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Very Low consumption (Media) Server

Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 5:31 am
by Gold
Hello Guys,

I was making some research on the Internet and I found this great website.

I am writing this post because I would Like to invest into a NAS/Media Server. In order of priorities I would like :

1. Be Low consumption ( < 15W Idle)
2. Ability to Transcode MKV files 1080p DTS with subtitles for DNLA Clients
3. I would install Windows Server 2012 R2 + File sharing
4. Quiet
5. Small form Factor
6. Use other server Services like AD,DNS,DHCP
7. Put 1 or 2 VMs

I got first the Western Digital DX4000, but the Atom processor is not powerful enough to transcode HD video, also I cannot edit RAID settings. ( I dont want RAID). Now I was thinking about the HP MicroServer G8, but I dont know the performance of the Pentium Processor, if it would be enough. Also I have seen on the website that it is consuming 35-50W Idle which is more that I would like. And it is not quiet at all.

I have a bit browsed other threads that treat the same subject, but they were not totally looking for what I am looking for. I believe I could reach my goals with an Haswell i3, which I believe would be great. ( I dont care investing 50€ more for the long term in term of consumption/performance/reuseability). I dont think I need Server-Class Hardware, like ECC ram etc. I was thinking to put an SSD as OS disk and 3,5" or 2,5", as data disk, I can use power management to reduce power consumption.

When searching on the Internet how can I find out aLow consuming Motherboard ?

The HP Microserver is lot cheaper with the Celeron than with the Pentium. Taking the Celeron Model and replacing by an i3 is cheaper than buying the Pentium.. lol

Thank you,

Re: Very Low consumption (Media) Server

Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 4:22 pm
by cerbie
1. This may be difficult, unless you use exactly the parts soeone else has, that measured that way. But, keeping max power use reasonable won't be hard at all. At low power use, losses in the PSU and voltage regs onboard can be hefty. Or, you can use a notebook, but noise may be hard to control.

2. If real-time, you will need a pretty powerful CPU, or hardware offloading. If done once, and then just serving files, no problem. If real-time, it would be easiest if Quicksync will handle the encoding, but I'm not sure what the software support quality is for that, today. You need to figure out the software and CPU needs for that first and foremost. Everything else is secondary, really.

3. Why the hassle/cost, v. Windows 7, 8, or 8.1?

4. Easy.

5. OK, maybe a little trickier, but quite doable, with many options.

6. Ah, you want AD...but do you realy? If you can, why not leave DNS and DHCP to a firewall, and keep basic permissions all-around? IME, small domains tend to be more trouble than they're worth.

7. 16-32GB RAM.

Re: Very Low consumption (Media) Server

Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 6:12 pm
by Abula
I don't think you going to be able to have a sub 15w idle setup that transcodes, well its going to depend into much cpu power will the app use to do the transcoding, but if a 3.5hdd is involved there is almost no way you will achieve sub 15W idle, unless you sleep it. You can in my signature the CamMi build, i measure different setups, only with the ssd i was idling around 17W, adding the 3.5hdd went above 20W, usually its around 60W doing its thing (transcoding to its own format to record multiple streams).
2. Ability to Transcode MKV files 1080p DTS with subtitles for DNLA Clients
4. Quiet
5. Small form Factor
These three together are going to be rough.

What i would do is first establish what kind of cpu power you will need for your transcoding, after establishing the CPU, then you will need to research what kind of cooling it will require, probably a tower cooler will be requiered to keep the cpu temps under control while still being quiet, but this might limit the small factor desire, there are options but it wont be like a premade nas.

Re: Very Low consumption (Media) Server

Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 5:16 am
by Gold
Thanks for feedback.

For the "RealTime" Transcoding I have read that it requires 2000 PAssMark score on the Plex Website.
I have already a license of a W2K12R2
The DNLA Server App (PS3 Media Server) does not use that much power when idle. This will be 7/8 of the time of the Server.
Then when Transcoding/Streaming, I don't car about the consumption. Basically, it would be idle/file transfer all the time and would need the power to handle time to time that transcode.
I made some tests with my PC with an i5-3570K. Transcoding a 1080p-DTS Video is taking 80% at the begining and then 20-40% of the CPU ( some spikes 40 %) ( PS3 Media Server - MEncoder). And I don't know if it was using the GPU ( I have a PCI-Express GPU) but I dont believe so.

