Plex / Home assistant home server

[Taff107]

I'm looking to build a Plex / Home assistant / home storage server for the cheapest amount possible. Ideally to keep power cost down, I would go down the 4gb Pi 4 route however there is a shortage as you may know and prices are pretty stupid for them. I have loads of old components lying about so was thinking of knocking up a Xeon / i3 4 gb ish server with a couple of 2 tb drives running Ubuntu OS.
In power usage, how expensive / demanding would one of these be to running constantly?

[ARHarh]

Taff107 said:

I'm looking to build a Plex / Home assistant / home storage server for the cheapest amount possible. Ideally to keep power cost down, I would go down the 4gb Pi 4 route however there is a shortage as you may know and prices are pretty stupid for them. I have loads of old components lying about so was thinking of knocking up a Xeon / i3 4 gb ish server with a couple of 2 tb drives running Ubuntu OS.
In power usage, how expensive / demanding would one of these be to running constantly?

Power usage is going to depend on the exact components but I would guess idle between 50 and 70w could be anything above that when using all the drives and cpu. I would build it and get a power monitoring smart plug to see what it does. And optimise power settings.

Alternatively look at thin clients such as HP T630 should have enough power for your needs and not be too power hungry.

[Alorotom]

Taff107 said:

I'm looking to build a Plex / Home assistant / home storage server for the cheapest amount possible. Ideally to keep power cost down, I would go down the 4gb Pi 4 route however there is a shortage as you may know and prices are pretty stupid for them. I have loads of old components lying about so was thinking of knocking up a Xeon / i3 4 gb ish server with a couple of 2 tb drives running Ubuntu OS.
In power usage, how expensive / demanding would one of these be to running constantly?

The biggest demand will be the conversion of any media and the framerate/quality desired which will in turn impact needs and power requirements.

[James_N]

Have a look at a Lenovo M93p - I got one refurbished off ebay for around £50

Tiny little things with more than enough power. I have one of these as a plex server connected to a 4gb portable external HDD.

All works a treat and sits behind a unit in our lounge, and is totally silent. You would never know its there.

[Nimby]

FWIW I found Plex clunky and the nags to purchase paid features annoying.

Jellyfin works so much better for me as I don't need external streams, and all features are free

[Monsterlime]

I was, until recently, using an HP 8200 Elite Ultra-slim desktop, I had even upgraded it from an i5 2500 to a i7 2600 (NOT K) I could (for around £40 - added cores). It is old now, but was running Plex etc fine. I have moved to a newer Intel NUC since I wanted USB3 etc for various reasons, but otherwise it was working flawlessly and silently.

I had also removed the CD drive and put in a second SSD, for temp/working storage before moving data to the NAS.

They can be had on ebay for very little. I do technically still have mine, but it has no storage in it and is just waiting for me to put it on ebay.

[eeLee]

also consider Mezzmo over Plex.

http://www.conceiva.com/products/mezzmo/default.as...