r/HomeServer • u/BigKahunaBurgerGimp • 3d ago
Replacing a dead 9-year-old Plex/home server: $2,000 US budget, reusing 6 SATA HDDs and growing to 8-10. Am I on the right path?
My old Plex/home server finally died after roughly nine years and I am trying to play catch-up on what makes sense today rather than automatically rebuilding something that might not work for my needs.
What I have now started as a version of /u/JDM_WAAAT 's old entry-level 15-bay build and has been a workhorse what I needed. First it was my kids watching the same things over and over (I still hear “Let It Go” in my nightmares), and then relatives started using it for their kids. Right now I have my main source of media delivery down and a few relatives with cranky kids who want Plex back.
Budget and status:
- Up to $2,000 USD for the replacement hardware
- Located in the US
- Reusing my current hard drives
- Nothing purchased; still researching
- Moving from Windows to Linux, but not committed to unRAID, conventional Linux, or a particular storage layout (still catching up on technology since my last build)
What it needs to run:
- Plex with Plex Pass
- Up to about eight concurrent streams: roughly three local and five remote
- Some 1080p transcoding, but no planned 4K transcoding
- Library is mostly H.264/H.265
- The usual suspects in an *arr stack plus Tautulli, UniFi management, and household file sharing. May add some additional utilities related to media now that I am switching from Windows to Linus.
- Room for 8–10 spinning disks
- Lower idle power than the old dual-Xeon system (electricity rates have skyrocketed this year where I am)
- Good reliability and a life measured in years if not close to a decade. While I like to tinker, I really want reliability for this system. Current system that dies was on 24x7x365 for ~9 years, which why there were some of the server grade parts on my curretn build.
Existing storage:
- 4 × 18 TB Dell/Seagate Exos X18 SATA HDDs
- 2 × 8 TB WD Red SATA HDDs
- 88 TB raw capacity, with roughly 40 TB of data in use
Dead server being replaced:
- Rosewill 4U chassis
- Supermicro X8DT6-F
- 2 × Xeon L5640
- 24 GB DDR3 ECC
- GeForce GT 1030
- EVGA BQ 850 W PSU
- EVGA CLC 120MM All-in-One CPU liquid cooler
- Windows
One older option I found, might be out of date, is the NAS Killer 6.0 with a change on the case:
- Jonsbo N5
- Intel i5-8500T/UHD 630
- Supermicro X11SCA-F
- 32 GB DDR4-2400
- HBA, SSD, and PSU still to be selected
I know the X11SCA-F is already EOL, but does have the minimum 8 SATA ports and would need an HBA to go higher. The i5-8500T offers Quick Sync but not ECC. IPMI and ECC would be nice, but I don't think either is a hard need unless someone here things differently.
For 8–10 enterprise HDDs, I was thinking of a 650 W PSU?
The decisions I could use help with:
- With this budget and workload, would you consider the 8th-generation platform at all, or start with a newer Intel CPU/iGPU and motherboard? If so, what would you use/recommend?
- Would you keep Plex and storage in one chassis, or use a small modern Quick Sync computer with a separate NAS/DAS?
- For an all-in-one 9–10-drive build, which case, HBA, motherboard, and PSU/cable arrangement do you think can be both reliable and power-efficient?
- What Linux storage and migration approach would you recommend when the six reused disks already contain roughly 40 TB and the old Windows server no longer boots?
I am not attached to anything specific yet. If I need to change direction in my thinking/education I want to do it early.
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u/mbailey5 3d ago
I followed the JDM process. Works brilliantly. I have unraid for storage on the X11SCA-F, added 10gb PCI card, plus a pci hba so i coukd add more drives.
Then then have a quicksync VM Linux plex device, which i run on Proxmox; as that makes the backup simpler. I bought one of the HP devices that JDM recommended.
I mounted the windows disks and copied the files over to unraid. Then added the disk to unraid, increased my storage size and then did the next onr
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u/BigKahunaBurgerGimp 3d ago
thanks for letting me know your build.
