Dell PowerEdge Servers

[FSmoker 1]

Hi everyone, I’ve been running Emby successfully for a while now I’m looking to upgrade my hardware so that I can support more users. I’d like to have the capacity to do up to 25 users for example, I was wondering if a Dell Poweredge server might be able to help me achieve this, but I would also like this device to be able to transcode efficiently and I would like to be able to use handbrake to compress some media files to H264 or H265 efficiently if needed. If anyone can provide a recommendation or two I’d highly appreciate it.

[marriedman 85]

You're going to have to be a little more specific, the PowerEdge servers date back to 2007. If you have an older one that you are trying to repurpose, that makes sense. But know that they are power hungry and not really efficient. A consumer grade Intel 8th gen or better processor would be my recommended route. I say the 8th gen even though the 6th gen is when they introduced Quicksync, but it had growing pains that were resolved by the 8th gen.

If you haven't been there yet, I heartily recommend checking out serverbuilds.net - excellent resource and an incredibly knowledgeable community.

[FSmoker 1]

I will check that out, my plan was to actually purchase a new/current power edge straight from dell to ensure I had up to date components and minimal issues.

[Q-Droid 989]

Be aware going in that business and enterprise grade server hardware might not support the iGPU and often make it unusable.  Quite a few people have posted here after getting a Dell or HP server but couldn't access the graphics. The only thing detected was the separate on board graphics used for the management console.

So make sure you check before pulling the trigger. Server grade hardware tends to be overkill for home use with the extra power, heat and noise.

 

 

[marriedman 85]

@FSmoker- here is an excerpt from my thread over at Serverbuilds:

Quote

Price Breakdown:
Motherboard - $56.00 USD
ASROCK H310CM-HDV LGA 1151 Micro ATX

Case - $120.00
Fractal Design Node 304 Mini-ITX

• PSU - $0.00 - Cooler Master V850 SFX
• Fans (x2) - $0.00 - Noctua NF-A9 14 92mm
• CPU Cooler - $0.00 - ID-COOLING SE-914-XT
• Metric shit ton of cables - $0.00

CPU - $63.12
Intel Core i5-8500T

RAM - $54.40
2 x Samsung M393A2K43BB1-CTD 16GB DDR4 2666MHz ECC

SSD - $21.50
PNY CS1030 250GB M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 Internal Solid State Drive

The case is obviously the best find of the lot since it came with so much already; but I am still happy with the price of everything else. I just priced a Synology DS920+ at around $700 without storage! Just like JDM_WAAT said - This build should absolutely steamroll any off the shelf NAS.

That's my current server I built for $315 and I learned a lot along the way. That machine right now is streaming 1080p TV show to my daughter while I am re-encoding old AVI's to MKV. My daughter has absolutely no clue that anything is going on. No hiccups, sound clipping, nor halting playback. A properly configured Emby and a modest piece of hardware will absolutely kick ass.

[rbjtech 5284]

On any modern Intel CPU/GPU system, it will likely be the storage that bottlenecks the system way before the cpu.

25 users also needs clarity - 25 users in total, with lets say up to 5 simultaneous users streaming a 4Mbit 720p stream with no transcoding is VERY different from 25 simultaneous 4K HDR Remux to SDR/Tonemapped 1080p transcodes for example ..

[RanmaCanada 494]

You'd be crazy to buy a poweredge for Emby. As stated, any modern system is more than enough. If anything, the transcoding capabilities of quicksync are bandwidth limited. Jason at BytemyBits on youtube did a video a few years ago with Plex doing 4k transcodes. He got to 19 before it started to buffer, while using an NVME drive as storage.

I currently run my system from a 1235-u laptop and I've had up to 15 people at a time transcoding with no one knowing. The intensive heat has more people staying inside, and my using a laptop produces very little heat in itself so I don't need extra AC. 

Quicksync is a godsend.

[RanmaCanada 494]

On 09/07/2024 at 17:40, marriedman said:

You're going to have to be a little more specific, the PowerEdge servers date back to 2007. If you have an older one that you are trying to repurpose, that makes sense. But know that they are power hungry and not really efficient. A consumer grade Intel 8th gen or better processor would be my recommended route. I say the 8th gen even though the 6th gen is when they introduced Quicksync, but it had growing pains that were resolved by the 8th gen.

If you haven't been there yet, I heartily recommend checking out serverbuilds.net - excellent resource and an incredibly knowledgeable community.

Quicksync was introduced way back in Sandybridge (2nd Generation), in 2011.

[marriedman 85]

On 7/13/2024 at 12:33 AM, RanmaCanada said:

Quicksync was introduced way back in Sandybridge (2nd Generation), in 2011.

Woah....  I was waaay off! Thanks for the correction. However, I will stand by my recommendation because the 6th & 7th gen quicksync is utter shite.

[RanmaCanada 494]

4 hours ago, marriedman said:

Woah....  I was waaay off! Thanks for the correction. However, I will stand by my recommendation because the 6th & 7th gen quicksync is utter shite.

6th & 7th are better than previous, but they do lack HEVC. 8th gen is a great place to start I agree, but a drop in A310 or A380 would be far easier. SFF HP Prodesks with 8th gen processors are about $100 USD on eBay these days and they make a great encode server.

[marriedman 85]

On 7/22/2024 at 11:18 PM, RanmaCanada said:

6th & 7th are better than previous, but they do lack HEVC. 

That must be what stuck in my head. I remember shopping ebay & marketplace when building my servers and I just would not go below the 8th. It was from the recommendations I saw on serverbuilds. 

[RanmaCanada 494]

5 hours ago, marriedman said:

That must be what stuck in my head. I remember shopping ebay & marketplace when building my servers and I just would not go below the 8th. It was from the recommendations I saw on serverbuilds. 

Yes such a great resource for "beginners".