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What are the technical specifications for EMBY server of 150 simultaneous users


edwinuscamm

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edwinuscamm

What are the technical specifications for EMBY server of 150 simultaneous users, 

in Windows 7?

In Windows 7

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Jdiesel

Tough to say without knowing the media type being served and the clients accessing it.

 

If you assume that all content is being direct streamed the bottleneck will likely be HDD speed. A few enterprise class SSD should be able to handle it. CPU is less important but you won't want to cheap out here either so I would look at a recent 12+ core Xeon CPU and 32GB of RAM as a minimum.

 

If you need to transcode 150 streams simultaneously I don't know where to start. I don't believe any single CPU or GPU Could handle that but I could be wrong. In any case with that many users you are best off by making sure that as many users as possible can direct streamed which may require multiple versions of each file to increase compatibility.

 

There are a few users on here with some impressive servers that can hopefully chime in.

 

Question though, why would you be running a server for so many users on Windows 7 and not Windows Server?

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drashna

The real question would be how many people will be using it at one time. 

 

From there, that would really determine everything else.

 

But the main things, as jdiesel mentioned are going to be bandwidth, disk speed and CPU power.  

 

 

Though, a dual socket system, or even quad socket system are going to be a very good idea here. 

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Deathsquirrel

The phrases '150 users' and 'windows 7' can be safely considered mutually exclusive.  If you don't have a proper server OS what are the odds you have server hardware?

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drashna

The phrases '150 users' and 'windows 7' can be safely considered mutually exclusive.  If you don't have a proper server OS what are the odds you have server hardware?

Much higher than the odds of your post not sounding condescending. 

Edited by drashna
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BAlGaInTl

Are you saying the server will be on Windows 7?  Or the clients?

 

If it's the server, what version of Windows 7?

 

Keep in mind that Windows 7 is limited in the amount of CPU(s)/RAM it can address.  The Home version is limited to a single physical processor.  The Pro/Enterprise/Ultimate version is limited to two physical processors. 

 

You run in to a similar problem with RAM.  The Home Basic version is limited to 8 GB, and Home Premium 16 GB. (Pro/Enterprise/Ultimate is 192GB)

 

So if you are talking the server side of things.... you really have to make sure you are using a server version of Windows.  If it's software cost that's an issue, I would consider a Linux version.  It's not quite as easy to setup and maintain, but it's free, and would get rid of those limitations.

Edited by BAlGaInTl
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Deathsquirrel

Much higher than the odds of your post not sounding condescending. 

 

The odds of my not sounding condescending are pretty consistently zero.  That's hardly a relevant measure.

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Deathsquirrel

Are you saying the server will be on Windows 7?  Or the clients?

 

If it's the server, what version of Windows 7?

 

Keep in mind that Windows 7 is limited in the amount of CPU(s)/RAM it can address.  The Home version is limited to a single physical processor.  The Pro/Enterprise/Ultimate version is limited to two physical processors. 

 

You run in to a similar problem with RAM.  The Home Basic version is limited to 8 GB, and Home Premium 16 GB. (Pro/Enterprise/Ultimate is 192GB)

 

So if you are talking the server side of things.... you really have to make sure you are using a server version of Windows.  If it's software cost that's an issue, I would consider a Linux version.  It's not quite as easy to setup and maintain, but it's free, and would get rid of those limitations.

 

150 users would also be a violation of Windows 7 licensing requirements, not that anyone actually pays much attention there.  The Linux server could make a lot of sense.

 

That said, the answer really depends on a LOT of unanswered questions listed in jdiesel's post.  If there is no transcoding or need for premier features the answer is a FAST disc infrastructure.  How fast depends on the details of the media itself.  If transcoding is required I'm not even sure if it's possible.  Is there an upper limit on transcoding threads in the current architecture?

Edited by Deathsquirrel
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zigzagtshirt

Also be aware of motherboard throughput, as well as network throughput limitations.  Depending on your media bitrates, number of active streams, and hardware/network, you could easily hit the upper limits of usable throughput on either.

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BAlGaInTl

150 users would also be a violation of Windows 7 licensing requirements, not that anyone actually pays much attention there.  The Linux server could make a lot of sense.

 

That said, the answer really depends on a LOT of unanswered questions listed in jdiesel's post.  If there is no transcoding or need for premier features the answer is a FAST disc infrastructure.  How fast depends on the details of the media itself.  If transcoding is required I'm not even sure if it's possible.  Is there an upper limit on transcoding threads in the current architecture?

I didn't even think about that. Did a quick look... Windows 7 is limited to 20 concurrent connections.

 

I don't think it would work at all for serving that many users, even without transcoding.

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JeremyFr79

I think everyone is forgetting that Emby has a limit of 15 concurrent devices, so past that it really doesn't matter

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Jdiesel

I think everyone is forgetting that Emby has a limit of 15 concurrent devices, so past that it really doesn't matter

 

Not true, there is no limit to the number of concurrent devices only a limit to the number of devices that receive the premiere features. Also I believe there is business licensing available to increase the number of Premiere licensing. 