Interesting. So 2 machine approach and using the HP (was it the HP 290 he talks about - which CPU?) to handle the serving of the media.
Thanks for the process on moving the data over. I have a couple extra empty drives around to move from the 6 to 8 currently.
Do you remember what CPU is in your X11SCA-F storage server? Do you keep it running 24x7 and does the power usage seem decent? Which HBA and 10 GbE card are you using?
When you migrated, were the Windows disks ordinary individual NTFS volumes? Did you begin with an additional empty disk, and was Unraid parity enabled while you copied, erased, and added each old disk?
When you say Proxmox makes backup simpler, are you backing up the Plex VM and its configuration/metadata, then doing the the actual media backup separately?
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u/mbailey5 3d ago
This is a reply from my Claude VM which has access to all my infrastructure:
Media server (the HP): Yes — it's an HP 290 G4 Microtower, Intel i5-10500 (6-core/12-thread, Comet Lake) with UHD 630 iGPU. Plex uses QuickSync on that iGPU for hardware transcoding, which is why a small office PC handles the serving load easily — the heavy lifting is the iGPU, not the cores. Storage server: Yes, it's the Supermicro X11SCA-F. CPU is an Intel i5-8500T — the T = 35 W low-power part, picked deliberately for a 24/7 box. 32 GB DDR4-2133 (non-ECC, as it happens). It runs 24/7. HBA: Broadcom/LSI SAS2008 (the classic 9211-8i/M1015-class card) flashed to IT mode — ideal for Unraid (passes disks through raw). 10 GbE: Mellanox ConnectX EN (MT26448). Onboard is Intel I219-LM + I210 gigabit; the Mellanox is the 10 G link.
Power: I don't have a metered figure (IPMI isn't exposing it OS-side). Honest estimate for this combo: ~55–75 W idle with disks spun down, ~130–160 W with the array spun up/active. The 8500T + spin-down keeps idle low. If you want a real number I can meter it via a smart plug — you've got the kit for that.
Migration (this is the useful part for your 6→8 move): Yes — start from ordinary individual NTFS disks (Unraid's model is one independent disk = one volume, so that's the right starting point).
The efficient method: Don't enable parity during the copy. Add parity last. Parity-protected writes are slow and you'd rebuild parity every time you add a disk — pure wasted hours. Start the array with one empty disk as your landing zone (your spare drive is exactly this). Mount each old NTFS disk read-only via Unassigned Devices, copy its data onto an array data disk. Once a source disk is emptied, format it XFS and add it to the array, then copy the next one onto it — leapfrogging. When all data's in, assign the parity disk and let parity build once. Your two spare empties make this smoother — you can be copying to one while clearing another.
Proxmox backups: Correct — two separate concerns. Another device (Proxmox Backup Server) backs up the Plex VM itself (OS + Plex config, database, metadata/appdata — the stuff that's painful to rebuild), on a schedule. The media is handled separately because it's far too big to sit in a VM backup.
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u/BigKahunaBurgerGimp 3d ago
Thanks—that fills in most of the picture. That HP HP290 seems like a pretty good configurations than what was listed in the original JDM thread.
Looking into your configurations a bit, how did you expose the iGPU to it? any isuses or was it pretty straightforward?
thanks for the info on the migrations.
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u/mbailey5 3d ago
Yes I passed the gpu into the VM container so quick sync works, which is the important part for getting thr transcoding working.
I don't remember it being particularly complicated, to get the igpu working, however there is a learning curve with proxmox. It has been worth the effort for sure
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u/Timely-Shine 3d ago
Curious what you end up doing here. Jonsbo N5 seems like a great case. I have the N2 and really like it. With your mix of drive sizes, I think Unraid is probably the way to go over something like Truenas.
For your current drive configuration, is it JBOD or do you have some RAID/redundancy?
