Need some advice. Can I utilize the 290 as the Plex server and just connect an external usb hdd (as the Plex library)? I’ve read some headaches about mounting an external to linux (I haven’t tried myself so not really sure). I have an old Mac mini that the 290 is replacing, should I just use the mini as a file server?
I’ve been looking at purchasing a dell t110 ii to eventually do a NK4.1 pre-built, just trying to ease my way into this instead of trying to do a total replacement at once.
Sure you can. Best to format the drive in a native linux format though, like ext4
Great thanks for reply!
Basically you could take that external hard drive and make Linux mount it as if it were internal.
Go into the terminal to edit (with “nano” or “vim”) /etc/fstab to mount that ext hard drive as “/Plexmedia” on the root directory. I think you have to make the directory first e.g. sudo mkdir /plexmedia
I believe there are some fairly detailed instructions possibly in this thread that covers this. If you run into trouble just say something and someone will help you out.
You would want to do this that way Plex can see the files. Also need to make sure you have your permissions set properly.
Got mine today. Connected vga to spare monitor, did bios update, stuck a ubuntu usb in, power on, and the screen goes dark after a few seconds.
I was able to hit Safe Graphics, and it worked, got through install, reboot, pull usb, purple Ubuntu background, screen went off. A couple rounds of that, and I hooked it up hdmi to the tv.
It was just scrolling through an error about intel dp link training clock recovery failed to enable i915. A bit of googling and there are people githubbing and dmesging and checking their memory voltages.
Another reboot on the hdmi and it worked fine. Dug up hdmi to dvi, and that’s my solution.
So, if you’re having issues on vga, go get a cable from this century.
If there is a quick solution, I didn’t find it.
I just found this thread but these are sold out now. Does anyone have any extra they’re willing to part with? Thanks!
They come and go. Refresh the Amazon and ebay links multiple times daily.
@JDM_WAAAT
I’m looking at a p043w with an Intel Core i3-7100 – is that a worthy substitute for the p0043w?
It appears to have an older version of the socket on the MB, so I don’t know if it would be compatible with the same processors. It does have Quick Sync though.
It does have QS, and it’s decent if you can get it for a good price. Keep in mind it’s 7th-gen, not 8th like the other model. It will also be limited to 6th/7th gen processors only, not 8th/9th gen like the HP 290.
This thread is awesome. Thank you!
I’m in for one of these for a QS box, but I’m considering a 2nd for PFSense. My current PFSense box is running a Core i5-650 @ 3.20GHz with 4GB of RAM.
This seems like it may be a good backup solution (my box is pretty ancient), but am I wrong in thinking it may not be a significant upgrade to my current setup? I have 1GB up/down and 90% of traffic is over VPN. Looking at single thread performance it seems I could see an increase in OpenVPN (until PFSense has wireguard) performance over my Core i5-650 but I’m not sure how significant this would be.
I used one as a pfsense box to replace my dell r220 e3-1275 v3 box. It runs pfsense perfectly for us. We have a 500/50 connection and I open vpn and load balance three open vpn gateways for certain devices while others use regular isp gateway. I can’t really give performance delta data but Have noticed no degradation in performance compared to the r220 it replaced.
You can test theoretical maximum VPN throughput on each machine by installing OpenSSL on your Ubuntu machine and following the steps outlined in this thread to determine how exactly how significant a difference it would be. The G4900 will be probably 20-30% better, and the difference in power draw may still make the switch worthwhile, as those first Westmere chips are not particularly efficient at low load.
Why 500GB minimum? I know nothing about Ubuntu but on my Mac I’m only using 40GBs, including metadata.
I have 4 x 3.5" drives that need a home and had the idea that maybe I could build a tiny 4 bay DAS using a 5.25 HDD cage and run power from this HP? Can the PSU handle that (plus 1 internal 3.5" HDD, NVme, SAS HBA)?
So some updates. I added a MSI Low Profile GTX 1650 OC 4G video card to my hp 290. It barely fits but you can install it without taking anything else out.
Here are my specs so far with a i5-9400 CPU 16 gigs ram and the MSI GTX1659 OC 4G
https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V10/display.php?id=122547423487
So far the video card has been running fine for me.
After 2 days of checking eBay all day, finally managed to snag one! I set up an auto refresh chrome extension to refresh the page every 10s. For those less patient, I found a new one on Offerup for $160 shipped: https://offerup.com/item/detail/675981629/
Very cool!
What is the idle power draw now?
I ordered a power meter but still wait for it to arrive. I am curious how the idle looks also. I am guessing the processor powers down the on board video silicon, but I am guessing the power usage still goes up slightly.
Do you have any experience with just moving the metadata/media folders from plex to a different drive? I like having the Video Preview Thumbnails enabled, which can take a decent chunk of space with a big library. If that were to be on a regular HDD, would plex suffer?
Plex metadata on a spinning drive a bad idea. Plex has to read hundreds if not thousands of tiny files trying to be read when you’re browsing your media. You’ll page down, and wait…and wait…and wait some more before the posters and titles are displayed for every video. With a little bit of effort, you can put your metadata on a separate drive, but don’t put it on a spinner unless you hate yourself.