Reddit reviews Intel NUC BOXD54250WYKH1 Intel 4th Gen Intel Core i5-4250U with Intel HD Graphics 5000

Intel NUC for a Windows machine could be good.

Intel NUC BOXD54250WYKH1 Intel 4th Gen Intel Core i5-4250U with Intel HD Graphics 5000 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HZDLNWO/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_X39xub0C7XSHA

This is $339 on Amazon, and the other components don't add up to $750... I'm coming up with around $550 to buy everything new. You may want to adjust your price.

I use an Intel NUC as my media server/center. About 6" square, sleek, quiet, low power, and cool.

Edit: Nevermind my recommendations... You said on the cheap. Just get an old Windows PC.



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Raspberry is gonna be slow. Stay away.

Sounds like you are gonna need a Windows PC to do all that without a fuss.

I'd go for one of these but they still need memory, OS and a storage drive.

For HDs: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00HZDLNWO/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1420117092&sr=8-1&dpPl=1&dpID=41RYI9FbYkL&ref=plSrch&pi=AC_SX200_QL40

For SSD: http://www.amazon.com/Intel-D54250WYK1-i5-4250U-Processor-Power/dp/B00H3YT8CC


http://www.amazon.com/Asus-VM60-G106M-ASUS-Barebone-System/dp/B00LHYG44Y/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1420118442&sr=1-4&keywords=Vivopc

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkCentre-M73-Desktop-10AY001RUS/dp/B00FNQMNCE/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1420118442&sr=1-10&keywords=Vivopc

The models that end in "H" all support 2.5" drives:

i5 - http://www.amazon.com/Intel-BOXD54250WYKH1-Core-i5-4250U-Graphics/dp/B00HZDLNWO/

i3 - http://www.amazon.com/Intel-DisplayPort-i3-4010U-Consumer-BOXD34010WYKH1/dp/B00HOJAVDG/

Celeron - http://www.amazon.com/Intel-DN2820FYKH-Celeron-N2820-support/dp/B00HVKLSVC/

Sounds like you want a NUC.

I just purchased a NUC i5-4250u, 8GB of RAM, WiFi adapter and threw in a 128GB SSD for the OS/XBMC.

Cost is $455 on Amazon (minus the SSD).

Throw on a 4TB USB 3.0 External HDD and you have an amazing HTPC/Media Center. It's a full PC with Intel HD 5000 graphics, meaning, if you wanted to, you could play WoW on lowest settings at 40 FPS (I checked) and LoL on medium settings at 60 FPS (I checked).

For a bluray drive, I purchased an external LG bluray/dvd/cd drive from Best Buy for $69 (it's was on sale, not sure if it's still going on).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HZDLNWO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

the 4th gen i5 version with a 2.5" slot.
The one without works too but they were about the same price and there are alot more choices for 2.5 drive over mSATA (probably does draw more power though)

The only thing to remember about NUC's is at least currently they don't play nice headless. Unless you are using Microsoft RDP all other applications have issues (there are work arounds but it is an issue to be aware of it your were thinking about windows)
I installed both Ubuntu and Windows and both worked well. Ubuntu had no headless issues.

Edit: Added headless problem info

M.2 is a specific form factor of mSATA drive.

e.g. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G1R21224&cm_re=m.2-_-20-167-170-_-Product

There is a slightly larger NUC which holds a standard 2.5" drive.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HZDLNWO/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2UBDPA458OZVB&coliid=I1FAIE4LLATCMZ&psc=1

Intel i5 NUC BOXD54250WYKH1

HGST Travelstar 2.5-Inch 1TB

Crucial 16GB (2x8GB)

Had for about 3 months, bought for a homelab that never really panned out.

Alright, the biggest issue you may have is needing a CPU powerful enough to transcode your content for the remote users.

I have a Synology NAS, a DS214Play (http://global.download.synology.com/download/Document/DataSheet/DiskStation/14-year/DS214play/Synology_DS214play_Data_Sheet_enu.pdf) with two 4TB Western Digital RED NAS drives configured in RAID1. RAID1 basically gives me a mirrored copy of my single drive, in the event that one drive fails.

I also installed a DX513 Expansion Unit (https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DX513) to my DS214Play in order to get additional space. That unit has two 4TB WD RED NAS drives running the same RAID1 configuration.

The DS214Play is actually powerful enough to run PleX but will usually buffer on software transcoding. An option you do have with Synology is to use their own native applications, which are similar to PleX in some regard. I used to use DS Video (Synology's version of PleX) extensively, till something broke and it no longer worked on my Samsung TV. What's cool is that DS Video is available on iOS, Android, via web interface on a laptop, Roku, and Samsung Smart TVs.

The Intel NUC I have an i5 model running Windows 10 on an SSD with 8GB of RAM. The passmark score is 3463, which is good enough to transcode a 1080p stream. The newer NUCs are even more powerful than mine: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HZDLNWO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

What I really like about my setup is the very low power consumption, and the low profile nature of it all. The NUC is sitting in my living room on the same TV stand as the Xbox One, cable box, etc. and the NAS is on the bottom shelf of the same stand, plugged into a dedicated wired router. All my content is saved on the NAS, and the NUC basically does nothing except run PMS.

Yeah, after having to struggle with a Celeron machine 5-6 years ago, I avoid them like the plague.

I currently have this sitting in my shopping cart.

Overpriced, 4GB of RAM isn't enough for VMs, and it's DDR2 memory which means the server as a whole is quite old

This would be nearly as good for performance and use a lot less power

1. I'm the only person in this sub that bothered to reply. You might want to try being marginally less of an ass, if you have the ability.
   
2. The only solution as of Jan 2015, is an Intel NUC featuring a MiniDisplayPort (like one of these ) and a MDP-->Dual-DVI adapter (like one of these ). I've searched for alternatives, and there's simply nothing in the landscape.
   
   The good news is, if you can get a device featuring MDP and a display featuring DisplayPort, you can use one of these to drive it, without needing an active adapter. It's cheaper and more reliable than any of the active adapters I've been able to find (Monoprice's MDP-->Dual-Link active adapter failed me within a year).

I have the Core i5 NUC. I use it for some dedicated servers 24/7 that's why I got the beefed up one. Also keep in mind if you get a 2 bay NAS and use both drives as storage and none for redundancy - if any one of those drives crashes ALL of your data is lost and cannot be recovered!

This is the model I'm using with Yosemite:
Intel NUC BOXD54250WYKH1 Intel 4th Gen Intel Core i5-4250U with Intel HD Graphics 5000 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HZDLNWO/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_XwrAub0CB4RJV

I have plenty of devices that don't play mkv natively, not just apple . The higher quality videos suffer and need to buffer often. Streaming is a pain.

My solution to this is to buy a device to run plex and do the transcoding. I haven't done it yet, but I am planning on getting something like an Intel-NUC or Apple Mac-mini and connecting my Synology to if for back-end media storage. Then it doesn't matter which Synology you get and you are never limited to only "play" models.