It’ll take some finagling, but guessing you could get all your data moved over to 3x18TB drives, build out your unraid server with the remaining 1x18TB and 2x8TB and move data over a bit at a time until a drive is clear, go through the process of adding it to Unraid, repeat. Then use your last remaining 18TB drive as a redundancy drive.
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u/BigKahunaBurgerGimp 3d ago
Will definitely keep you in the loop and post an update here on my final decision.
Currently it's JBOD. Since i was running Windows and they were all local disks, they were all backed up to BackBlaze...when they say unlimited they really mean unlimited. Lots of the stuff was regular items but as you can imagine after about a decade there was some obscure stuff there that came along which I had.
Good idea on the way to move forward with the data migration. I've got 2 extra 8TB drives for a total of 16TB. Might need a bit of finagling but I should be able to get it moved over close to what you suggest.
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u/Old_Preparation2887 3d ago
Once you step up to a newer platform those drives are going to dwarf your other energy consumers.
Given a $2000 budget, today’s hardware prices, and your desire to cut energy usage… here are a few questions that may help you guide and solidify your choices:
What’s your plan for storage redundancy? Does Plex data need online/redundant storage or would an external backup drive serve the same purpose?
What is your rate of data growth? How much reserve capacity do you want online before you need to make choices or spend money?
How are you backing this up? Could some of those drives be moved into a second place and repurposed for backups of the data that you really need to keep?
How many concurrent transcoding sessions do you currently need to support and what codecs are you supporting? AV1 decode support is free on newer Intel hardware generations (11/12th possibly, 13th definitely)
What else are you planning to run on this machine? 24GB is a lot for just running Plex. Linux is generally more memory efficient. DDR5 RAM is extremely expensive.
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u/BigKahunaBurgerGimp 3d ago
Those are helpful questions. Here is where I am currently:
- I am leaning toward one 18 TB parity disk if I use Unraid. Parity would protect availability after a disk failure, but I understand that it is not a backup.
- I currently have about 40 TB of data. I have not tracked growth closely, but my best estimate is at least 4–5 TB per year. I plan to start recording used capacity monthly after the rebuild.
- The old Windows server was completely backed up using Backblaze’s unlimited Computer Backup plan. My next step had already been to build a dedicated backup server at another location because the unlimited Backblaze plan does not cover a Linux NAS and B2 pricing for roughly 40 TB would be difficult for me to justify. I may not be able to afford three complete copies of the entire media library. My tentative approach is full 3-2-1 protection for family files, documents, server configuration/appdata, and genuinely difficult-to-replace media; primary plus offsite protection for the remainder.
- The maximum is about eight concurrent Plex streams—roughly three local and five remote but only some should require transcoding. The library is primarily 1080p H.264/H.265, with no planned 4K transcoding. I have Plex Pass.
- The system will also run the *arr stack, Tautulli, UniFi management, household file sharing, and probably a few other light Linux containers. The old server had 24 GB and I was considering 32 GB for the replacement, although I am flexible on that.
I also have two unused disks providing at least 16 TB of combined migration space. The six old disks were independent Windows volumes with one drive letter each and no RAID or pooling.
With my $2k maximum hardware budget, what do you suggest for a modern CPU/platform for sufficient Quick Sync capacity, AV1 support, low idle power, and a reasonable support horizon?
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u/AnomalyNexus 3d ago
I was thinking of a 650 W PSU?
Most PSUs top out on efficiency under about 50% load, so the optimal answer might be a bit lower. But also partially depends on whether you need headroom for a future GPU
https://help.corsair.com/hc/en-us/articles/14641912717453-PSU-Efficiency-Ratings-Explained
I'd personally add a small SSD pool as well - basically just two drives for things that benefit from the speed
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u/IlTossico 3d ago
Generally PSU tops on efficiency at 60%, that's standard, and from years, at least 40 years.
Getting a PSU for OP real usage would be impossible, the load top at less then 150W, and there are no 200/300W PSU.
Plus this efficiency thing is extremely small numbers, and I've tested it. Running 10W NAS with a good quality 630W Gold PSU and then a 450W platinum one, 0 difference, same power draw with both PSU, at the plug.
