Helios - HC2 - Or Microserver?

  • Also out of interest. I've noticed that no one has mentioned any microservers as a decent option?
    I have been scouring ebay for cheap 2nd hand options/refurbs and there are some decent prices out there.
    I feel like a 4/5 year old microserver might be a better option for the duel purpose of Plex (or Emby?) media server AND a NAS set up.

  • @Adoby I know that you are using HC2 for your setup, so here a question if you can help me with. I just installed OMV 4 on my new HC2. I plugged my CAT6 cable into the device and booted it. I see that the light on the Ethernet port of HC2 is ambar instead of green, that means network is working on 10/100mbits instead of 1000mbits. Is there any set-up that I'm missing?


    The router I'm using is new and 1000 mbits capable and the CAT 6 cable too.


    Thanks.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Also out of interest. I've noticed that no one has mentioned any microservers as a decent option?
    I have been scouring ebay for cheap 2nd hand options/refurbs and there are some decent prices out there.
    I feel like a 4/5 year old microserver might be a better option for the duel purpose of Plex (or Emby?) media server AND a NAS set up.

    This thread has some interesting suggestions for what you're asking.


    https://forum.openmediavault.o…h-4-SATA-ports-Recommend/


    Edit: Woops, I just noticed you've posted there.. :). Oh well, I'll leave it for posterity.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    @Adoby I know that you are using HC2 for your setup, so here a question if you can help me with. I just installed OMV 4 on my new HC2. I plugged my CAT6 cable into the device and booted it. I see that the light on the Ethernet port of HC2 is ambar instead of green, that means network is working on 10/100mbits instead of 1000mbits. Is there any set-up that I'm missing?


    The router I'm using is new and 1000 mbits capable and the CAT 6 cable too.


    Thanks.

    No. I never did anything to get GbE speeds. It just works. I have all my HC2s, except one, connected directly to a GbE switch. With really short cables. 25 or 50 cm.


    I would suspect the router. It may be 1000 mbits capable, but that could be sales speech for combined multi band wifi speeds + 100 mbps ethernet? Does it actually have GbE ports? Is it a switch or a hub?


    Try a different port on the router. Try different cables. Try disconnecting other equipment from the router.


    Or get a GbE switch.

  • @Adoby I know that you are using HC2 for your setup, so here a question if you can help me with. I just installed OMV 4 on my new HC2. I plugged my CAT6 cable into the device and booted it. I see that the light on the Ethernet port of HC2 is ambar instead of green, that means network is working on 10/100mbits instead of 1000mbits. Is there any set-up that I'm missing?


    The router I'm using is new and 1000 mbits capable and the CAT 6 cable too.


    Thanks.

    @calexm :You have 1Gbit :)
    from the manual:
    Ethernet RJ-45 jack
    The standard RJ45 Ethernet port for LAN connection supports 10/100/1000 Mbps speed. The green LED Flashes when there is 100 Mbps connectivity, and the yellow LED Flashes when there is 1000 Mbps connectivity.
    Cheers, T.

  • @calexm :You have 1Gbit :) from the manual:
    Ethernet RJ-45 jack
    The standard RJ45 Ethernet port for LAN connection supports 10/100/1000 Mbps speed. The green LED Flashes when there is 100 Mbps connectivity, and the yellow LED Flashes when there is 1000 Mbps connectivity.
    Cheers, T.

    Thanks.


    Yes you are right. After I posted this, I started to do some test. First I used the ethtool command to check the speed of my ethernet port and then Iperf3.


    Also, this time after booting OMV on the HC2 I connected through SSH and ran omv-firstaid to set the ethernet configurations. In my previous install on a Raspb Pi I didnt do this and didn't found the ethernet interface on the Web UI.

  • I mentioned Emby and transcoding before with this in mind: https://forum.armbian.com/topi…u4hc1hc2-armbian-stretch/

    @tkaiser Thank you for this tip. I followed the howto that you posted and works like a charm. I had emby in Docker when I had OMV in a Rpi. I just had it for 2 weeks. I tested playing a movie and the ffmepg was using 90-95% of CPU. Now that I have this other set-up on a Odroid HC2 the CPU is barely used when playing a movie. It's a huge difference.


    If someone else follows the instructions of the link above, do exactly the user says. If you get errors on the install of the *.deb's, run: sudo apt-get update --fix-missing. At some point, you'll have to modify the emby-server config file, make sure you back it up and edit the line suggested. Besides that, it runs smoothly.

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von tkaiser () aus folgendem Grund: Fix quoting

  • Now that I have this other set-up on a Odroid HC2 the CPU is barely used when playing a movie. It's a huge difference

    Well, that's the real benefit of all these little ARM things. They usually have all the video hardware to do transcoding :)


    Can you please elaborate on how this 'integrates' with OMV now? I would assume you're running Emby not inside a Docker but modified the base system?