So indeed, it looks complicated in terms of CPU power needs.. :-/. I didn't think it would be that much.

I have seen they also realeased the Micro Server with a Xeon 1220Lv2, dont know if it would be enough of house power. But again this MicroServer looks nice but not his power consumption :-/, not sure what is the difference of consumption between the Xeon and the Pentium or Celeron. And probably the Xeon is not optimized for Video Transcoding, Also it is also a bit old now, maybe there are newer, more efficient models.

The Quietness/Form Factor are less important than Power/Consumption. They are more "Luxury" ^-^.I believe I will need to make sacrifices anyway.
But still dont know where to go, how to choose a mobo, which CPU would be the most efficient,etc..

Re: Very Low consumption (Media) Server

Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 7:53 am
by CA_Steve
If you already have a PC that has the horsepower to transcode, why not just use it for this function? Then, your server PC turns into a much lower power beast as you could go to a Baytrail solution...erm, except for the VM bit..

Re: Very Low consumption (Media) Server

Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 12:38 pm
by Gold
CA_Steve wrote:If you already have a PC that has the horsepower to transcode, why not just use it for this function? Then, your server PC turns into a much lower power beast as you could go to a Baytrail solution...erm, except for the VM bit..
That could be an idea but I don't know the Power Consumption of the PC and there is the hassle to power it ON to read files manually each Time instead of heaving something centralized to store media files always accessible.

Re: Very Low consumption (Media) Server

Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 2:44 pm
by Abula
Gold wrote:I have seen they also released the Micro Server with a Xeon 1220Lv2, dont know if it would be enough of house power. But again this MicroServer looks nice but not his power consumption :-/, not sure what is the difference of consumption between the Xeon and the Pentium or Celeron. And probably the Xeon is not optimized for Video Transcoding, Also it is also a bit old now, maybe there are newer, more efficient models.
I always wanted to try one of those xeons low power... but for what they cost, usually above $300, they are not worth it. I ended up going with a Xeon E3 1230 thats is like i7 without overclocking.
Gold wrote:For the "RealTime" Transcoding I have read that it requires 2000 PAssMark score on the Plex Website.
Well the 2k is not that hard to reach, even a Intel Pentium G3220 @ 3.00GHz has 3k. You could even go into a i3 if you want to have some room to spare, like an Intel Core i3-4370, the i3 4360 has a pssmark of 5,556. All haswell cpus downclock to 800mhz, both should have very similar idle power consumption. I have ran an i3 2100T that can idle close to 12W with 2.5 mechanical, so if you were to be fine with something like Samsung Seagate HN-M201RAD Momentus SpinPoint ST2000LM003 2TB 2.5" SATA II Notebook Hard Drive 9.5MM, you might be able to reach sub 15W idles with the right motherboard, on the other hand with a 3.5 hdd i would think its going to be extremely hard to be inside 15W.

Now what motherboard is where is at (beside the picoPSU).... intel was the best to my personal testing, but being out its hard to say who is next. Some people have suggested MSI, even they released recently an ECO line, personally while i love MSI for other reasons, i don't think they are that great for power consumption. I would suggest to take a look into Vicotnik builds HDPLEX H1-S and ASRock mini-ITX, he has used AsRock with very good results, his builds mostly are small factors with low power consumption and silent, you might build something similar if you were to be fine with 2.5 hdd, just gotta be careful with the CPU temps, when you do the transcoding.

Re: Very Low consumption (Media) Server

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 3:49 am
by phill
How did your build go? What consumption did you manage? I'm looking to build something similar, with the following differences:

3. I'd use something linux, maybe Debian or Ubuntu
5. A preference, but not important
6. Maybe run a VPN server
7. No requirement for a VM
8. Possibly Run Kodi (Or I might use a RPi for this)
9. Blueray drive

Re: Very Low consumption (Media) Server

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 7:49 am
by Gold
Hi my build went ok,
I am at 30watt with only a SSD of 500GB.
Box: Cubitek mini ice
Mob: Gigabyte Mini ITX
RAM : 16GB DDR3 GSKILL Running 1600Mhz
Proc: i5 4690S haswell ( always at the normal speed ( because of HyperV I think)
Ps : 450W Certified GOLD

( i replied from my Smartphone)