New build Plex server and general HTPC

wheresmybeaver

This is my first build. I have an existing NAS for all of my storage and I need a simple, compact build that is quiet when at idle / low usage but also has the power to ramp up and do some serious transcoding (Plex, handbrake) when necessary. I've ruled out a NUC due to the (relatively) weaker CPUs and the fact that I don't really need something that compact. My existing machine is an old laptop that is ready to die and is pretty poor at transcoding video. This box will live in a roomy ventilated cupboard along with my DS214se NAS.

So here is my suggested components list:

•CoolerMaster Elite 110 USB 3.0 Mini-ITX Case (63 euro)
•Asus H81I-PLUS S1150 Intel H81 DDR3 mITX (69 euro)
•Corsair 430 Watt Builder Series CX 430 Modular Power Supply (46 euro)
•Intel Core i3-4330 S1150 3.50GHz 4MB (122 euro)
•Kingston ValueRAM 4GB DDR3 1600MHz Non-ECC DIMM 240-pin CL11 SR x8 (35 euro)
•1TB Desktop SSHD SATA 6GB/s 64MB 3.5" 8GB SSD Cache (73 euro)

These are all in stock on dabs.ie - I've found them to be pretty good in the past.

1. What is your budget?

~ €450

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?

Plex Media Server, SickBeard, transcoding DVD and Bluray rips (TV Shows and Movies). Running Plex Home Theatre connected to a HDMI TV. Box should be pretty quiet when not transcoding. Don't need internal disc drives as I have external USB2 / USB3 drives.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows?

Maybe - I want to use an old Windows 7 licence but would consider paying for W8 upgrade if it is useful

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer?

I've some old 1 and 2TB HDs but they have some serious mileage on them. I have existing external optical disk drives that I plan to reuse.

5. Do you need a monitor?

No - will be connected to HDMI TV for Plex Home Theatre though

5a. If yes, what size do you need.


5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future?


6. Do you need any of these peripherals?

No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking?

No

8. How can you pay?

Bank Transfer/Credit Card/Laser

9. When are you purchasing?

Next 6 months

10. If you need help building it, where are you based?

Cork City

Thanks for any help or suggestions!

wheresmybeaver

Bumpity bump :-)

It's my first build, am I missing anything here? Will this build be relatively quiet or will it sound like a jet engine when idle? Is the PSU excessive?

DERPY DERPFACE

It should be fine and you could probably drop the PSU a bit if you won't be using a gpu but I would leave it.

Serephucus

What are the specs of your NAS? I'd be more inclined to have Plex/Handbrake running off that, and just use a Chromecast or Pi for the HTPC.

wheresmybeaver

Serephucus wrote: »

What are the specs of your NAS? I'd be more inclined to have Plex/Handbrake running off that, and just use a Chromecast or Pi for the HTPC.

Nas number 1 is an old synology Cs407e (very underpowered) and the latest nas is a synology ds214se; a budget model. It runs nzbget, sickbeard etc just fine, and might even manage plex server. But it would be direct play only and wouldn't be able to transcode or remux. There are a few ipads and phones connecting using plex that require the transcoding. And anyway half the reason for this custom build is to rip and encode my dvds and blurays with handbrake.

Cossax

I'm in a similar-ish boat, mind if I hijack a little?

I have a HTPC that does fine with XMBC but struggles in its role as a server (steaming via Plex to the Chromecast) and would be looking for something that can handle transcoding and streaming to a few devices at once. Having a small-ish form factor isn't essential but running quiet when not in use would be important as it'd be in a room downstairs near the router or in a bedroom.

wheresmybeaver

Cossax wrote: »

I'm in a similar-ish boat, mind if I hijack a little?

I have a HTPC that does fine with XMBC but struggles in its role as a server (steaming via Plex to the Chromecast) and would be looking for something that can handle transcoding and streaming to a few devices at once. Having a small-ish form factor isn't essential but running quiet when not in use would be important as it'd be in a room downstairs near the router or in a bedroom.

Well if you were only going to be transcoding at most 2 1080p streams at a time then an i3 or i5 NUC would be pretty quiet when idle but would be able to handle the CPU requirements. But you're paying a premium for a tiny box, and it will possibly sound a little whiney with the tiny fan when under load. I was originally going to go for a NUC, but then I realised the savings and future-proofing that come from building your own (and some pretty small case sizes are now possible).

My concern with the build I've detailed in the 1st post is that I have no idea how noisy it will be at idle and medium-load. The reviews I've seen for the case suggest the built-in fan is pretty quiet (and can be controlled by the BIOS anyway), but I wonder if that PSU is a bit overkill and might get noisy. I can't find anything on dabs.ie that is both modular (to help with airflow in the case) and less than the 430 watts of the Corsair. But reviews of the corsair are good, so..

I might just have to pull the trigger anyway and see what comes out of it. Hopefully it won't end up being too nosy as otherwise I'll have to move everything from the livingroom to the attic and that is going to involve running cat6 up the drainpipe!

vibe666

You ruled out the NUC's due to lack of CPU power, then choose an i3 processor?

NUC's come in i3, i5 and i7 flavors, not sure why you think they wouldn't be up to the task?

I have an i3 NUC and it's more than able to decode 1080p video in win8 with 4gb ram, so I don't imagine an i5 NUC struggling to transcode even multiple streams simultaneously and the i7 NUC would be more than capable and they are all nearly silent, plus they will all take up Rio 16gb ram too.

wheresmybeaver

vibe666 wrote: »

You ruled out the NUC's due to lack of CPU power, then choose an i3 processor?