  • Well, that's the real benefit of all these little ARM things. They usually have all the video hardware to do transcoding :)
    Can you please elaborate on how this 'integrates' with OMV now? I would assume you're running Emby not inside a Docker but modified the base system?

    No, I didn't modify the base system and it isn't a Docker either. It's OMV as I downloaded it and updated it. The Howto offers a link to download a tar.xz file with the customized ffmpeg .deb's and emby 3.5.3 (also .deb). The user that posted that guide states that this packages will work with an Armbian Stretch distro.


    First, you install the ffmpeg packages. I got dependency errors on this step but I was able to easily fix them with apt-get update --fix-missing.
    Then, you Install emby, set it as usual and select Hardware acceleration: Exynos V4L2.


    Emby works on port 8096 by default, so there wasn't any conflict with OMV Web UI and Emby Web UI at all.

  • Emby works on port 8096 by default, so there wasn't any conflict with OMV Web UI and Emby Web UI at all

    Thanks for clarifying. Might be worth a quick tutorial with some uploaded screenshots outlining how a cheap HC1 or HC2 can be used for NAS + Emby server with HW accelerated video transcoding.


    It's sad that most OMV users believe transcoding would need a huge Xeon box and 100W wasted for CPU cores being at 100% when a small ARM thingy can do the same at below 10W barely using the CPU cores at all.

  • Well, that's the real benefit of all these little ARM things. They usually have all the video hardware to do transcoding :)
    Can you please elaborate on how this 'integrates' with OMV now? I would assume you're running Emby not inside a Docker but modified the base system?

    No, I didn't modify the base system. It's OMV as I downloaded it and updated it. The Howto offers a link to download a tar.xz file with the customized ffmpeg .deb's and emby 3.5.3 (also .deb). The user that posted that guide states that this packages will work with an Armbian Stretch distro.


    First, you install the ffmpeg packages. I got dependency errors on this step but I was able to easily fix them with apt-get update --fix-missing.
    Then, you Install emby, set it as usual and select Hardware acceleration: Exynos V4L2.


    Emby works on port 8096 by default, so there wasn't any conflict with OMV Web UI and Emby Web UI at all.

    Thanks for clarifying. Might be worth a quick tutorial with some uploaded screenshots outlining how a cheap HC1 or HC2 can be used for NAS + Emby server with HW accelerated video transcoding.
    It's sad that most OMV users believe transcoding would need a huge Xeon box and 100W wasted for CPU cores being at 100% when a small ARM thingy can do the same at below 10W barely using the CPU cores at all.

    Maybe I could work on that. I could guide on How I did it even I followed TechnoDadLife videos, there were some stuff that I didn't see on those, like that we should connect to the NAS through SSH after install and immediately run omv-firstaid to configure Ethernet interface. Also a couple situations that I had with Sharedfolders permissions.


    I was almost 'breaking my head with the walls' to find a way to access my NAS remotely (I had some trouble with my privative ISP Modem/Router). Now, I'm using my router (GL.iNet GL-AR750S-Ext Gigabit) also as a VPN server. This way I have access to my NAS from my phone (with the FileExplorer app) being in my LAN or using DATA/another wifi. My need started because my wife needed to backup some photos/files from her phone and we just had a regular off-line External HD. Besides, now I can move all my backups to my OMV NAS :)

  • This is very interesting, I have been hovering over the BUY button on a HC2 for the last few days...this pretty much sounds like the right set up for my current situation, budget and use case.


    Can I ask why people favour Emby over Plex in these situations? Is it better for SBCs?

  • why people favour Emby over Plex in these situations?

    In this situation since it allows to use HW acceleration for video. But you need to keep in mind that the ARM SoC on the HC2 is somewhat old and as such doesn't support most recent codecs. But same situation on x86 as well. The QuickSync implementation of older Intel CPUs also only support older codecs.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    I use Emby because I think it is much nicer than Plex. That is a purely subjective value judgment. Also I suspect that more ffmpeg HW transcoding will be added to the official armhf docker image. I hope...


    If you install Emby and don't use docker, Emby will by default be placed in /var/lib/emby on your rootfs, along with metadata folders and configuration. That is very bad if your rootfs is on a SD card.


    You can shutdown emby and move /var/lib/emby to, for instance, /sharedfolders/somesharedfolder/emby. And create a symbolic link at /var/lib/emby that points at /sharedfolders/emby.


    You can also change where Emby store metadata in the settings, but it might still be nice to not have Emby on the SD card. Updates and logs and so on may cause unwanted wear on the SD card.


