this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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My 32 TB Plex server running on a ministack. It ain't fancy but it gets the job done. (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I've been running a full tower Windows server with a dozen drives for a decade and decided to downsize. This ministack does everything I need at a fraction of the power, noise, and heat.

I use it primarily for Plex but also host a few games servers for buddies. It fits perfectly in my entertainment center.

Spent around $200 on the Mac Mini plus $600 on the drives and enclosures. I'm using SoftRAID for RAID1.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Most Macs are overpriced, but the $599 M2 Mac Mini is an absolute STEAL compared to the rest of their lineup. And its existence drives the price of used Mac Minis down, which is also great.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a pity that also the RAM and SSD are a steal.

250€ to add 8gb RAM and another 250€ to add 250gb SSD. Prices that even ten years ago didn't make sense...

I wish they sold the M2 motherboard with standard DDR 5 and m.2 slots. I'd pay 1000€ for that and i wouldn't even want the fancy aluminum case

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can't you just add it yourself or are they soldered in?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, unfortunately it's all soldered https://www.macworld.com/article/1677460/mac-mini-upgrade-hub-storage-ethernet-sd-card-ports.html

So when the single flash chip degrades, the whole unit automatically becomes e-waste instead of a simple $25 fix

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Classic apple

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

In this case they have some justification for the RAM at least. They use a SoC, not a more typical CPU. And the RAM is available for both graphics and system memory, so for some uses, you could do things on a higher end Mac that is not possible on a typical consumer PC.

Still sucks for people like me though. I really want to switch to a mac Mini for my NAS/home server but I can't justify the upgrade cost to get a useful amount of RAM.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You run Windows server for Plex? Couldn't you just use a basic Debian install or Truenas?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm running Mac OSX.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Nice compact setup 👌

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Whats the enclosures? I was gonna do the Mac mini thing with a qnap but this looks sick

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Same. Want to know.

Edit: think these are them

OWC 6.0TB HDD miniStack USB 3.2 Storage Solution https://a.co/d/3Zd5vAH

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yep that's it!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What are the drives enclosures ?

I have an M2 Mac mini not really used and that would be a great idea to do something like you, instead of the huge supermicro server.

Thanks !

Edit: OWC mini stack

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yep you got it, the Ministack enclosure. The brown wood base I got on Amazon - it's a no name brand, just search for Mac Mini wood stand.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Can it transcode 4k

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I haven't tried. The vast majority of my streaming is in the same network and direct play at 1080p. The rest is remote when I'm at work at 480p because I have to use data instead of WiFi.

I've heard that the M1 Mac Minis can transcode at 4k but I didn't want to shell out the cash for it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They can, but only one stream, and it’s spotty. I’ve got a Synology, and I tried to see if I could run another Plex instance on an M1. It wasn’t as amazing as I had hoped.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's disappointing. I wonder if the M2 is more capable. Granted at that price point there's little reason to go Mac instead of Linux or even Windows.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Oh also, I just found out that Plex doesn’t take advantage of the GPU on the M series as of now, so either wait, or go Intel.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It doesn’t seem that much faster. As much as I love apple, I think you’d get more bang for your buck using a PC with specific hardware geared towards this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Admittedly I was mostly drawn to the clean form factor of the mini stack. It's just so pretty.

It was a happy bonus that Plex was originally designed for Mac and works flawlessly on Mac hardware.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I can't see the picture, but if the Mac Mini is from late 2018 or newer, the iGPU should be able to transcode 4k video.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Don't transcode on Plex if you can avoid it. It's very compute-intensive and it makes your streams look like shit. Convert your videos to nice formats that most people can direct play (like x264 or x265) and turn transcoding off. It'll keep your hardware running longer, keep your electric bill down, and your streams will look better. Win-win-win-win.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah that’s what I do now but I’m running out of space and would really just like to have those original 4k rips. Those converted files add up fast with 200TB

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's assuming you can afford the storage to store multiple copies of your media.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

You can convert most movies to 1080p x265 and it takes up a little over a gigabyte of space. If you're already hosting 4K movies, why do you give a shit about another gigabyte? If you're NOT hosting 4K movies, then you have ZERO reason to transcode, just make everything 1080p and call it a day.

Also, transcoding DOES cost you money, your electric bill goes up, even if you don't track it or care. So spend the extra fifty bucks on a few extra terabytes now rather than spending it over the course of several months transcoding. And if you cut out transcoding, you can run Plex on VERY cheap hardware, so that saves you money too.

Transcoding. Is. Dumb.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

But also recoding hundreds of movies you will never potentially watch is a waste of power. (I'm assuming a single user setup where stuff is only watched once in a lifetime in most cases)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What's the best way to convert to 1080p x256?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Handbrake

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Tdarr

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The problem isn't 4k vs 1080p. I have a separate library for my 4k items which isn't accessible remotely.

The problem is twofold:

  1. My uplink speeds suck, so often a 1080p file can't stream remotely without being transcoded down to 720p.

  2. Almost everything I have is encoded to x265, and many Roku devices don't support that, thus causing media to be transcoded even locally. (The device I use for 4k stuff does but other TVs in the house currently use devices such don't)

Also, I'm not just running this on a raspberry pi with a single disc. I have over 1500 movies, and 200 TV series already taking up over 30 terabytes on a RAIDZ2 server. So it's not just a simple matter of throwing an " extra fifty bucks" at it.

Frankly, with everything that's running in my home lab, the added electricity in CPU power to transcode is barely a rounding error.

Is it possible for me to arrange things so that nothing ever needs to transcode? Sure, but it would be far more trouble and cost than it's worth at this time.

Not everyone has the same needs or restrictions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How bad is your upload speed? Most of my x264 and x265 encodes have a total bitrate of around 1.5-2 Mbps. You can't stream that without transcoding?

Also, have you LOOKED at transcode quality from the other side? It looks TERRIBLE, and it doesn't significantly reduce your bitrate. I'm telling you, whatever math Plex does to decide whether or not to transcode is USELESS. I've seen it transcode x264 videos (that definitely didn't need to be transcoded) and send them to friends at a HIGHER bitrate, it's legit insane.

Do what works for you, but Plex transcoding is a bad "feature" that should be avoided at all costs.

EDIT: I'm far from the only one noticing this, the common wisdom is that Plex clients are telling your server to transcode, even when it's not necessary, and there's not much you can do about it other than fully turning transcoding off.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/ojsspo/help_finding_out_why_plex_is_choosing_to/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/ugu0rg/how_to_avoid_transcoding_as_much_as_possible/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/13qrknp/plex_transcoding_when_it_shouldnt_advice_please/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/uxu4v6/transcoding_when_it_shouldnt_be/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/crhw8r/why_is_plex_transcoding_when_it_doesnt_need_to/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/9qade9/how_do_i_avoid_transcoding_as_much_as_possible/