I have an old tower PC with 4 hard drives and an SSD which acts as a "fileserver" running Windows 7.  I experimented with SnapRAID briefly, but have been trying out Unraid for the last 2 months.  I definitely want to continue with Unraid so I've bought the Pro licence and the 4 drives are now all part of the array (the SSD still has Windows on it, so I can dual boot).

 

The next stage of my plan was to build a new system (probably Lian-Li Q25B based) for unraid and move the drives across, freeing up my Windows system for the occasional use I had before and enabling unraid to run 24x7.

 

However, budget's a bit tight now so am looking at the possibility of sticking with the current setup, but with upgrades to support:

 

- Plex media server (single 1080p stream is fine).

- A VM running Windows 7, hosted on unraid.  I'd like to be able to use the Windows install running on this VM with my existing monitors, keyboard mouse, if that makes sense and is even possible?? (haven't played with VMs for a while) rather than having to remote desktop from another machine (which I don't have!).  Probably wouldn't have the VM running all the time...

 

The current hardware setup is:

 

- Antec Sonata Piano black case.  Ok its old, but I can use pretty much any motherboard/PSU setup I like and it has 3 x 5 1/4 inch bays so I would plan to buy a hot swap cage for this space (that still leaves 4 standard 3.5 internal bays).

- Asus P5QL-EM mobo (socket LGA-775, 6 SATA ports).

- Pentium E5200 (I could upgrade this to a 2nd hand Core2 Duo E8500 very cheaply via ebay - this should cope with the Plex requirement?)

- Elan Vital Greenerger SSM PSU 400W.  Great when I bought it, that was almost 9 years ago!  Very quiet but its not dual rail... probably could get more efficient PSU these days?

- 4GB - would upgrade to 8GB or maybe even 16GB

 

I do want to reduce power consumption (~50W idle currently) since its on 24x7 now, but also realise that's probably unrealistic without swapping out at least the PSU, mobo and CPU (only thing missing then is a new case anyway!).

 

So any thoughts?

 

 

Hey, I liked my Sonata!  Retired it a while back, though.

 

Your motherboard is a bit newer than mine, but I can vouch for the fact that you should be able to upgrade the CPU (I went to a Q9550 for $75).  Per Asus, though, you're capped at 8GB RAM.

 

~50w idle is darn good power usage.

 

I'm struggling a little to get unRAID 6 running on my setup - are you running 5 or 6?

However, budget's a bit tight ......

 

 

Providing a number to this would go a long way in other members helping you out. I did something similar but without the need for Plex (just simply downsizing my setup) and it did not cost much at all.

 

Check out my build thread.

I'm struggling a little to get unRAID 6 running on my setup - are you running 5 or 6?

 

I'm running 5 at the moment.  I guess I'll want to upgrade to 6 in the near future though.

 

Providing a number to this would go a long way in other members helping you out. I did something similar but without the need for Plex (just simply downsizing my setup) and it did not cost much at all.

 

Well there isn't a fixed amount of spare cash to spend on this.  If I come to the conclusion to build a new system, I won't scrimp on anything, it will just be a slower process, buying the bits as I can afford them.  I'd still be looking to spend as little as possible to get the job done though.

 

It's basically comparing the cost of getting a new CPU & RAM vs the cost of a new mITX board (so I can move it to a smaller case later), CPU and RAM to meet the requirements set out.  If there isn't that much in it I might as well replace the motherboard, but if the simple upgrade is much cheaper and won't disadvantage me for the next couple of years I'll stick with that idea.

 

I know I can work out these costs myself, I can use your thread as a basic idea of the new build cost (though I am in the UK so this also has an impact), so I've got a bit of research to do.

 

Does anyone know the answer to the Windows VM question above?  I do need to use this computer as an ordinary Windows machine occasionally (not for games, but simple photo editing at least).  If its going to be impossible to do this all on one system, then I know I have to build a new one specifically for unraid.

E8500 would probably suffice as long as you don't want to transcode multiple 1080p streams. 

 

See here :-

 

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201774043-What-kind-of-CPU-do-I-need-for-my-Server-computer-

 

2000+ PassMark for a single 1080p 10Mbps stream,  E8500 scores 2315.

FWIW, you don't need more horsepower unless Plex is doing transcoding.  If Plex is simply direct playing (direct streaming) your files to your end devices it will run just fine with the CPU you currently have.  If OTOH you are looking to do on-the-fly transcoding of 720p and/or 1080i/p source files to lower resolutions/bit rates for playback on devices such as smartphones and tablets, then yes you will need more oomph.  Basically it all comes down to what resolution are your source files, and what do you intend to view them on.

 

If you are doing transcoding, as Chris stated, the E8500 should be sufficient for a single 1080p transcode.  Multiple simultaneous transcodes would likely require a faster CPU.

Mostly will be streaming to a Chromecast which as I understand it requires transcoding for almost everything.

 

Looking at a quad Q6600 now as its only £27, better bang for buck ratio!