    I use mc (Midnight Commander) to move folders and create symbolic links.

  • If you install Emby and don't use docker, Emby will by default be placed in /var/lib/emby on your rootfs, along with metadata folders and configuration. That is very bad if your rootfs is on a SD card


    Just adding: If the disk on the HC1/HC2 should not spin down anyway, it's always an idea to partition the disk for one appropriately sized rootfs partition and another data partition and then use nand-sata-install to move the rootfs to the disk.

  • Well, that's the real benefit of all these little ARM things. They usually have all the video hardware to do transcoding :)
    Can you please elaborate on how this 'integrates' with OMV now? I would assume you're running Emby not inside a Docker but modified the base system?

    No, I didn't modify the base system. It's OMV as I downloaded it and updated it. The Howto offers a link to download a tar.xz file with the customized ffmpeg .deb's and emby 3.5.3 (also .deb). The user that posted that guide states that this packages will work with an Armbian Stretch distro.


    First, you install the ffmpeg packages. I got dependency errors on this step but I was able to easily fix them with apt-get update --fix-missing.
    Then, you Install emby, set it as usual and select Hardware acceleration: Exynos V4L2.


    Emby works on port 8096 by default, so there wasn't any conflict with OMV Web UI and Emby Web UI at all.

    Thanks for clarifying. Might be worth a quick tutorial with some uploaded screenshots outlining how a cheap HC1 or HC2 can be used for NAS + Emby server with HW accelerated video transcoding.
    It's sad that most OMV users believe transcoding would need a huge Xeon box and 100W wasted for CPU cores being at 100% when a small ARM thingy can do the same at below 10W barely using the CPU cores at all.

    Maybe I could work on that. I could guide on How I did it even I followed TechnoDadLife videos, there were some stuff that I didn't see on those, like that we should connect to the NAS through SSH after install and immediately run omv-firstaid to configure Ethernet interface. Also a couple situations that I had with Sharedfolders permissions.


    I was almost 'breaking my head with the walls' to find a way to access my NAS remotely (I had some trouble with my privative ISP Modem/Router). Now, I'm using my router (GL.iNet GL-AR750S-Ext Gigabit) also as a VPN server. This way I have access to my NAS from my phone (with the FileExplorer app) being in my LAN or using DATA/another wifi. My need started because my wife needed to backup some photos/files from her phone and we just had a regular off-line External HD.

    Just adding: If the disk on the HC1/HC2 should not spin down anyway, it's always an idea to partition the disk for one appropriately sized rootfs partition and another data partition and then use nand-sata-install to move the rootfs to the disk.

    @tkaiser, this is out of my knowledge, do you have topic thread(link) for that? Thanks.

  • @tkaiser, this is out of my knowledge, do you have topic thread(link) for that? Thanks.

    nand-sata-install simply works. It transfers the rootfs (your OS partition) to connected USB/SATA storage and after the following reboot only the bootloader remains on SD card but the whole OS lives on USB/SATA storage. But this doesn't make sense if the storage on a HC1 or HC2 is a HDD and the disk should spin down since with the rootfs on this HDD it will either constantly be woken up or you need to configure the HDD to never spin down.

  • nand-sata-install simply works. It transfers the rootfs (your OS partition) to connected USB/SATA storage and after the following reboot only the bootloader remains on SD card but the whole OS lives on USB/SATA storage. But this doesn't make sense if the storage on a HC1 or HC2 is a HDD and the disk should spin down since with the rootfs on this HDD it will either constantly be woken up or you need to configure the HDD to never spin down.

    Thank you. I'll take a look on this. Also the spin down concept is new for me.. This is my first NAS I build.. But I;m already reading a few things about it.

  • nand-sata-install simply works. It transfers the rootfs (your OS partition) to connected USB/SATA storage and after the following reboot only the bootloader remains on SD card but the whole OS lives on USB/SATA storage. But this doesn't make sense if the storage on a HC1 or HC2 is a HDD and the disk should spin down since with the rootfs on this HDD it will either constantly be woken up or you need to configure the HDD to never spin down.

    On an HC1/2 could you not have an SSD attached via USB with a SATA adapter and use this to house your OS?
    - So SD card has bootloader
    - SSD has OS
    - HDD has data


    That way the HDD could still spindown.

  • On an HC1/2 could you not have an SSD attached via USB with a SATA adapter and use this to house your OS?

    Sure. And it's not the worst choice since for the performance of the 'OS drive' not sequential transfer rates (MB/s) are important but random I/O (IOPS). And SSDs even behind an USB2 port outperform even the fastest HDDs on earth if it's about IOPS.

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