NUC's come in i3, i5 and i7 flavors, not sure why you think they wouldn't be up to the task?

I have an i3 NUC and it's more than able to decode 1080p video in win8 with 4gb ram, so I don't imagine an i5 NUC struggling to transcode even multiple streams simultaneously and the i7 NUC would be more than capable and they are all nearly silent, plus they will all take up Rio 16gb ram too.

I'm basing that on raw CPU benchmark scores. The i3 and i5 CPUs in the NUC range are more limited CPUs, and as far as I know there isn't an i7 NUC (unless one is shortly to be released).

The i3-4330 that I've chosen has a pretty good performance to cost ratio. The CPU mark is 5096, compared to the i3 NUC mark of 2521 and the i5 NUC mark of 3408. I've no doubt an i5 NUC would have no trouble transcoding 2 or 3 1080p streams simultaneously, but it's also that bit more expensive!

I'm keeping an eye on the future here so that in a few years I can replace this CPU with something a little beefier if need be. This wouldn't be possible with the NUC.

vibe666

I got my NUC before xmas and they were talking about an i7 one back then, so I they be out by now.

I'd also ass-u-med that it would be comparable speed wise, hasn't realised they were so hobbled, but I guess they're has to be sacrifices somewhere to get them that small.

wheresmybeaver

vibe666 wrote: »

I got my NUC before xmas and they were talking about an i7 one back then, so I they be out by now.

I'd also ass-u-med that it would be comparable speed wise, hasn't realised they were so hobbled, but I guess they're has to be sacrifices somewhere to get them that small.

It's been a while since I specced a computer and it turns out that this generation's i3 is comparable to the last generation's i5 or even i7. Ghz clock speed apparently now stands for nothing! For example the 2.16Ghz Dual Core CPU on my old laptop (currently running Plex) is only 1/2 the speed of the i3 NUC running at 1.7Ghz. One thing's for sure this new build will be pretty handy with Handbrake.

wheresmybeaver

Ok I've pulled the trigger and ordered these items. Should have delivery by end of week and will hopefully have the chance to build it over the weekend. I'll report back, but if it turns out to be a noisy build at least I have the option of replacing some of the parts, eg CPU cooler or PSU.

vibe666

with that case you still have the option of adding a closed water loop like the smaller versions of the corsair H series and a quiet edition SP120 fan (or even two in push pull config if need be) which will be plenty enough to suck air through that little case and keep it cool without making much noise at all.

wheresmybeaver

Well, the parts arrived yesterday (a bit earlier than expected) and I got to building straight away.

It took a while and there was a bit of googling required, but all the wires went into the right places and everything seems to be working great.

So, the good: it's a nice case and quite solid. The Windows 8.1 install was fast and easy, and the speed of the i3 is very impressive. I've already ripped and encoded a movie; a process that used to take a little over an hour now takes just under 15 minutes. My laptop's CPU would have been hovering around the 90 degree area and making a hell of a noise, whereas now the i3 CPU floats around 45 degrees and although fans are spinning faster it is almost possible to make this out, even in a quiet room. Boot times are only OK since I'm used to fairly fast bootup time on my laptop with SSD RAID. The hybrid HDD is impressive at times but you won't be fooled into thinking you have a 1tb SSD.

The motherboard provides great fan control features, so I've settled on a level of dynamic RPM for the chassis fan which makes it virtually silent (again by my own fairly sensitive standards) and the stock cooler on the CPU is pretty quiet too. I can't distinguish one over the other. This system is about as noisy as the Synology DS214se NAS in the same room, although disk noise is the main output of the Synology.

The one fly in the ointment is the PSU - although the reviews for the Corsair are good I'm afraid I may have gotten a dud unit. There's a noticeable rumble / pulse from the fan when it's in low rpm operation, as if the fan is slightly off balance or took a knock. It's less noticeable at high rpm. So in a dead quiet room I can't hear the CPU fan or the chassis fan, but I can hear the deep rumble of the PSU fan. If I'm transcoding it's actually a little less noisy as higher rpms seem to mitigate the issue. This is the one component I may consider replacing if I see something rated as very quiet and attractively priced, but it's not a burning issue.

The HDD is mounted directly to the side of the chassis in this case, and I can occasionally hear little bursts of disk activity when it's very quiet, so I think I might look into installing some rubber grommets.

I have to keep this build in a cupboard in the living room. The cupboard has a back panel removed to allow air flow behind the cupboard. I wasn't particularly happy with the temperature readings after I left it running for a few hours in there, but I found that after I flipped the PSU 180 degrees so that the PSU intake fan was facing the motherboard (rather than pulling cool air from outside the top of the case) then the system did a much better job of keeping cool; it seems that the warm air was mostly escaping through the side and top case vents until I made the flip, so now most of the warm air is expelled by the PSU directly out the back of the unit and out of the cupboard. I'll be keeping an eye on temperatures for a few days to make sure this setup works but so far the unit has been on and doing bits of transcoding here and there all day and temperatures are constant.

So in summary this build is indeed very quiet at idle (with a properly functioning PSU) but it can really handle some serious transcoding / encoding if necessary. And it doesn't get particularly noisy when it is. For a cheaper build you can go for something simpler than an i3, especially if there won't be much transcoding going on. I'm pretty happy with this build and I hope I will get at least 4 or 5 years out of it before needing any major upgrades.

Thanks for everyone's advice and help on this thread and the forum in general; I learned a lot in the last few weeks. Certainly I'll be keen to build another system if the opportunity arises..