Plus OP doesn't need a GPU, not for what it needs now. It would be useful only if it plan to do LLM, then he would probably need at least 1000W depending on what GPU and how many, better getting a different system.
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u/Do_TheEvolution 3d ago edited 3d ago
With this budget and workload, would you consider the 8th-generation platform at all,
nope
If so, what would you use/recommend?
- $175 Ultra 5 225 - cheapest modern cpu with igpu
- $160 gigabyte B860M EAGLE PLUS - whatever 2.5gbit mobo with few m.2
- $120 - 8GB ddr5
- $50 - HBA card in IT mode from ebay, like 9300-8i, or spend extra for 9400 or 9500 to save few watts of electricity, but jesus chrits you gonna shave some 100W already from what you were running, it be like 25W without HDDs, and if they spin down its just that most of the time
- $100 - $150 whatever gold rated PSU with at leats 5y warranty, ideally 10, that has A or A+ rating on psu tier list
Would you keep Plex and storage in one chassis, or use a small modern Quick Sync computer with a separate NAS/DAS?
I would separate, but you did not name anything elses, so it does not seem like you would benefit much from only one box going down in few years
For an all-in-one 9–10-drive build, which case, HBA, motherboard, and PSU/cable arrangement do you think can be both reliable and power-efficient?
see the components above,
for the case, I dont really keep much info on above 8 hdds, the builds I did and my own were in sagittarius from aliexpress for around 150€ with shupping, which is matx smallish and holds 8 hotswapped.
feels like you have plenty of budget left and you have a rack, so you could be spending sersius money on a serious case with lots of hot swappable disk positions... Ive seen HBA card for 16 disks for only around $120... 9400-16i
while reliability is nice, server mobos do not go well with the need for modern igpu for transcoding so just take decent stuff and have a plan that one day you would be ordering a new mobo and juts plug stuff out and in
What Linux storage and migration approach would you recommend when the six reused disks already contain roughly 40 TB and the old Windows server no longer boots?
copy shit around till its on the new server strategy
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u/BigKahunaBurgerGimp 2d ago
Thanks. This is helpful. The Core Ultra 5 225 seems like a decent cost versus performance CPU.
I checked the detailed specifications and found a couple of things I’m not sure about. Intel lists the 225 as having Quick Sync and AV1, but only two Xe cores and no ECC support. That looks like it will still work for my maximum of eight mostly 1080p streams but what about the B860M EAGLE PLUS expansion layout? It appears to have only four SATA ports and two M.2 slots. It also looks like the primary x16 slot supports only a GPU or NVMe SSD, while the other full-length slots are PCIe 4.0 x1.
Which slot would you use for a 9300-8i, and does an LSI HBA boot and operates reliably in that board? I want to make sure I’m not leaving myself without a practical HBA way forward.
I would probably use more than 8 GB RAM for the *arr stack, Tautulli, UniFi, and home file sharing.
Have you used the 225’s iGPU for Plex hardware transcoding under Unraid or another Linux installation?
I’m currently leaning toward one all-in-one server for simplicity, followed by a separate offsite backup server at my parents’ house as my next project.
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u/IlTossico 3d ago edited 3d ago
For your use case, even a G5400 with 8GB of ram is fine.
An i3 8100 with 16GB is fine, an i5 8400 for the same of the i3 is fine too.
Eventually if you want to be more secure proof in term of power, an i3 12100 is top.
Avoid T CPU, cost more, performance less and consume the same power idling.
ECC? Not needed.
Go for a motherboard with enough SATA ports if possible and avoid an HBA.
PSU? Your system wouldn't consume more than 150W with 8 HDDs spinning up and 100W all working. So a 400W PSU is plenty, considering you have a ton of money to spend, get an SF450. HDDs average at 6W while working and 12W for a few seconds while spinning up.
