I wouldn’t use either, TBH.
What were you using when it failed?
Both units failed, I don’t recall what I was using.
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I had a couple of those Mediasonic units a while back, one USB2/eSATA and the other USB3/eSATA. I ran both on their eSATA connectors, plugged into the Mediasonic PCI-e eSATA controller. They were nothing but trouble from the beginning for me. Drives would randomly disappear and wouldn’t show up again until I restarted the enclosure, transfer speeds slowed to a crawl when I was using more than one drive simultaneously, and I had trouble physically getting the drives into and out of the topmost bay on one unit. I definitely wouldn’t recommend them to anyone, regardless of which interface you choose.
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What is the recommended minimum for NZB unpacking? Was looking at a Pentium G4600 or similar Pentiums until I spotted your comment on needing the higher end for NZBs. Would an i3 8100 be enough? I’m planning on hardware transcoding Plex while running Sonarr, Radarr, Sabnzbd in the background. Thanks!
Also, the NZB downloading/unpacking probably wouldn’t happen at the same time as any Plex streams if that makes any difference.
Hello guys, thx for providing so much useful information for noobs like me 
i am about to build my first multi-purpose NAS/Plex Server. i know two separated devices should be used but i don´t have much space at home and electricity is expensive where i live
i was thinking about:
case: fractal node 804 (100€)
board: asock B365M pro4 or gigabyte b365m ds3h (70€)
cpu: i5-8400t (already bought for 85€))
m2 ssd: wd blue (already bought for 40€)
ram: crucial ballistix TM or g.skill aegis 16gb ddr4 kit (75€)
psu: 400w/450w… maybe bequiet! pure power 11 (50€)
TOTAL: around 400-450€.
what do u guys think about this build?
i have a few questions refarding upgradability tho:
the case supports up to 8 3,5 discs. the motherboard has only 6 sata ports… and the psu has 5 connections…
- is the 400w psu enough in case i decide to use 8 hdds?
i i know there are pcie cards to get more sata ports, but how about the psu? how can i get more connections for the sata drives?
cheers and thx again
The Node 804 actually supports 10 3.5" HDD, and 2 2.5" HDD/SSD.
That PSU is enough for 10 drives. You can get more SATA connections on the PSU by using power splitters. You can get more SATA ports by using a SATA expansion card or a SAS HBA.
Hey JDM_WAAAT,
thx a lot for your reply
Is there any inconventient in using those splitters for the PSU? Like: do the drives perform as well as connected regularly?
What is the “nominal power” on the Sata controllers? Is it better more or less nominal Power?
And one last question: is there any inconvenience in ordering sata controllers from China? Because where i live they cost between 70 and 120€, and from China it’s like 30-40€…
Thx and take care
Dear all,
I would like to hear your opinions on a “VM with Nvidia” or “dedicated i5” solution for Plex and Tvheadend.
Currenly I have a Proxmox Xeon E5-2648L v3 with a Nvidia K2200 pass trouhged to a VM. In the VM is Plex and Tvheadend and ARM (automatic ripping machine) runinng in docker container with working nvenc. We have round about 2-10 clients (RPi, iPad, PC, streaming over internet).
I live in europa and current is quite expansive, so the power consumtion matters.
I was thinking about moving the VM into a dedicated System with an I5 - 10400. Does this make senes? What would be the advantage for image quality (using nvenc from 2014 with the nividia card) and power consumption? I cannot get any valid infos about what the nvidia card is using in idle.
Thanks and best regards
Ben
Why would you go for an i5 over one of the Celeron/Pentium dedicated boxes that are popular (for good reason) and extremely cheap?
Good Point. I check all the mentioned topics and I personally like the P290 but you don’t get this one in Germany. Bad Luck. Comparable models are at ca. 340€ even at eBay. With the other systems it is like with the P290.
If I build it by my own the i5 setup is at ca. 350€. If I change to a Intel 6500 its at 280€
And I can use a Case where I can use my blu ray driver…
Do you see any real advance for my use case for the Nvidia card vs. an iGPU 630?
Hi.
I have a question that may not fit here, but I will ask anyway.
Does someone have some experience with ffmpeg? Particularly ffmpeg encoding via QSV for 4K HEVC video maintaining HDR metadata.
I do have some experience with ffmpeg 4K HDR HEVC encoding but not combined with QSV. I’m interested in getting an Intel CPU on a new Linux build to encode a complete personal video library. But I can’t seems to find many examples and documentation is lacking. My library already exists on a separate machine (a Synology NAS with a 10G NIC) so this new server will only be used to run a few dockers at a time + ffmpeg video encoding.
Thanks
Is the multi tasking nas build still recommended or is there a newer build. Looking for unraid with Plex, and associated download dockers, and a few Wordpress dockers. Transcode no more than 3 streams. Thanks
I’m also looking to find out if the multi-tasking build still relevant. I have a Dell T30 running unraid that I’m looking to replace. Gonna set the old one up at my parents home.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
Yes, it’s still relevant.
About to build the multi-task nas. However, I found an Asus z390-p for $40. Should I go for this? Or stick with z-370p I purchased for $80?
Either one will be totally fine.
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OFF TOPIC - Sorry to hijack your coolest thread yet…
I Need Help.
I have a weird question because this is like the one build thing I cannot troubleshoot.
I got my hands on a nice HP S01 pf1013 and went to town on it right away, using most of your suggestions to prepare it to be my dedicated Plex machine.
BUT. The Bios on this machine is the absolute worst piece of fw I’ve ever tried to use. I’ve read a ton of your stuff on the S01 but haven’t seen anything about the BIOS, so that is making me even more confused. Here’s my problem(s).
When I put in the nVME drive I could not get the machine to boot from USB no matter what I tried, which was pretty much everything out of the options on that boot. There’s literally nothing more than 5 or 6 things to change.
I have a great clean Windows 10 image that I wanted to use, but after almost 2 days of endless searching online, I just gave up and dealt with the (reasonable) amount of bloatware I had to trash.
But of course I wasn’t aware that I need Ubuntu 20.04 to actually get performance out of this machine until I read more of your stuff.
I use linux and have no problem installing, but I’m dreading even attempting it again because I failed so miserably last time.
I think I’ve flashed the OS on every (non mac) system I’ve owned at some point, and this is the first time a computer would simply not recognize the USB. No matter how I ordered the boot, it wouldn’t find the USB. I probably tried every BIOS config and all 8 USB ports.
Have you heard of anyone ever having an experience similar to this?
I didn’t take any pictures of the BIOS. Because it was ugly. Just ghoulish. But I can snap some if anyone might be able to help.
swissp, for your bios problems, i don’t have the HP specifically, but you probably have to do a few things to boot of a USB
- disable secure boot
- disable fast boot
- make sure your USB is formatted in UEFI mode
- alternately, find a “legacy” or CSM boot option in the HP bios
- manually add a new boot option to the boot order list in the bios.
you might get more help in the s01 thread.
and, regarding QSV machine… I ended up doing something like this. I sidegraded, went from a Xeon E5-2680v4 to a gutted a Dell Precisions motherboard with a I7-7700K.
The main reason was to attempt to reduce power consumption (which is did but only liek 110W to 90W) but it also has the integrated quick sync which emby can use pretty successfully. I don’t need a dummy plug, although my linux pass through VM doesn’t have a working ‘master console’ in esxi any more, I need to ssh.