Dell PowerEdge for Emby Server?

[Dizzy49 95]

So, I have a Norco case with a cheapy mobo and processor.  I've got 16 drives in it, so I'm making good use of the 24 bays.

I ran across a Dell PowerEdge R710 server with 2x Xeon 5660 CPUs and 64GB of Ram for a reasonable price.  I don't even care about the 6x 2TB drives.

 

My question is two fold.

1) Would the Dell PowerEdge be a good Emby server?

 

2) Is there a way to connect the drives in my Norco to the PowerEdge so the Norco is essentially just a big box of drives?  I'd rather not connect via Ethernet as I believe it would lose a lot of efficiency trying to stream/re-encode from a network drive.

 

Thanks!

 

-Sean

[Luke 38559]

Looks like it should be fine.

[Dizzy49 95]

Any known issues with Emby Server running under Windows Server?

 

My dad is running his Emby Server on an i7-4400k w/ 32GB of ram.  Would 2x Xeon 5660 give better performance for him?  The only thing the machine is used for is for downloading torrents, and Emby server.

 

Thanks!

[BAlGaInTl 279]

Any known issues with Emby Server running under Windows Server?

 

My dad is running his Emby Server on an i7-4400k w/ 32GB of ram.  Would 2x Xeon 5660 give better performance for him?  The only thing the machine is used for is for downloading torrents, and Emby server.

 

Thanks!

Better performance for what?

 

For a single user, the 2x Xeon would be overkill. You have more raw processing power, but the i7 probably uses a lot less power. Plus, the i7 supports Quick Sync Video, so it may actually provide better performance if you enable hardware encoding in Emby.

 

What else is the server used for?

[rbjtech 4780]

Emby happily runs on a single vCore with 2Gb of RAM - it all depends on what you want it to do.  

 

Streaming multiple direct play files takes a tiny amount of CPU - that would happily run on a bottom end i3 all day but transcoding 4K takes a huge amount of CPU or GPU Hardware assistance to be workable, and only then with 1-2 streams.

 

Sorry, not sure what a Norco is, but NAS connectivity is perfectly normal for emby, just map the drives in emby and you'll generally be able to stream from them without issues over a 1gig local network.

[BAlGaInTl 279]

Sorry, not sure what a Norco is, but NAS connectivity is perfectly normal for emby, just map the drives in emby and you'll generally be able to stream from them without issues over a 1gig local network.

Norco is a very solid line of server cases with hotswap backplanes.

 

You can typically get one that will hold 16-24 drives "relatively" cheaply.

[Dizzy49 95]

Better performance for what?

 

For a single user, the 2x Xeon would be overkill. You have more raw processing power, but the i7 probably uses a lot less power. Plus, the i7 supports Quick Sync Video, so it may actually provide better performance if you enable hardware encoding in Emby.

 

What else is the server used for?

 

We've had to disable the hardware encoding in Emby.  It was causing some add skipping and sync issues.  The server is used to download torrents (pretty much 24/7), and run Emby with 2-3 streams running the majority of the time, with 1-2 being re-encoded and 1 direct stream.  Most is 1080p content, but a fair amount of it is 4k, and it is increasing.

 

 

Emby happily runs on a single vCore with 2Gb of RAM - it all depends on what you want it to do.  

 

Streaming multiple direct play files takes a tiny amount of CPU - that would happily run on a bottom end i3 all day but transcoding 4K takes a huge amount of CPU or GPU Hardware assistance to be workable, and only then with 1-2 streams.

 

Sorry, not sure what a Norco is, but NAS connectivity is perfectly normal for emby, just map the drives in emby and you'll generally be able to stream from them without issues over a 1gig local network.

 

"My Servers" (ie mine, my father's, and my brother's) all have 2-3 streams running at any time, will hit 4-5 on occasion.  Between the kids and my travel, 1-2 streams are typically being encoded.

 

Norco is a very solid line of server cases with hotswap backplanes.

 

You can typically get one that will hold 16-24 drives "relatively" cheaply.

 

All my servers are build with Norco boxes.  We have 2x 24bays, and 1x 20bay.  I'd like to turn them into SAS boxes and use a couple HBAs with external SAS connections to connect them.  I just don't know how to "convert" the Norco machine into a box with drives.  While I am technically inclined, this is a new area for me, and I'm not even sure what the proper terminology is to help me search on Google.

[Dizzy49 95]

I suppose with that much power I could run a software RAID like FlexRAID.  I tried it years ago, but it took 20 hours to scan the drives for incremental changes, so it wasn't practical for nightly backups.  I did weekly incremental, and monthly full backups that took 2 days.

[Guest asrequested]

That server is going to struggle with 4k transcoding. And when tone mapping is introduced, it'll struggle, more. It probably won't be able to do it in real time. So if that's what you're aiming at, I'd advise against it.

[BAlGaInTl 279]

When was the last time you tried hardware encoding?

 

I think it's gotten better.

