Hello everyone,
I am looking for a new home server to replace my existing hp proliant microserver gen8.
Requirements:
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Reduce power consumption. It currently runs at around 60 watts at idle, I would like to reduce that.
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Enough performance for various docker containers
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Enough power for 4k HDR video transcoding for a jellyfin container, whether graphics unit in the CPU or an additional graphics card doesn’t matter
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At least 4 SATA ports and space for 2 m.2 SSDs
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16GB of RAM is a minimum
It doesn’t have to be a ready-made solution, I have no problem putting everything together myself.
Edit: Budget is ~500€
I don’t know for certain, but I think you’ll ultimately have to decide between either low power consumption or 4k transcoding. I doubt you’ll be able to achieve both.
I get both with one of these
Super low wattage at idle but it transcodes like a beast using QSV
That would be conceivable, but I would like to pack my existing HDDs in a case if possible
Yeah, in my case I host my hard drives on a cheap ARM Synology NAS and an external drive plugged into an M1 Mac Mini running Asahi. Just have an external SSD plugged into the Jellyfin server as a cache/transcodes drive
Wow, that’s pretty slick. Thanks, you may have just solved one of my project plans.
At that price/performance, it would supplant 4 Raspberry Pis I was planning on using for a variety of tasks.
I’ve been lazily running a gaming desktop as a “server” for far too long. Trying to reduce power consumption now.
It’s pretty sweet. I went the other way, starting on a Pi 4, moved up to a cheap ($110) Celeron N3350 device, then finally this little beast when I started getting HDR content and needing to transcode with tonemapping. 4 times the RAM, double the cores and it’s just way faster in general.
It’d also be perfect for light desktop use IMO
And you’re able to transcode 4k with that? 1080p with hardware offload isn’t surprising, but 4k really requires some extra horsepower.
EDIT: Maybe I’m wrong, seems like quicksync even on a Celeron has gotten pretty good.
Yep, 4k to 4k tonemapping, even, which was one of the use-cases my previous Celeron N3350 server couldn’t handle (it got ~14 fps)
Wow, that’s pretty slick. Thanks, you may have just solved one of my project plans.
At that price/performance, it would supplant 4 Raspberry Pis I was planning on using for a variety of tasks.
I’ve been lazily running a gaming desktop as a “server” for far too long. Trying to reduce power consumption now.
Is 60W a lot? I think a system with a few mechanical hard drives and fans will be at least half of that regardless of the processor used. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I pay around 34 €cents/kWh. That’s around €12 per month in electricity costs. Doesn’t sound like much, but if I could use less, I that would be nice
Do you mind including your budget in the OP? That would help others do their own calculations on electricity savings vs cost of hardware over time.
I’ve been monitoring this page https://gist.github.com/ironicbadger/5da9b321acbe6b6b53070437023b844d from https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ceUIUyZwchY
It’s showing some really interesting results for various processors and their efficiency while transcoding.
Thanks, I’ll study the list more closely. Budget now is in the op
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters LTT Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel NAS Network-Attached Storage PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express PSU Power Supply Unit RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage SBC Single-Board Computer SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
7 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.
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Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It was Wolfgang’s channel that gave me the idea to rethink my current server.
I think your best bet will be an SFF/USFF/1L box used on eBay. The tiny/1L ones mostly have energy-efficient CPUs (like intel T-suffix SKUs), but they also don’t support the SATA connections you specified (unless you go for an external USBC/TB3 enclosure, which many people do)
I’ve had similar requirements for a few years. Finally settled on 8 bay synology with a dell micro optiplex. I have a 10gb card in the synology and actually use a usb to 2.5gbE in the dell with zero stability issues. Some synology products can transcode a stream or two of 4k with quick sync but not many of the 8 bay ones. I have a 9th gen i5 with 32gb of ram that handles all my transcoding needs. Done 2x 4k transcodes with no issues while also streaming other 1080p for additional users.
Sounds nice. What kind of optiplex exactly?
If you drop the SATA req and go for USB instead, you could use any small form factor machine like the ThinkCentre 715q or the likes. I have one of those with a Ryzen 2400 with 4x 8TB external disks. I’ve clocked the whole thing pulling ~50W at full tilt.
sounds like you might wanna underclock stuff, LTT made a video about a cost competitive gaming pc which is more effficient than an equivalent gaming console. or get something like a rockchip-based Raspberry pi clone with pci-e slots
Maybe check some options with Intel N300/305. To be honest I don’t know how good Intel Quicksync is, so you might need an external GPU as well. You also need a power efficient DC PSU at low wattage.
It is also important what components you put inside, like low-end SSDs have the lowest power consumption and maybe are your best bet. I would also recommend you buying a 5400rpm power efficient HDD if you need it. Disabling all unnecessary ports in the bios can also help lower your power consumption and tweaking the power limits of the C-states, and enabling C10.
My suggestion is first try to play a bit with your current server BIOS settings and the power optimization in Linux. If your power consumption at full load is like 90-100, maybe consider swapping your current PSU with a DC one, as they have superior power efficiency and after each change evaluate the performance and the power consumption both on idle and on 100%.
Thanks for pointing out the ports, I’ll see which ones can be deactivated. I’ve been reading up on c states lately.I just suspect that my configuration leaves little room for maneuver.The microserver is currently running proxmox with openmediavault and a
vialpihole on lxc. I would swap thevialpihole for a raspberry and only use OMV.Keep in mind that RPI is good for containers, but not for virtualisation, so if you want to run some VMs or have proper expandability I would advise you against RPI.
Plus disabling the ports won’t make a big difference I presume, a couple of Watts at best.
I recently bought an N100 powered firewall appliance and the idle consumption is around 13 Watts, with two SSDs and 32Gb of RAM, a bunch of USB and video ports and 4x2.5Gbps ports all switched on. People are even reporting that this can be pushed down to 7-8W, comparable to what you would get with RPI.
The i3-N305 has 8 physical cores and TDP of 15Watts, which can easily be reduced to around 9-10.
Sorry, there was a typo. OMV I would also run the new server and pihole on a raspberry. OMV without the detour via proxmox
Your requirements are confusing.
I get the sata ports, but why the 2 m.2 SSD’s?
Why the 16 GB ram minimum? My server has multiple containers/services and barely uses 3 gb ram.
I say this because this is the crux of the issue:
- Enough performance for various docker containers
What you do here effects everything else right?
So a little clarification about what services might help make design a little easier.
Jellyfin alone needs at least 8 GB of RAM, and since I would like to have room for improvement, 16 GB is the minimum for me.I have two unused m.2ssds lying around here that I would like to install. Of course this would also be possible via a PCI board, but I would like to keep that free if possible.
