POS--K   189   187   021    -    9516
  4 Start_Stop_Count        -O--CK   097   097   000    -    3148
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--CK   200   200   140    -    0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         -OSR-K   100   253   000    -    0
  9 Power_On_Hours          -O--CK   087   087   000    -    9729
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        -O--CK   100   100   000    -    0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count -O--CK   100   253   000    -    0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--CK   100   100   000    -    67
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count -O--CK   200   200   000    -    30
193 Load_Cycle_Count        -O--CK   122   122   000    -    234807
194 Temperature_Celsius     -O---K   125   102   000    -    27
196 Reallocated_Event_Count -O--CK   200   200   000    -    0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  -O--CK   200   200   000    -    0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   ----CK   100   253   000    -    0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -O--CK   200   200   000    -    0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   ---R--   100   253   000    -    0
                            ||||||_ K auto-keep
                            |||||__ C event count
                            ||||___ R error rate
                            |||____ S speed/performance
                            ||_____ O updated online
                            |______ P prefailure warning

 

[Embattle]

I use Seagate Ironwolf 6TB drives.

ST6000VN001, Seagate 6TB IronWolf NAS Hard Drive | Box.co.uk

www.box.co.uk