 

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[Q-Droid 808]

A single current gen i5 would do better with Emby and transcoding than those Xeons. Each of the Xeons benches lower than an 8th gen i3 and they don't have graphics/media support. So in that regard even an i3 might do better. What you do get is server class hardware and controllers, albeit old ones.

[Jdiesel 1214]

I think I am qualified to to give some advice on this matter as I just went through an upgrade this week.

 

I had a IBM x3650 M3 server with dual X5560 processors and 96GB of ram and just switched to a Intel i7-8700 build.

 

First off those X5560 processors are 95w TDP each and had a passmark score of about 5500. The 4770k (I assume no a 4400k) is a 84w TDP with a passmark of 10000+

 

The X5560 is a dead end upgrade wise.

 

The UHD630 iGPU in my i7-8770 is amazaing and has handled everything I have thrown at it including multiple 4K transcoding. It has a 65w TDP and passmark of 16000.

 

If you are dead set on enterprise hardware get a LGA2011 board with a E5-26xxv2 processor.

 

 

And for your storage box question, this is what you want

https://www.serverbuilds.net/16-bay-das 

Edited May 11, 2019 by Jdiesel

[Dizzy49 95]

When was the last time you tried hardware encoding?

 

I think it's gotten better.

 

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

I think it was about a month ago that ebr helped me figure out that the hardware encoding was the issue and I disabled it.  No problems since.

 

 

I think I am qualified to to give some advice on this matter as I just went through an upgrade this week.

 

I had a IBM x3650 M3 server with dual X5560 processors and 96GB of ram and just switched to a Intel i7-8700 build.

 

First off those X5560 processors are 95w TDP each and had a passmark score of about 5500. The 4770k (I assume no a 4400k) is a 84w TDP with a passmark of 10000+

 

The X5560 is a dead end upgrade wise.

 

The UHD630 iGPU in my i7-8770 is amazaing and has handled everything I have thrown at it including multiple 4K transcoding. It has a 65w TDP and passmark of 16000.

 

If you are dead set on enterprise hardware get a LGA2011 board with a E5-26xxv2 processor.

 

 

And for your storage box question, this is what you want

https://www.serverbuilds.net/16-bay-das 

 

That is some great info, exactly what I needed.  Not dead set on the Dell server, I just found a great deal on one and was trying to figure out if it was worth it or not.  Sounds like the answer is NO.

Thanks for the serverbuilds.net link, that answered some of my questions.  Looks like they are just taking cables directly from the drives into the server.  I was hoping to do it 'neater' but if the server is a waste, it's pointless anyway.  May be useful info down the road though.

[mastrmind11 717]

not sure why you think a NAS would cripple performance.  Multiple 4k streams would not saturate a gb LAN.  Your bottleneck would be the HDDs and direct vs lan would not solve that regardless.

[Jdiesel 1214]

I think it was about a month ago that ebr helped me figure out that the hardware encoding was the issue and I disabled it.  No problems since.

 

 

 

That is some great info, exactly what I needed.  Not dead set on the Dell server, I just found a great deal on one and was trying to figure out if it was worth it or not.  Sounds like the answer is NO.

Thanks for the serverbuilds.net link, that answered some of my questions.  Looks like they are just taking cables directly from the drives into the server.  I was hoping to do it 'neater' but if the server is a waste, it's pointless anyway.  May be useful info down the road though.

 

The ServerBuilds option is just the cheapest way to add a lot of extra drives. There are much cleaner options out there but are generally much more expensive and are often proprietary systems.

 

The R710 might not be a complete waste as long as you set reasonable expectations. I would upgrade the CPUs to L56xx series which are a newer generation and are low power models. Make sure the R710 supports 3.5" HDD otherwise you are going to be severely limited as SFF drives are expensive and low capacity. 

[Dizzy49 95]

not sure why you think a NAS would cripple performance.  Multiple 4k streams would not saturate a gb LAN.  Your bottleneck would be the HDDs and direct vs lan would not solve that regardless.

 

My thought was that it has to travel over the LAN to the server for transcoding, then back out on the LAN to the device.  So a single stream is on the LAN twice.

I have a Gigabit LAN, so I don't know why I'm so concerned about it   I think I'm just ADD about performance and efficiency.

[Dizzy49 95]

The ServerBuilds option is just the cheapest way to add a lot of extra drives. There are much cleaner options out there but are generally much more expensive and are often proprietary systems.

 

The R710 might not be a complete waste as long as you set reasonable expectations. I would upgrade the CPUs to L56xx series which are a newer generation and are low power models. Make sure the R710 supports 3.5" HDD otherwise you are going to be severely limited as SFF drives are expensive and low capacity. 

 

I don't like expensive OR proprietary.  My i5 is holding up nicely right now, so I'm just going to leave it be.  No sense in spending time money on a lateral move at best.  Maybe in another 2 years I'll circle back around and see what servers I can pick up on sale.

 

Thanks for all the info, this has been very educational

[MRobi 160]

 

 

If you are dead set on enterprise hardware get a LGA2011 board with a E5-26xxv2 processor.

 

I will second this advice. I'm running with dual e5-2690's and my server has handled everything I've thrown at it.

 

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