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BAlGaInTl

I think everyone is forgetting that Emby has a limit of 15 concurrent devices, so past that it really doesn't matter

 

 

Not true, there is no limit to the number of concurrent devices only a limit to the number of devices that receive the premiere features. Also I believe there is business licensing available to increase the number of Premiere licensing.

It's also not "concurrent," but rather aggregate. That being said... old devices fall off the list if they haven't been used in a while. I've done a lot of testing of devices, and so far haven't run into the limit.

 

But yes... someone wanting 150 users would either be limited to the non-premiere features, or would have to negotiate a license.

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JeremyFr79

It's not so much disk speed and CPU that will be your biggest issues if you're only direct streaming, but your random w/r capabilities of your HDD's  Obviously for 150 concurrent streams you're going to want a fairly large multi drive RAID.  I'd say off the top of my head at a minimum 6-12 drives if using SSD's 12-24 drives for spinning drives.  The randoms R/W's are going to kill you with 150 concurrent streams.  Now add transcoding into that and you really start running into issues both with disks and more than anything CPU.  To transcode 150 streams you would need some type of clustering which Emby in no way supports yet.  There's not a single server that I could think of right now that could do that type of transcode load especially if you're even remotely thinking of h.265 and or 4k content.

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BAlGaInTl

This whole thread makes me extremely interested in the actual use case.

 

Hard to figure it out based on the OP.

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Swynol

the best solution to this is load balancing. so have 5-10 servers running behind a reverse proxy which can load balance. i know of a few people who use load balancing. you will need to sync content across the multiple server and sync watch status.

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Dibbes

the best solution to this is load balancing. so have 5-10 servers running behind a reverse proxy which can load balance. i know of a few people who use load balancing. you will need to sync content across the multiple server and sync watch status.

 

I've tried this and it's a pain... Without a single Database, like MySQL or MSSQL, the sync'ing has to be done throught the Trakt plugin, which, for this purpose, is sketchy at best.

 

Back to the original question, from a hardware point it's not going to be cheap. You're looking at enterprise hardware, like a HP DL380 Gen9 (or any hardware vendor equivalent) with enterprise rated SSDs, 2 8-Core hyperthreaded CPU's and 64GB memory (running most jobs directly in memory instead of swapping this out). Also, if you're already spending this amount of money, you might as well get a Windows Server license, instead of Windows 7. There really is a difference in the way hardware resources are handled.

 

Even with the above specs, I'm not sure if you can serve more than 50 concurrent streams on even 720p.

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chef

I think everyone is forgetting that Emby has a limit of 15 concurrent devices, so past that it really doesn't matter

That's the answer I was waiting to read right here.

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chef

the best solution to this is load balancing. so have 5-10 servers running behind a reverse proxy which can load balance. i know of a few people who use load balancing. you will need to sync content across the multiple server and sync watch status.

This is probably the one of the only ways to do it. Multiple servers with load balancing.

 

I would love to see a picture of that of anyone ever makes it a reality!

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Dibbes

That's the answer I was waiting to read right here.

 

@@chef, can you not still open the webpage and play from there even if you're past the 15device limitation?

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@@chef, can you not still open the webpage and play from there even if you're past the 15device limitation?

 

Yes, you can.  The device limit only applies to Premiere features.

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chef

My apologizes I was under the impression each user to have an account logged in.

 

I suppose if each account was a household or something.

 

You could have many connections under your user accounts.

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Swynol

This is probably the one of the only ways to do it. Multiple servers with load balancing.

 

I would love to see a picture of that of anyone ever makes it a reality!

sounds like a challenge, maybe i will have a look into it. 

 

Would be fairly easy with esxi i think, would need a web fronted load balancer like nginx.

Edited by Swynol
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Dibbes

sounds like a challenge, maybe i will have a look into it. 

 

Would be fairly easy with esxi i think, would need a web fronted load balancer like nginx.

 

Good luck and please let me know how you'd be keeping the databases in sync :)

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PrincessClevage

It's not so much disk speed and CPU that will be your biggest issues if you're only direct streaming, but your random w/r capabilities of your HDD's Obviously for 150 concurrent streams you're going to want a fairly large multi drive RAID. I'd say off the top of my head at a minimum 6-12 drives if using SSD's 12-24 drives for spinning drives. The randoms R/W's are going to kill you with 150 concurrent streams. Now add transcoding into that and you really start running into issues both with disks and more than anything CPU. To transcode 150 streams you would need some type of clustering which Emby in no way supports yet. There's not a single server that I could think of right now that could do that type of transcode load especially if you're even remotely thinking of h.265 and or 4k content.

This server should do it

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/servers-unified-computing/ucs-c460-m4-rack-server/index.html

76 physical cores 6TB ram

300k tho:-/

I may know where there is a cheap IBM SAN tho lol

Edited by PrincessClevage
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