NAS with plex

JohnN

JohnN

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Hi,

I've been watching the other NAS thread with interest but did not want to hijack it, the HP micro servers G8 look like a good place to start with perhaps a couple of large WD red discs

So baring in mind I'd need it as a plex as well which sort of setup would you suggest?

Also it might be nice to be able to host a website so I can have a play with HTML5 and a little DB work.

Thanks for reading
 
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plex never really worked very well on my N40L but that is much lower spec than the Gen8. you might want to google to see if anyone else has done it successfully, and/or whether you'll need an extra GPU to handle the transcoding?
 
Cheers Neil, I will, I was investigating installation last night but didn't see anything in particular in passing
 
Lots of discussion online about it, but all pre-build that I can see. Or a couple that leap to "I've got it working fine" without a build description.
 
There seem to be a couple of camps on this - upgrade the CPU while as you say others say it works (link to HDUK) - I think that may depend on how many you're streaming and what it is. Thankfully at home there will be no more than two streaming (currently) and then at 1080p max, not a dorm full of students all on 4k :)

Plus I'm using plex as the native client so if I read correctly (which I may not have) then the client decodes.
 
I'm currently running a Plex server on my N40L, which is also running various other servers (Owncloud, Samba, Apache, Dovecot, Exim etc) and so gets a decent workout.
I don't often have Plex transcode the media before it's streamed but have never found that to be a bottleneck or issue. Video files are mkv from DVDs and Blurays via Handbrake.
 
Well thats everything ordered:

HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 (Celeron Dual Core) (link) - £164.34 - Cashback of £55 due later (link)
2x WD Red 3TB for NAS 3.5-inch Desktop Hard Drive OEM (link) - £90.95 each

General notes:
Use promotion code MSFREENDUK for free delivery.

All due tomorrow, hopefully not too late but knowing Amazon of late probably around 8PM!

Possibly useful vids - I'll see later!!



I'll post bits and bobs as I go.
 
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Okay a few more bits I can prep before anything arrives.

Preparing the USB to install ESXi

Downloads
  • Universal USB installer (link)
  • Putty (link)
  • ESXi for HP - ISO downloads (link)
    • Product registration and licence guide (link)
  • XPEnology download (link)
  • Synology Assistant (link)
I've opted for the "HPE Custom Image for VMware ESXi 6.0 Update 1b Install CD" - worth noting you will have to register with VMWare

I plan on following this guide (link), plus the vids posted, adjusting it slightly to use the HP ESXi for full compatibility/drivers.

Prep notes
  • Adjust Write Cache in BIOS (link) to help with slow performance - change "use drive write cache" to "enable"
  • Using XPenology base image DSM_5.2-5644, then DSM_5.2-5644 Update-5 and Synology Assistant 5.2-5005 for windows.
Install notes
  • IMPORTANT: There comes a point after its run its first install that it reboots and comes up with "Missing OS" - I rebuilt the machine some five times before I found this link (here) - what I missed first time was the bit where it fails, at this point even when I was sure it was right I rolled the VM back to an old snapshot and started again, once again it failed until I read that you simply power the VM off then restart it!! Doh, off and on again :D
  • Applying updates - the guides say download then manually install, this didn't work for me as it couldn't find the files when applying the below commands, so I let it download itself and ran them.
    • sed 's/flashupdateDeb/flashupdateDeb1/' /autoupd@te.info > /autoupd@te.info1
    • mv /autoupd@te.info1 /autoupd@te.info
  • Install VMWare tools - from here (link)
 
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Pity I didn't see this earlier. My backup server has a broadly equivalent CPU (prev generation dual core celeron) ... I could have done a quick test for you.

Be keen to hear how it goes.
 
Well, still no drives, but I started on the ESXi and ran into two general issues.

1) I'm stuck on 4GB for now - I had some Corsair vengeance 4GB sticks kicking around so I thought I'd put them in, but the server didn't like them and just hung at 90% - back to the 4GB that came with it and it boots, guess I need some ECC or some such memory at some point.
2) EXSi 6.0.0 HP needs a minimum of 4GB RAM, okay I thought but its maths is all to whack, so I had to edit a file in the system to reduce the minimum RAM to 2GB (or it could have been anything under 4GB basically)

This guide (link) was a God send because frankly I hate Linux and the oddness that is "vi", anyway irrational bias aside, I've EXSi installed on the internal USB stick, IP configured to something static, which is pretty much as far as I can go until the drives turn up.
 
Will the celeron be powerful enough to transcode plex for you? I'd have my doubts but if you don't require transcoding then you should be fine.
 
TBH I would stick with ESXi 5.1 (Networking issues in 5.5 and 6.0)
And if installing a Windows OS, use the VMXnet 3 network adapters.

Why are you virtualising? What is it you plan to run? With the Celeron CPU (2 cores, not hyperthreaded) you're going to be fairly restricted running anything more than two VMs.

Your server will need ECC RAM. PC3-12800 ECC3 UDIMMs. (not RDIMMs)
 
Thanks guys, I'll only run possibly two vms anyway, the synology (if I ever get the damn thing working) and a play web server hosting html5

I chose to go virtual just so I could learn more about it, nothing really much more than that
 
afasoas said:
TBH I would stick with ESXi 5.1 (Networking issues in 5.5 and 6.0)
And if installing a Windows OS, use the VMXnet 3 network adapters.

Why are you virtualising? What is it you plan to run? With the Celeron CPU (2 cores, not hyperthreaded) you're going to be fairly restricted running anything more than two VMs.

Your server will need ECC RAM. PC3-12800 ECC3 UDIMMs. (not RDIMMs)
Click to expand...
Depends what you want to do really, openbsd is not supported in ESXi 5.1, so anything based on it like Pfsense wouldn't be an option.
 
PaulF said:
Depends what you want to do really, openbsd is not supported in ESXi 5.1, so anything based on it like Pfsense wouldn't be an option.
Click to expand...

pfSense is FreeBSD. And we have two instances running on 5.1 without a hitch.
 
Hi John, I think i jumped on your other post earlier.. I have the HP 54L - G7, wiith Xpenolog installed. Got it running 3 x 3TB HDD's and 1 x 1TB HDD for my security camera. I've thrown 6Gb of RAM in it - but this was when i was running Win Server 2008 r2. Xpenology doesnt seem as hungry. I run all sorts on this, never turned off. Including Plex daily (to stream music, movies etc) A couple of web sites using Wordpress, and also recommned DS Photostation (synology's own app). Allows you to create a site to host your own photos, either to the public or access via user/password login. Also running the synology webcam software 24/7.

Agree xpenology was a bit fiddly but once installed its great. Also if you dont have your own domain you will be able to sign up for one (synology call it quickconnect) for free.
 
Thats great - I've got to say now I've it up and running and the media etc over (well actually shared from another 4TB networked drive as those files aren't that important - which is brilliant BTW) I'm very happy.

There is such a wealth of options I just don't know where to start, but its really odd being able to turn my main PC off which is noisy and uses a fair bit of electricity as its a mid range gaming rig - now its sooo quiet in my room :)

Looking at the CPU\RAM running idliy as a plex server ist 1%\13% and thats with only 4GiB, its not struggling. When streaming a 1080p file to my PC it jumps all the way to up: 1% CPU :D
 
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