Rambling While Building an Overkill Rackmount Plex Server (AKA Plex Server 2.0)

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Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.
Products used in this video:
Rosewill RSV-4000U (8 drive bays): www.newegg.com...
Rosewill RSV-4500U (15 drive bays): www.newegg.com...
CPU Intel i7-12700k (high end): amzn.to/3aSb8gk
CPU Intel i3-12100 (cheaper): amzn.to/3QidFkg
CPU cooler (not needed with i3) Noctua NH-C14S: amzn.to/3aV6n64
Sabrent SSD 2TB: amzn.to/3MIeBLX
Nvidia Quadro P2000: amzn.to/3aWjEey (cheaper on eBay ebay.us/rjZnxI)
Fans - use free case fans or: amzn.to/3xqd6w8 (high end), amzn.to/3mCEQIS (cheaper)
ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming 4/D5 Motherboard: amzn.to/3aJXMmo
Kingston Fury Beast 2x16GB RAM: amzn.to/3xFiRHE
Fractal Ion+ 2 860W PSU: amzn.to/3OavXlA
Fan splitter: amzn.to/3HdxUeO
M.2 cooler (passive): amzn.to/3Hdc7UF (different from video, but I've grown to like these ones)
M.2 cooler (active): amzn.to/3HcvUUg (if you have bad airflow and need extra cooling)
10GbE PCIe card (optional): amzn.to/3O41G82
Current Filming Equipment:
Sony A7IV: amzn.to/3uqGsdT
Sony 35mm f/1.4 GM lens: amzn.to/3ootA4e
Sony 90mm f/2.8 G Macro lens: amzn.to/3bFBVYD
RGB Video Light: amzn.to/3eqVGGs (not my exact light, but similar)
Desview R6 monitor: amzn.to/34CfKUI
AmScope ME300TZA-2L Trinocular Metallurgical Microscope: amzn.to/355bIkd
DaVinci Resolve: amzn.to/3gm2fLR
Buy me a cup of earl grey:
Bitcoin: bc1qf5yzmguzxmx7wmal36ancfvqf34ge08juvtnfk
Ethereum: 0x1B2df497F1c3bDa4b952Bd3cE266Ccf9D3d6cc30
Chia: xch1qtmtxej0tz2c82wj45mu5ncsu4s6z7nageec44qmc0p4dqexdv7s4a4rlg
Ravencoin: RKtLSABkqdFHBSL2ntb1pdC3PVEuc8Dt2Q
Raptoreum: RSECAdkYjcrGh7BogBYjXdB3oaThYdyFxA

[@PeterBrockie]

Cat clip at the end got cut short. I'll see what I can do about extra cats on the next video. :P

[@lawrence1986ify]

Consumer Nvidia cards can be unlocked in either Windows or Linux, with unraid being one of them. Once unlocked, a GTX 1050TI is equivalent to a P2000. And the great thing about unraid is that I can write a script that will auto unlock the card whenever I stop and restart the array or power cycle for any known reason.

[@nuckenfutz9983]

At 11:32 I was about to type "What in the world are you doing orienting a passive CPU cooler that direction if it's a server-like blow-through design?" And then I realized it had a fan.

[@wipje41]

When I bought this case they sent me 2, never knew i could mount a cage sideways for a third front fan, cheers.

[@PeterBrockie]

Yep. This case just has that module for the buttons/USB on the top + 3x5.25" bay below. The 4500U has the buttons rotated 90 degrees with the fan cage pre-installed making it more obvious that it's 5.25" bays.

[@jmssun]

12:48 why do you arrange the direction of CPU heatsink fin perpendicular to the direction of airflow? If it were rotated 90 degree, wouldn’t it benefit fit from system airflow as well? Is there a reason for this arrangement? Thanks for this nice video! 🎉

[@PeterBrockie]

If I recall it interfered with something and couldn't be mounted in that orientation.

[@EvanCarrollTheGreat]

I just saw this comment. This is dead on. Those cpu heatsink fins are off. You should do a before and after on benchmark with both orientations. I imagine you'll see a substantial difference in cooling performance.