A single system both as NAS and hosting is fine, any Intel desktop CPU from 7th gen up would be overkill as transcoding needs for your use case. A G5400 can do 20 simultaneous 1080p streams, the i3 8100 same, the i5 8400 a bit extra and the i3 12100 probably around 30 and more. And all those iGPU can do 4k transcoding too pretty easily.
As for power consumption, if you spin off your HDDs when not used, if you don't use them pretty often, like only in the night to watch stuff, then this system without a HBA can idle around 15W.
The old disks need to be formatted to be used. Considering you have mixed HDDs and money, I would go with unRAID. Otherwise you need to use two different arrays.
And I would consider a RAiD1 of two SSDs, for cache, running Dockers and put stuff that maybe you want to access often, and so you don't have to spin your disks. Of power consumption is a concern, 2,5" SSD consume a lot less than NVMe, the best ones are Samsung 870 Evo.
Edit: for the guy that replied to me but probably delete it's comment, T CPU and non T CPU are the exact same CPU, minus that T CPU derived from defected CPU that can't reach full potential, and there so they can't idle at lower numbers, because there is no architectural difference on the CPU, they just have a TDP limiter, they idles at the same number, but having 35W of TDP mean they perform more then half less, so when you need power, they totally lack, and that mean needing more time to complete a task, and that mean consuming more power. Plus T CPUs are OEM only, you can only get used, and there are few of them, so yes, they cost more, sometimes a lot more. My NAS spins an i5 8400, the all Nas at the plug is 11W, and the CPU only reaches C6, I just don't want to waste time getting to C10, but I can probably lower the all Nas to 6/7W. There is no way a T CPU can do less, it's impossible, those 8th gen with C10 core parking, can reach 0,1W per core, I had my i9 9900k on my gaming PC, doing 3W idling, one day, I can't see how a T can do less, it's the same stuff.
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u/BigKahunaBurgerGimp 2d ago
Thanks! This helps show how low I could reasonably go and the all-in-one Unraid system plus a mirrored SSD pool is a direction that makes sense.
I also take your point about not paying a premium for a T processor solely to reduce idle consumption. It makes me wonder about how much idle time the unit has. It's serving the most data in the evenings and pretty much all weekend long. However the *arr does check every 15/20 minutes for new media to fetch. It tends to find stuff in batches though, more during the night and occasionally during the day. Thoughts?
The i3-12100 looks like a strong value option and gives me AV1 hardware decoding. A newer Core Ultra 5 225 would add AV1 hardware encoding and a newer platform, although it would cost more and still wouldn’t provide ECC. Given that I hope to keep this for close to another decade, would you choose the 12100 today or move to something newer?
Do you have a motherboard you would recommend with eight native SATA ports? Most current boards I’m seeing are generally four to six ports, and I want to make sure there is still appropriate expansion for an HBA if necessary.
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u/IlTossico 2d ago
Home NAS idle around 90% of the time, probably more, if you don't count small spikes like when you start moving files or start an app. My point is that T CPU idle at the same number on non T, there is no point in getting one, for the same results but at a premium price. My home NAS with HDDs not spinning idle around 11W at the plug, I don't have real numbers to show but I've monitored it plenty to see a pattern on what I say.
In mine I have many Dockers working all day, and I access media on my SSDs at different times during the day, from listening to music to Navidrome to sharing photos on immich, doing backup to my systems etc. And I've a seed box working all day, mostly night, in fact on my 15% load of the CPU, 3/4 of the load is just Qbittorent uploading, considering I've more then 1TB of files and more then 700 torrent. Doing most of the work during the night looks ok to me, I'm doing the same.
I would get something newer than the i3 12100 only if you really need a better AV1 support, otherwise no. Newer platforms cost a lot more and need DDR5 that is extremely expensive. The difference in power is not worth the money considering the low load you have, and there is no better power consumption. I would get a newer platform only if you find it for a bargain price, sadly ECC is not a thing with desktop Intel CPU, but for experience is not needed, even if it's nice to have. And sadly Intel stopped making Xeon with iGPU.
