Upgrading/Rebuilding a Media+ Server

Technology Hardware
1

6 Years ago I built my very first computer, which was also my very first server, with the intent of it being a Media server to install and run Plex on. It expanded to perform a few small additional tasks, but it still exists for the primary purpose of running and supporting Plex.

As time has gone on, the already older hardware has just become older, and on-going technology has continued to use more and more of the resources available within the server. Now instead of idling at 2-3% CPU, it may idle at ~10-15%. Certainly some of this is due to the additional tasks being asked of it. Further, instead of peaking at 60-70%, it now peaks at 100%, more HEVC content with Thumbnails, Intros Credits, etc all help use more of the resources available. I’m always aware of the higher energy usage from the older dual CPU, so I think in the back of my mind it would be nice to bring that down, but it really doesn’t have to happen.

The storage has also consistently increased up from the 2 hard drives I started with up to 30 hard drives currently. I’m now in a position where I can, and I’m interested in reevaluating the whole setup with the mindset of “if I were to start over today, what would I do?” as opposed to the mindset of “this is what I have, how can I expand it as best as I can”.

While I have certainly learned a lot and feel I can understand the lingo pretty well at this point, I’m not as confident that I can design a system from the ground up. That’s what I’m hoping I can get some insight from this community on.

  • Existing Setup

    • Operating System
      • Windows 10 Pro
    • Rosewill RSV-L4500- This is the main chassis
    • Thecus N8800
      • PSU
        • Using the stock primary and redundant PSUs
        • Connected/Power Triggered by the Rosewill using this PSU Jumper/Splitter
      • HDD
        • 20TB WD Easystore
        • 4x 14TB WD Easystore
        • 2x 10TB WD Easystore
        • 2TB Dell
          • This will be cycled out when the next storage increase is needed
        • These are connected to the stock Thecus SAS/SATA connectors for each HDD which are then connected via Breakout cables to the Marvell Expander in the Rosewill Chassis
    • Thecus N8800
      • PSU
        • Using the stock primary and redundant PSUs
        • Connected/Power Triggered by the Rosewill using this PSU Jumper/Splitter
      • HDD
        • 8x 2TB Dell
          • These get cycled out when bigger drives come in to replace them

  • Software

    • Stablebit Drivepool
      • All hard drives are currently JBOD and pooled together into a single pool

  • Workload 24x7

    • Storage
      • ~Constant 20-40 MB/sec
      • Peak 400+ MB/sec
    • NIC
      • ~Constant 150-200 Mbps
      • Regular Peaks of 1Gbps
    • CPU
      • ~Constant at 10-15%
      • Regular Peaks at 100%

  • What I think I’m trying to achieve (though I think I could be talked out of any/all of these with good reasons)

    • Budget
      • ~$3-4k+
      • Preferably under ~$2k.
    • NIC
      • 5Gbps or 10Gbps LAN Connection
        • 1Gbps exists today with ISP and a path towards 5Gbps exists with ISP
      • No Wifi requirements
    • CPU
      • Intel QuickSync to support HEVC 10-bit or higher.
      • Lower TDP than the 230 of the existing Xeon E5-2670s
        • Not strictly a requirement
    • GPU
      • N/A
    • RAM
      • ECC of some sort, Probably DDR4?
      • As much memory as I can get
      • 64-128 GB
    • HDD
      • No changes, use existing Drives
    • OS
      • Windows
        • It’s the only one I’ve really used and am most comfortable with.
        • Never say never, but I’d like to stay in Windows.
    • Misc.
      • Going a bit overkill is fine, and maybe even good so I can continue to experiment a little bit as needed with other services and programs

  • Initial Questions

    • Should I continue with trying to connect all of the Hard Drives to the main Motherboard, or build some dedicated File Server running ZFS that passes through to the Plex Server, or something else?
    • Should I go towards the LGA1700 socket without a GPU or something like Xeon with a GPU, or something else entirely?
    • Have I left something out, what am I not thinking about or undervaluing?

As a basic beginning, if I had to do this without any input from those wiser and more experienced than myself, I might go towards (not necessarily from these vendors) Keeping it Simple since I’m Stupid:

  • Keep the Rosewill Chassis and replace the Motherboard/Components within it
  • Keep the Thecus Chassis and connect those to the Rosewill Chassis via PCI expander
  • CPU
  • Motherboard
  • Direct Attach an M2 Harddrive and 6 SATA Drives
  • PCI-e
    • SAS/Sata Expanders for all the other Hard Drives

Any and all help and comments are welcome and appreciated!