[@tek_soup]

you should see my water cooled rack mount pc i built in early 2000's for windows media center. i had the top laser cut back then, for plexi. i was way ahead back then. using Koolance parts.

[@shadowtheimpure]

My next rebuild for my server, I'm planning to use the L4500U along with an Epyc 7282 + ASRock EPYCD8 motherboard combo. $770 for the case, cpu, and motherboard. My eventual goal is to migrate my server to 100% PCIE SSD storage instead of a bunch of spinning rust. The 128 PCIE lanes in the EPYC will go far to facilitating that goal. The L4500U meets my current needs (8 18TB spinning hard drives) and can be easily adapted to meet my future requirements by simply getting 3.5" to 2.5" adapter brackets to install enterprise SSDs like the P4326.

[@EvanCarrollTheGreat]

The radiator fins on the CPU is mounted in the wrong orientation! You want the air to flow through the fins from the front to the back. You have big intake fans, you should should have both of your output fans installed. You want negative pressure in the box. Excessive positive pressure will create dust build up. You also have a lot of wasted space in that case. For an ATX buildout you can swing a compact 4u case, the Chenbro is awesome. Would have made a better fit. But if you got the space for a deep rack case the Rosewell is nice too. Though generally, I don't see the point. Shallow 4u is nicer imho. You should look for the Noctua 4u cpu fan.

[@PeterBrockie]

Real world the CPU cooler doesn't matter. All you are doing is moving the "trapped" hot air a couple cm up into the path of the 120mm intake fans. Even if that cooler could be rotated without interfering with other motherboard components, I doubt you'd see anything beyond margin of error in CPU cooling under normal conditions. Positive pressure keeps dust from coming in any openings other than the front filtered opening for the 120mm fans. I can confirm very little dust since filming the video (even with me leaving the filter door down for weeks at a time).

[@EvanCarrollTheGreat]

@@PeterBrockie You can collect data and prove me wrong on the heat and the orientation. In my case I have a Noctua NH-D12L. So I can't run the experiment. But on those low profile Noctuas you can generally put the fans on the top for better cooling yet (and the manually suggests this when possible) -- I think they call it low-profile vs high-profile installation.

[@EvanCarrollTheGreat]

Also to change the fan orientation you have to change the mounting bars, which sucks.

[@PeterBrockie]

Yeah, in the 4500U there isn't enough z height to put the fan on top - tried during the install. Honesty I don't think it matters much unless you're seriously stressing the cooler. If I was trading cooling for noise I'd just toss in a 4u cooler with an 80 million rpm Delta fan and be done with it. Haha

[@nectarinetangerineorange]

Intel is also a part of the Linux foundation, along with AMD and IBM.... All the processors of each of the vendors is supported by Linux (just make sure its a new enough kernel)

[@tophersplat]

I did try the NVENC patch on my wimpy 1050Ti and I believe it worked. Plex still targets my CPU for support tho. Thanks for the overview of your build

[@PeterBrockie]

The Cpu is always used for subtitles and audio, I think. So it might still use the gpu for some of it. The only way to know for sure is to look at the Plex status and see if it says transcode (hw).

[@Mr_Meowingtons]

I'm running a 1050TI with the patch it works good..

[@octaveanaugustus307]

Wanted to buy one of these Rosewill server / rack mount cases but IIRC they were under ~$100 when first released. Now they are about twice that.

[@PeterBrockie]

Depends on the model. They have gone up, but nothing crazy. Honestly, at the price I paid for these I really can't complain at all. Especially if you run a lot of hard drives - the power costs I'm saving by not needing an AC running to keep drives from cooking pays for the case in no time. :P

[@jdsim9173]

the RSV-4500U is almost $250

[@PeterBrockie]

Yeah, they've been all over the place. Especially when they're sold out and people try to charge way more.

[@Gearhead9415Gaming]

Sense your not using hhds if you ok with hacking some metal out you could cut out the drive cages and probably fit a 360 aio with out much problem

[@CheapSushi]

I really enjoyed your video. your talk about the hardware and build!