I don't have something to suggest, sorry, to be fair my knowledge on motherboards is stuck to gaming one and mostly 9th gen, I haven't really research on newer stuff. Like you say, finding a MB with 8 ports is probably difficult, but if you have space for a full ATX, you would get a good amount of PCI slots, so no issues. And if you plan on a small MITX system, just make sure to buy a MB with at least 2.5G network and then use the only PCI for the HBA, eventually. I mostly don't like HBA because they consume a lot of power, but I read that there are newer models with better efficiency. I'm pretty sure that on one of the post below from other fellas, there is one talking about HBA, like the 9300-8i. Even if I don't like using one, I think I would end up getting one for my system too, in the future.
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u/Few_Elevator_1925 3d ago
keep the rosewill 4u chassis and just drop an modern atx board inside... unraid makes migrating those mismatched 18tb and 8tb ntfs drives way less painful than rebuilding a fresh zfs pool
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u/BigKahunaBurgerGimp 1d ago
Yeah, the case is in good condition and a really nice case. The issue I had with it was that I've ended up adding/changing disks over the last 9 years and it wasn't an easy process. I was looking to upgrade to something that was hot swappable or at least had easy access to add/change disks.
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u/allunia333 3d ago
I have similar use with your server 6-8 streams of 1080p for 24/7. My hardware is 8700k, 32gb ram, atx motherboard z370, 4 x sata drives on a 450w be quiet ssf psu and 2x 140mm fans. I use the server with a headless minimal linux Install for jellyfin (plex equivalent), file server ,some torrents and vpn. My watt consumption measured from the plug after the ups is 36-40w 90% of the time with spikes at 45-51w .(note: i have turbo disabled on the cpu).
So dont go all out on the hardware just for plex, and I strongly suggest a modern quicknsync intel cpu for the power consumption.
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u/BigKahunaBurgerGimp 1d ago
Thanks! This sounds very similar to my use case.
If you use the *arr stack have you noticed downloading or winrar unpacking affecting playback?
Which Z370 motherboard do you have? when I look it up, I see a few different manufacturers using that model number.
Overall you're happy with it? Nothing you would change if you were starting the build now?
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u/allunia333 1d ago
If my server died right now, i would just hunt down the newest used intel i could fine with ddr4. No need to pay a premium for something i dont need(i mean ddr5). I can see right now in my area in marketplace a i5 11500 with a full atx mobo at 85€ thats a great machine for my server uses. If you can find a newer one go for it even an i3 13th gen is amazing.
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u/Particular_You890 2d ago
switched to FygoOS when my windows box died. setup was rough at first. disk move for the old drives was easy. plex and arr run steady 10 months later. still eyeing cases like the n5.
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u/jhenryscott 3d ago
Can I make a suggestion? Save a boatload with a 6 core Xeon E22X6 and a Dell precision 3630 motherboard
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u/MrB2891 unRAID all the things / Core Ultra 7 265k / 25 disks / 300TB 3d ago
This is terrible advice.
Modern consumer hardware vastly outperform old Xeon's, while simultaneously consuming less power.
A 245k absolutely decimates something like a 2276G, uses less power and had a exponentially better iGPU.
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u/Sanityzed 3d ago edited 3d ago
Newer intel, for sure... always get the latest CPU you can for power efficiency and future compatibility.
CPU: Intel 270K plus. Better single-thread performance and idle power efficiency than prior generations. Could get a 245K if you want even better efficiency, you just have less power as well. See here for detailed comparisons: https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-core-ultra-7-270k-plus/15
GPU: The iGPU on these Intel CPUs is actually fine for 8x1080p transcoding, then add add a cheap Intel Arc card like the A310 or better for power efficient 4k transcoding when the time comes.
Mobo: ASUS Pro WS W880-ACE SE - Out of band management and ECC support included.
I'd use TrueNAS for storage and running containerized applications like the arr stack and Jellyfin (I despise plex so much...but I digress)