HellDiverUK

I agree there are some real benifits to using docker. I just don't want users to think that they have to use docker and that plugins are not an acceptable option. Plugins are not a prefect solution, but often they will work and do what users need. The lead developer says Docker is the thing to use. Why are you continuing to argue?!?

you should really use a cache drive, even if only for Plex. Plex performance will suck if running it's library files off the array. You don't NEED a SSD - even a decent 7200rpm drive for cache will be better. I've used an old 1TB WD RE4 before, and it worked great.

That's where you went wrong. You should be installing one of the Plex Docker images. Plugins are pretty much just for OS related stuff now, not really for "apps".

No recommendations, but try Scan or Overclockers. Both custom-build servers I think. But they will not be cheap.

I just got a pair of 8TB Archive drives. I'll get then stuffed in to my UnRAID box this evening hopefully.

You're doing something wrong, because all those Dockers you mentioned work perfectly for me and plenty others. Perhaps you should post your problems to the people who maintain the Dockers you're using?

You still don't need big hardware. I've run v6 on a Celeron G1610T with 2GB RAM, with 4 Dockers and it handled it just fine. Of course, I have to run everything severely overkill, so I run it on an i5 with 16GB RAM.

My Ivy Bridge i5-3570S throttles OK. Turbos OK too.

Atom 330 is a totally pathetic CPU, smbd is probably slaughtering it. I'm actually pretty surprised you're getting the speeds you are. You'd probably get more performance from a RaspberryPi 2.

Total lack of stock of the 8TB Archive in the UK at the moment. 3 suppliers listing them, all back ordered.

Xeon is still considered part of the Haswell chipset. You have a haswell. He has a V2, which is Ivy Bridge. It's the V3 that's Haswell. I've cancelled the order for the Haswell box for various reasons and I've decided to recycle my old Ivy Bridge i5 workstation (i5-3570S on an Asrock C216 WS) It's throttling OK.

I'm glad things are progressing jonp - I'm just about to rebuild my home server, and it's a toss-up between unRAID and OpenMediaVault. OMV was winning the flip due to a lack of updates in unRAID. I do like unRAID, it seems much happier to spin down it's drives compared to OMV, which is a massive bonus to me. How are the Haswell throttling issues progressing? The new box is a Haswell Xeon, and I'd like to see it idling at 800MHz as it should.

If you're streaming to 15-20 users using Plex, you'll need a HUGE CPU, especially if you're transcoding. Plex needs a single core with a Passmark of 2000 per transcoded 1080p stream to run properly.

If you'd read his post, you'd see he can get to the web interface just fine. OP, you need to set up a user (typically just use whatever user you're using on your Windows box), and then set up a share. Once you've done that you're laughing.

The US electrical system is a complete mess. It constantly amazes me how the supposed greatest country in the world has such a terrible electrical system.

I used a 320Gb WD Black 2.5" - it was pulled from a USFF HP machine. Worked fine.

Wireless is a terrible idea for a server. Use Powerline adapters if you can't run CAT5 cable. They're very much more reliable than wifi.

Folks, Would love to see SMB3 support via SAMBA 4. I see most of the COTS NAS units are moving to SMB3 (Synology & Asustor in beta, QNAP), and I really like the added performance thanks to reduced overhead, especially to wireless clients. Should be a pretty trivial upgrade?

I run a SSD for Docker and downloads, and use a 2.5" HDD for my cache, as it spends most of the day spun down anyway. Specs in my signature.

Intel's retail cooler is more than adequate, quiet and reliable.

Clock speed is the most important thing with Plex. I find my i3-4350 performs better with Plex than my E3-1225v3. The E3 is 3.2GHz with 3.4GHz turbo. The i3 is 3.6GHz.

SNAP is the only plugin I use, which I use to mount a XFS formatted SSD, which holds my Docker image and also my downloads and Plex library folders.

I thought all boards supported WOL? I've old Dell machines from 2006 that support it...

Plugins? No. Docker? Yes. Docker is where it's at now.

I doubt an i7 will make much difference, a decent i5 will be more than fast enough. In fact, I found the higher clock speed of my i3 more beneficial than the slower clocks of the Xeon E3 I had - dual core 3.6GHz with HT was better for running Plex than quad core 3.2GHz. Once the drives are spun down, I'd fully expect a modern Haswell build to idle around 25W. Certainly my i3 on the B85 board idles at 22W, though it only has a single i218 NIC and two fans and a 300W PSU. Even when I was running the Xeon E3-1225v3 on the Asus P9D board which had IPMI, dual NICs, etc, idle power consumption was still only 30-32W. With idle power consumption that low, you'd need to be very penny pinching to go to the effort of shutting it down.