[@--Zook--]

holy crap, I run my plex server on a old dell precision T3400.

[@PeterBrockie]

Plex runs on just about anything (especially if you don't transcode). Gotta love it.

[@--Zook--]

@@PeterBrockie I dont transcode. Its just a place for all my old dvd's so we can still watch them. awesome build.

[@romanrm1]

Doesn't seem to be any good reason to use such weird squeezed aspect ratio...

[@PeterBrockie]

Tell that to Sony. Haha They seem to think you're filming The Godfather if you use their Xperia video app.

[@plumbum27]

Thanks for this video. Looking to do the same thing and I found this informative

[@khamilton5033]

Was the "Rosewill RSV-Cage" the extra drive cage you got? (model is listed as RSV-Cage on Newegg)

[@PeterBrockie]

Yeah, pretty much. They make a 5 drive varient that they put in the 15 bay model though.

[@jimholloway1785]

I was interested in how you installed the Noctua 120 mm fans in the front of the case, I know the case comes with regular molex connectors and the Noctua come with a different connector(sorry I don't know the name of their connector) I am looking to buy a case like this and put in a motherboard from a Dell computer but I have seen the problems with the connectors from the case only supporting molex connectors, how did you get around this problem ?? I don't know if there is a molex to noctura power cable and if there is one that would be fantastic. Thanks for the video on this rackmount server case.

[@PeterBrockie]

The pre-installed fans have Molex connectors on them. Replacing the fans replaces the connectors at the same time. So once you have Noctuas in they are just normal PC fan connectors and you can run them to cheap splitters to connect to the motherboard or a fan controller.

[@Android-ng1wn]

I just run Plex on the nas. Got rid of any network bottlenecks and clients that can't direct stream/decode everything I throw at them. Plex transcoding was a disaster last time I tried it, especially DV stuff. In Europe I got the same case without fans under "unykach" brand, model: uk-4129

[@PeterBrockie]

I've gone from running it on the NAS to running it in a VM to running it on a dedicated machine (obviously this video) and it really doesn't make much of a difference. The only thing which changes is how much hardware the Plex server gets (12th gen is night and day for usability vs my E5v2 system). I can recommend doing it either way, really. I went with dedicated Plex for a combination of lower power usage and needing only consumer hardware instead of getting an EPYC to run all my stuff together on a large VM machine.

[@Android-ng1wn]

@@PeterBrockie Plex client's hardware seems to be the biggest factor, so usually the bare minimum to navigate plus the decoding. Power has been crazy here, tempted to run Plex stand alone on a newer orangepi or similar. Your overkill build at least you have a (unwilling 🤣) parts donor going forward, instead of a SBC that's not much good for anything after a few years

[@PeterBrockie]

@@Android-ng1wn Clients decoding stuff is pretty easy all around unless you somehow have a system without video decoding hardware or hardware so old it can't do 4k, etc. Power is crazy here, too. My old dual Xeon system pulled more than double what this server + the basic Ryzen VM system I replaced it with.

[@jamrockiptv8667]

How did the igpu perform for transcoding? Were you able to reach a high number?

[@PeterBrockie]

Moderately worse than the P2000. One thing I might look into is giving it more shared ram as that's what limits the P2000 with 4k transcodes.

[@wtfpv]

Just curious why you ended up putting the Quadro in it. Did the igpu not end up being sufficient?

[@PeterBrockie]

The Intel GPU was fine for a bunch of 1080p or a couple 4k transcodes, but the Quadro seemed to just handle more in most situations. I wanted to try the iGPU under Linux as it supposedly works better - but no support for 12th Gen yet.

[@PeterBrockie]

The real cards to be on the watch for are the new dedicated ones from Intel. The Arc series seems to be transcoding monsters and they make a single slot workstation version (A40) and a beefier A50 which look to be amazing. But we won't know pricing and how well Plex integrates with them for a while.

[@jj-icejoe6642]

Electicity bill ?

[@PeterBrockie]

Depends on if you have a GPU or just QuickSync and the kWh cost in your area. But like I said, it doesn't pull much - especially when idle.