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Which Drives in new setup?


TeleFragger

Question

Ok so I have had a Dell Professional Workstation in use for a few years now. 

Specs:

Dell T3500

Xeon w3550 - passmark score of 5747

24gb pc5300 ram

6 x 2tb black drives

 

 

this houses a few things

1. Windows Server 2012 R2 essentials

  • personal pictures
  • personal videos
  • personal data files
  • tv shows
  • tv movies

2. Stablebit drive pool

3. Plex - remote streaming of

  • dvr shows
  • live tv via hdhomerun/plex plugin

4. Homeseer home automation software

 

I am replacing this machine with a better one once server 2016 essentials comes out. Cant wait!

new machine specs

HP Z420

Xeon E5-1620 - passmark score of 9096

16gb - 4x 4GB PC3-12800E DDR3-1600 UNBUFFERED ECC 2RX8 CL11 240 PIN 1.5V 

 

now the machine has 3 internal drive bays and I have a 5 1/4 to 3 1/2 adapter so can fit 4 drives for now.

 

need help figuring out the drive that would work for me...

 

so SSD for OS then...

 

Red/Black/Archive ???? so many drive types.. what makes sense on a storage/streaming machine?

 

I figure i would put 3 in at first and use stablebit drivepool.

for backups I would just use 1 external drive not in the pool and backup to it. i like this as I can then just unplug and go on vacation and have all my stuff with me (wife feels better with this and I call it our offsite storage... hah...)

 

fyi here is my plex setup at the moment... 

post-2175-0-06772500-1470742817_thumb.jpg

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That's personal preference really. 

 

My recommendation?  Archive drives.  

 

Since you're likely going to have predominantly large files, just sitting around... the Seagate Archive drives are the best price per TB on the market.    They do have issues with a lot of writes, but adding write cache drives with the SSD Optimizer Balancer Plugin means you should be able to avoid this issue completely. 

http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/1625-do-i-start-buying-8tb-archive-drives-or-not/

 

Aside from that, WD RED or Seagate NAS (or other NAS type drives) are your best bet. They're a bit more pricy, but they perform very well, and pull less power than "desktop" drives, in most cases. 

 

And while I am sure you're probably already invested in Plex, it may be worth checking out Emby.  It has some native Live/Recorded TV options, including native HD Homerun support (as well as support for various backends).   It would be a more seamless solution, and may allow you to watch TV away from home. 

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That's personal preference really. 

 

My recommendation?  Archive drives.  

 

Since you're likely going to have predominantly large files, just sitting around... the Seagate Archive drives are the best price per TB on the market.    They do have issues with a lot of writes, but adding write cache drives with the SSD Optimizer Balancer Plugin means you should be able to avoid this issue completely. 

http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/1625-do-i-start-buying-8tb-archive-drives-or-not/

 

ok cool ill check this out...

 

 

Aside from that, WD RED or Seagate NAS (or other NAS type drives) are your best bet. They're a bit more pricy, but they perform very well, and pull less power than "desktop" drives, in most cases.

 

Ok so I was just perusing around before finding my topic to see if anyone replied and I saw the SSD optimizer... so im guessing it is included with my Stablebit license.

I may buy a nice sized SSD for this use and just use my current 2tb black drives for now and buy new archive drives creating a new pool.

 

 

And while I am sure you're probably already invested in Plex, it may be worth checking out Emby.  It has some native Live/Recorded TV options, including native HD Homerun support (as well as support for various backends).   It would be a more seamless solution, and may allow you to watch TV away from home.

 

funny thing here. I have been all over the web for the differences between Plex and Emby. They both do the same thing but differently. Some have other features the other doesnt have.

 

so I am going to get my server up (once OS is released) and get back up and running. Plex is on a different box so I will fire up another and do emby too. I will then compare them and see what works with what. If you look at my pic there is the youtube link and you can see all my videos on live tv, plex, etc....

 

...............

Edited by Christopher (Drashna)
editing got screwed up, cleaned up for readibility
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I hope you don't mind that I edited the post. Not sure what happened there, but it got screwed up. 

 

 

 

 Ok so I was just perusing around before finding my topic to see if anyone replied and I saw the SSD optimizer... so im guessing it is included with my Stablebit license.

I may buy a nice sized SSD for this use and just use my current 2tb black drives for now and buy new archive drives creating a new pool.

 

Not sure what you mean here.   The SSD Optimizer is a balancing plugin, optional and free. Just install it, enable it and configure it, and you're set. 

 

Just remember, if you're using (real time) duplication, you'll want to use 2 or more SSDs, otherwise it will write to the "archive" drives (as specified by the balancer). 

 

Also, 120GB SSDs are ~$30 each anymore. So definitely worth it. 

 

 

funny thing here. I have been all over the web for the differences between Plex and Emby. They both do the same thing but differently. Some have other features the other doesnt have.

 
so I am going to get my server up (once OS is released) and get back up and running. Plex is on a different box so I will fire up another and do emby too. I will then compare them and see what works with what. If you look at my pic there is the youtube link and you can see all my videos on live tv, plex, etc....

 

Yup, very similar products.  "Convergent Evolution". Basically, they both developed to fit the same sort of role, so it's no surprise that they're very similar. 

 

In my experiences, Emby is much better about allowing you to run a self hosted installation.  Plex is garbage about it... and essentially forces you to create a Plex Pass for each user (only you need to buy the subscription though). 

Additionally, Plex is MUCH better about CPU use when transcoding. But the video quality for Emby is MUCH better. 

 

Also, Emby's web interface is better, overall.  And touches like custom CSS and the "CoverArt" plug-in make the experience that much better, overall.  

 

Additionally, Plex is entirely closed source, where Emby is open source.  

 

 

And I did see the youtube URL. :)  Maybe I check it out later. 

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