While we’re not looking to host more than just a small household of users, the system is intended to be utilized for Virtual Machines and other uses as well in the future, so we need something bit a bit more power, but without bumping up out of our desired power range like a 95W CPU+dGPU would do.

This requirement would certainly shrink our potential used OEM systems, but for smaller deployments, may fit just fine. Since we’re using twelve hard drives, we need at least 4 SATA from the motherboard and another 8 from a PCIe RAID/JBOD card, and then one additional port for the OS. However a used computer with vendor-specific components does raise questions on longevity and build flexibility. With Plex recently supporting QuickSync for on-the-fly transcoding, it becomes almost a de facto option, as it can handle plenty of simultaneous transcodes at very low power usage. If you’re wanting cheap, used Dell Optiplex systems with low-power Intel CPUs sporting QuickSync are a great option. There’s a lot of debate on what a good set of Plex server components would be. Rosewill 4U Server Chassis w/ 12 Hot Swap Bays Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC320 8TB SATA HDD System Build List Pre-build Parts Partģ-Pk SATA Male to Molex LP4 Female Power Adapter The system, as built, will deliver roughly 64TB of usable storage capacity. It needed to have a lot of space, be resilient, relatively power efficient, and fairly easy to maintain without cracking open the case. We were recently asked for assistance to build a home media storage server to store family photos, video, DVD backup archive, and other media items and to use Plex to organize it. We field many inquiries for custom builds to serve particular needs. Please watch the video if you want the full setup walkthrough.) ( Note: this article is written as a companion article to our YouTube video on this topic.

Plex nas