Jump to content
  • 0

cpu for drivepool/scanner


Ryo

Question

hi all im rebuilding my fileserver / media server and im thinking of going intel. my main reason is I have the file server and then I have 3 laptops accessing it. will the cpu in the server make a difference on how quickly I can balance my pool and also how quickly I can run scanner? im thinking of rebuilding with a socket 1150 Celeron to start and then upgrade as I can afford.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Recommended Posts

  • 0

No, the CPU and memory won't really affect this, as long as you have enough resources for the system in general. The determining factor is the drives in question, and the drive controller.

 

Both products were written to be as resource efficient as possible.  You could absolutely run them on an intel Atom or Celeron system without problems.

 

However, what else you want to do  with the system will absolutely determine your needs. If it's just reading from shares, then a Celeron should be plenty enough for you. However, if you want to do more, I'd recommend a low end Core i3 processor, as it will provide plenty of horsepower to do a majority of tasks that you can throw at it.

 

But the idea to start at a celeron and then upgrade as needed is a good idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

No, the CPU and memory won't really affect this, as long as you have enough resources for the system in general. The determining factor is the drives in question, and the drive controller.

 

Both products were written to be as resource efficient as possible.  You could absolutely run them on an intel Atom or Celeron system without problems.

 

However, what else you want to do  with the system will absolutely determine your needs. If it's just reading from shares, then a Celeron should be plenty enough for you. However, if you want to do more, I'd recommend a low end Core i3 processor, as it will provide plenty of horsepower to do a majority of tasks that you can throw at it.

 

But the idea to start at a celeron and then upgrade as needed is a good idea.

 

 

If you're going to stream multiple HD Streams, then the Xeon would be a better option. A Core i3 may be up to it, but in this case, it would be better to err on the side of caution.

 

Well, aren't these two statements contradictory?

 

IMHO, when talking about streaming - *not* transcoding - the first statement holds true, even for multiple clients,

as long as  a single GBit NIC is the bottleneck and can be saturated.

I can easily achieve this with my Celeron 847 board and 7.2k Seagate Baracuda Disks in my pool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

is transcoding when u convert a dvd to digital format?

im looking to do this also but not sure what I need to do it.

 

between me , my wife , and kids. we have several hundred dvds and tv seasons on dvd.

can these be converted to digital format?

what hardware would I need for this?

 

current server is

am3 phenom 2 945deneb 3.0ghz

16GB ddr 3 1600 ram (4 sticks) upgradable to 32

currently using onboard video but have a GeForce 640gt pcie card if needed. but didn't think I would need it for the server.

so I pulled it and set onboard to 32mb as im just storing files on server

I have 1 1tb black drive for os and 1 1tb green drive for data. going to start getting wd red drivesfor data to replace green

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

-> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcoding

 

One example is when you want to stream your BluRay material to a device that is not capable of

playing it natively, like your 1280x768 tablet.

Transcoding means to convert the codecs (video and/or audio) from source to desired/supported destination formats.

 

...you can do that "offline", meaning to store different versions of your media for each player...this will take time and a faster CPU helps, but eventually

you'll finish the jobs and the only thing you really need is disk-space.

Some people are in for doing this live, on-the-fly, which means you need a really beefy CPU for this.

A famous application that supports this is Plex...and having a beefy Socket-1150v3 or Socket-2011 quad+ core XEON really helps here.

 

...but for streaming material "raw" (when the client device can handle it natively), this is not needed.

You can create digital "backups" of your media, like from your dvds or blurays.

.... don't know if it is legit to do so for copy protected material in your jurisdiction though...there are apps that help in the process, like AnyDVD or makemkv.

This is *not* transcoding (as the codecs auf audio/video stay the same, what changes is the container, like from avi to mkv, only)...the speed of the optical drive is usually the limit...CPU performance is not an issue here.

 

You can "shrink" (transcode) the material to create smaller media files to stream later with apps like handbrake...these usually work offline.

I don't do this on my server but on my (XEON based) workstation...server just holds/stores the data, as disk space is getting cheaper and cheaper

...and this saves a lot of energy  ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Just to add on here, you should be aware that transcoding the video to another format other than the native format will cause the quality of the video to be less than the original.  One exception is taking it to MKV format, which is really just repackaging the unaltered video, audio and subtitle streams into a different container.

 

I chose to preserve the quality of my videos by just removing the unwanted streams and repacking them back into their native container, which is VOB for DVD and M2TS for Blu-Ray.  This uses less space than backing up the entire disc but requires more space than transcoding them to another format.  The size of the output file varies depending on the length and quality of the video.  My VOB files are typically between 3 and 7 GB each, and my M2TS files are generally between 15 and 45 GB each.  There are a few programs I use for this.

 

I am on a Windows machine, so I bought a lifetime subscription to AnyDVD HD, which is a tool that runs in the background and decrypts the disc when you insert it into the drive.  It is costly but well worth it, because it just works and is updated frequently.  For ripping my DVD discs, I use the old but free program DVD Shrink without compression.  For ripping my Blu-Ray discs, I use the free tool tsMuxer.

