That should be illegal. Thanks for the quick response Mthrboard!
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Glad I found this! Looks like a perfect choice for my first Plex server 
Just to make sure, all I need to get besides this are NVMe SSD and OS (is Windows or Ubuntu preferred?) + my already prepared external hard drive with movies in them?
Thanks in advance!
I have been wondering about this myself and will get to it over the next month.
… but my current understanding is that @JDM_WAAAT really recommended this just to be the transcoder (instead of people purchasing $250+GFX cards).
The NAS duties should be handled by a separate (NAS Killer) machine.
Is this resolved?
I see. But I can just use a external hard drive in place of a NAS machine if I don’t really have a need for NAS at the moment, is that correct?
Currently I’m using my very old desktop PC as a Plex server but want to free that up & reduce energy consumption.
I could be misunderstanding it though as I’m still new to all these.
While @Lwpwrlvr is correct that this forum generally recommends storing all of your media on a separate NAS device, it is not absolutely required. If you already have your media stored on one or more external drives it will work just fine to connect them directly to the Plex server. That being said though you may still want to consider moving your storage to a NAS device at some point simply so that you can set up parity and protect your data in the event a drive fails.
In reference to your other question, Ubuntu is the recommended OS if your are going to be using the box as Plex server with quicksync hardware transcoding. You can find more details about setting up a Plex server in the following thread from JDM.
I hope that helps
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Thank you and yes it helps my understanding!
I read a bit more in the forum and now I’m wondering if I should build a NAS first instead of this? I don’t think I will encounter too much transcoding - the NAS Killer 4.0 will be able to serve as a basic Plex server as well?
I think that a NAS Killer build might work for you as long as you don’t need to do too many Plex transcodes at one time.
If you are looking to have a box that can function as both a Plex server and a NAS, you may also want to consider an OTiS build. It would allow you to take advantage of the Intel Quicksync technology to do hardware transcoding in Plex, but can also do NAS stuff (like run some Docker containers, VMs, serve files to other computers, etc). For more information please give the following forum thread a read.
I hope that helps
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Awesome! Thanks so much I will get on with more readings hehe
The seller was very gracious and allowed me to return the device with free shipping. He also offered to mail me replacement RAM as a troubleshooting measure.
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Can anyone confirm that these units sold as no ssd no os do in fact come with sata cable and sata power cable inside? I have a sata ssd just sitting around
I wouldn’t count on sata cables being included. I do not recall what mine came with other than I’m real sure it didn’t include any hdd’s or ssd’s.
Sata power shouldn’t be an issue…as it should include a power supply.
You can always bum the SATA cable from the optical drive if it doesn’t come with an extra for an HDD/SDD
Mine came with the cabels. Just needed to add a drive.
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Updated link -
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Thanks for posting this deal! Quick question: I bought a crucial NVME 500GB and the M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter. I’m planning on installing ubuntu-20.04.1. This will be the first time I’ve installed an OS onto a NVME through an adapter (I’ve done it via onboard NVME though). Do I need to do anything special in regards to the adapter drivers in order to throw the OS onto the NVME?
You don’t need to do anything special!
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You were right: nothing special needed! Ridiculously easy. Thanks again!
Also, any recommendation on a DP dummy plug? All pretty much equal?
Also, I’ve enabled hardware transcoding and noticed that in the plex dashboard, it is showing the video as ‘direct play’. It does not show (hw) to signify hardware transcoding. What does ‘direct play’ mean? I do use makeMKV to backup my movies and keep original file sizes (though not very storage efficient…storage is cheap).
I’ve had plex on my main PC for years, but eager to learn more now that I have it running on this ProDesk 400 with Ubuntu desktop.
directplay means no transcoding is done, so the player can play the original format
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