New Hardware Advice

General talk about ARGUS TV
elsmandino
Posts: 125
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:43 am

New Hardware Advice

Post by elsmandino » Mon Oct 26, 2015 3:14 pm

Hi there,

Here are the current specs of my server and desktop PCs:

Server
* NSK2480 Case
* 2 x 4GB RAM (4GB being used as RAMDisk)
* 60GB Sandisk Ultra SSD
* MSI H61MA-E35 Mobo
* i3-2105
* 2 x 2TB Samsung Spinpoint F4
* Antec 400w High Current Gamer PSU
* 2 x TV Tuners - HVR-2200 and NOVA-HD-S2

Destkop
* Xigmatek Midgard Tower
* 2 x 4GB RAM and 2 x 2GB RAM
* 60GB Crucial M4 SSD
* Asus M4A785TD-M EVO
* AMD Athlon IIx2 240e
* 2 x 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3
* Antec 380w Earthwatts PSU (taken from the NSK2480 above)

Over the weekend my desktop PC died - the motherboard seems to have had it and I am going to chuck it and the CPU away.

My dilemma is whether to buy a new motherboard and CPU for the desktop or whether to put the Server motherboard/CPU/RAM in the desktop tower and buy a replacement motherboard/CPU for the Server.

What would you guys do?

My instinct is to build a new server as:

1. 12GB of RAM would be better utilised in my server
2. Perhaps there are more efficient CPUs that are better suited to a server

Any tips would be much appreciated.

logifuse
Posts: 234
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:17 am

Re: New Hardware Advice

Post by logifuse » Mon Oct 26, 2015 10:40 pm

Unless you use the server for transcoding (e.g. Emby to portable devices) or post-processing recordings (ad removal & conversion), then the server doesn't need to be very powerful. I use a G8 Microserver that has a Celeron & 4GB of RAM. The key is a good RAID controller (it includes one) & good Ethernet NIC(s) (it has a pair of Gigabit ones).

The desktop doesn't need to be very powerful for playback, but the key is the GPU. If your TV is interlaced (particularly MPEG2), then the deinterlacing capabilities of the GPU are crucial. I use an ATI HD6750 in mine because of that. My secondary desktop in my bedroom is a Gigabyte Brix N2807 running Openelec. It can only do basic deinterlacing, but it's good enough for the bedroom & is completely silent (fanless).

I would (in my circumstances considering viewing interlaced MPEG2) get a new AMD APU (CPU with GPU)/motherboard combo for the front end.

elsmandino
Posts: 125
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:43 am

Re: New Hardware Advice

Post by elsmandino » Tue Oct 27, 2015 3:20 pm

I am indeed running Argus and Emby on the server.

The transcoding issue is the thing that is slightly confusing at the moment.

Any conversions (which I rarely do) would be done by another PC, so the server would not have to do any transcoding there.

However, I have the following Kodi client's all connecting to the server (though only a maximum of three are ever used at once):

1. Windows latptop
2. 3 raspberry Pis
3. 2 Android phones
3. Android tablet

Which of the above would require the server to transcode?

logifuse
Posts: 234
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:17 am

Re: New Hardware Advice

Post by logifuse » Mon Nov 02, 2015 12:53 am

I did some testing with the Emby client on Android over the weekend & my 720p MKVs (most of my content) didn't seem to be transcoded. Even my weakest Android client (my Samsung S4 Mini on wifi) played them smoothly.

I remember when I first started using Emby, the same content was transcoded, so it must be better at recognising the playback ability of clients now.

elsmandino
Posts: 125
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:43 am

Re: New Hardware Advice

Post by elsmandino » Mon Nov 02, 2015 3:34 pm

Thanks for that.

Without the need to worry about transcoding, I reckon a new low-end CPU for my server and a 4-DIMM motherboard is the way to go.

I am guessing that Haswell is the best platform to use at the moment. Do your reckon a G1820 is a good choice or is it worth spending a little bit more for something a little bit more powerful?

logifuse
Posts: 234
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:17 am

Re: New Hardware Advice

Post by logifuse » Tue Nov 03, 2015 4:33 am

Mine's a G1610T & it runs Argus, Emby, Logitech Media Server (for Squeezeboxes), Sickbeard, SABnzbd, BTSync & a host of other services (FTP, etc) & it rarely uses more than 8% CPU & about 45% of the 4GB of RAM.

However, it does have a proper hardware RAID controller (unlike most standard motherboards that are really software based), & it runs 2012 R2, so it's a bit lighter than a desktop OS.

I'd probably go for a slightly higher CPU to compensate for the RAID controller &/or use of a desktop OS.

sgibbers17
Posts: 80
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2014 12:08 am

Re: New Hardware Advice

Post by sgibbers17 » Tue Nov 03, 2015 4:55 am

What I do is run a server with unRAID as the base OS as a NAS and run a windows virtual machine on top of unRAID that runs my sql database and Argus TV. Since Argus is on the same machine as my NAS I get full right speed to my storage drives.

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elsmandino
Posts: 125
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:43 am

Re: New Hardware Advice

Post by elsmandino » Tue Nov 03, 2015 3:20 pm

Thank you both so much for you advice - I reckon that a G1850 is going to fit the bill perfectly.
sgibbers17 wrote:What I do is run a server with unRAID as the base OS as a NAS and run a windows virtual machine on top of unRAID that runs my sql database and Argus TV. Since Argus is on the same machine as my NAS I get full right speed to my storage drives.
This is a particularly interesting setup (to be honest, I had never heard of unRAID and, having just been on their website, am still not totally sure of what it offers).

What is the benefit of this over just installing Windows on your Server?

sgibbers17
Posts: 80
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2014 12:08 am

Re: New Hardware Advice

Post by sgibbers17 » Tue Nov 03, 2015 8:30 pm

unRAID allows for an expandable JBOD array with a parity disk to allow for one disk failure. You do not need all the same size drives to add them to the array. The reason I have a windows VM is that my unRAID server is on all the time so I can have one machine on to preform all my tasks instead of two. Another good thing about unRAID is that each drive has its own file system so you can take the drive out of unRAID and put it in another PC that can read Linux file systems and read all the files on the drive.

Others have added a dedicated graphics card to pass through to the VM and also use it as a HTPC or gaming rig.

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logifuse
Posts: 234
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:17 am

Re: New Hardware Advice

Post by logifuse » Wed Nov 04, 2015 1:42 am

elsmandino wrote:This is a particularly interesting setup (to be honest, I had never heard of unRAID and, having just been on their website, am still not totally sure of what it offers).

What is the benefit of this over just installing Windows on your Server?
I tossed up whether or not to use ESXi (a different hypervisor) on my Microserver (I have a business server where I did use it), but found that straight Windows did everything I needed.

For my business, I needed separate domain controller, Exchange server & web server, so it made sense to run all as virtual machines on the single piece of hardware.

The benefit of using a hypervisor (e.g. unRAID, ESXi or Hyper-V) is that you could have a Linux VM where you could run Myth & integrate that with Emby (&/or replace Argus all together), or you could run VMs of various OSes for various roles.

The only restriction I've felt in running a pure Windows server has been that I'm limited to Windows based TV backends, but I've only really been mucking around with alternatives to Argus for TV in Emby, so not that crucial.

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