 

As far as the legality goes, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is what governs the legality of these things.  Originally, it was legal to make 1 backup copy of your DVD or Blu-Ray discs, but it was illegal to break the encryption to do so. The DMCA was later amended to allow the encryption to be broken for research purposes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

To clarify:

 

Transcoding, I mean using something like Subsonic, Serviio, Plex, etc to "on the fly" transcode the contents into a format that the client device will be able to use.  This is CPU intensive for the server/system.  

 

And when I see streaming, it's a very ambiguous term. 

 

The best option, IMO, is being able to directly read from shared folders, and being played natively on the client. In theory, this should require the least amount of resources on all ends.

 

 

 

So as I said, it really depends on what you're goign to be doing.

If everything is going to be accessing the shared folders directly, then a celeron would be up to that task (or even an intel Atom CPU).  If you're going to be doing more than that, it depends on what. But if you're going to be doing a LOT of transcoding, the a good CPU is going to be worth spending money on. If it's just one or two devices (and maybe some other stuff being done on the server, such as website, downloading, etc), then a Core i3 would be a good idea.  If you are going to be doing a lot of  transcoding, and/or a lot of other tasks on the server, then a Xeon would be a good idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

im looking to take my entire dvd collection and store it on my drivepool server to playback from multiple locations throughout our home. I have heard of ihomeserver and am curious if that would do the trick. these forums are the best and the feedback has been awesome. thanks to everyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Hi

I use AcRyan mini2 I have 7 of them and they work brilliant it's so easy rip a DVD to the server pool and a cover art pic then just acces the folder via the AcRyan box and just play so easy to do even my 5 year old has masterd it

 

I am sure Ihomeserver is for headless iTunes I may wrong I very rarely tinker with it now I can go into more depth if you want more info I do believe there are YouTube vids of the boxes there are others but I have never used them so can't comment on how easy they are to use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Lee, you're right, iHomeServer is to allow you to run iTunes on the system and stream that way. 

 

As for ripping DVDs, another option is MyMovies. It also requires AnyDVD. Both are paid apps, but work quite well. 

 

Also, what are you planning on using for playback?

If you're not sure, then Plex may be a good idea, and you DEFINITELY want a good CPU for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

...for playback and some more flexibility, I'd go with something like xbmc/kodi.

I love my openelec htpc (http://openelec.tv/) and with this (http://www.pulse-eight.com/store/products/104-usb-hdmi-cec-adapter.aspx) I can use my TV remote to control it.

With the latest advances in small embedded world, all you need to run openelec with cec-support already inside is this: http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G138745696275 ...it supports a full Android based system as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

im looking to rebuild with a Celeron haswell G1830 2.8ghz dual core and then upgrading in future to xeon E3-1275V3 at 3.5ghz quad

 

 

...IMHO this is definitely the right strategy.

As per your choice of the 1830...I don't know where you are located, but over here in Germany,

the 1840 is approx 30% cheaper than the 1830...I'd go with the CPU that offers the best/most features in its datasheet for your budget.

The 1840 offers "clear HD video" when compared to the 1830, for example.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

my biggest worry with this rebuild is windows 10 compatibility. im currently running an MSI 880GMA-E45 micro ATX mobo and a AMD Phenom 2 945 at 3.0GHZ socket AM3. im currently running the preview version of windows 10 but msi has said there will probably not be 1st party drivers for windows 10 on this board. hence the upgrade idea. with the preview all board features are active. I wanna upgrade but I have that nagging question. Do I need to. Comes down to Phenom 2 versus Xeon

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Need to? Maybe not. But it may be a good idea in the long run.  Personally, I'd recommend it.

 

Specifically the AMD Phenom you have is a 125W TDP design, is 4 cores (vs 4 cores with HyperThreading), on-die graphics, etc.

The Xeon will more than likely run much cooler, and use less power than the Phenom. I'm not sure if that is important to you, but absolutely worth considering.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1979&cmp[]=7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

My Phenom 2 is a 945 at 3.0 ghz at 95 TDP

 

Sorry, I wasn't finding that CPU specifically, and apparently that last digit makes a difference!

If that's the case, it's a hard choice.

 

Do the Xeon cpus Require ECC ram or can I use my standard Gskill ripjaws non ecc?

You should check my signature for my server. :)

 

You can DEFINITELY use non-ECC RAM with the Xeon.

I'm using the E3-1245v3 in my server, actually. And I'm using 4x8GB sticks of G.SKILL ARES. It's non-ECC, and it works fine.

If you have the RAM already, that's fine. But if you're buying it... get ECC whenever you can.

 

 

As for the Celeron, feel free to get it still. The RAM will downclock to the slower speed, as needed. So you can definitely use the DDR3-1600 even if the CPU only supports up to DDR3-1333.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

...what CL-type of DDR3-1600 is this...you won't notice any real-world difference between 1600-CL11 and 1333-CL9.



If you have the RAM already, that's fine. But if you're buying it... get ECC whenever you can.

 

+1 for ECC ...on S1150 even the Celerons will support it, but the proposed MSI Desktop mobo chipset will not  ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

whats better the ripjaws or the ares ram?

don't really think I need ecc for my needs just want a cpu that will last me the next 3-5 years like my phenom did and the xeon fits well

as of now im running ddr 3 1600 gskill ripjaws but wanna eventually go to 32gb ram. so ? is ripjaws or ares

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Answer this question...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...