Terrible Plex Transcoding Performance - Xeon E3-1245 v3

[Joe Tucker]

Just finished a brand new build last night with specs as follows:

Lenovo Thinkserver TS-440
Xeon E3-1245 v3
20GB ECC RAM
6x 3TB Western Digital Red in RaidZ2
FreeNas 9.3 Stable (Downloaded last night)

Setup Plex this morning and am very disappointed with the transcoding performance. I have a FireTV that is hardwired into my network. Trying to play a roughly 4GB MKV (Toy Story 3) is unwatchable. Also tried my iPhone and iPad - similar results.

All devices that don't need to transcode (Macbook Air, Xbox One) work great.

I put this system together thinking that I would have more than enough horsepower to handle this kind of workload. Did I miscalculate something here? Would appreciate any help.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Lenovo Thinkserver TS-440
20GB ECC RAM

So you have the original 4GB stick and pair of 8GB sticks? It's a long shot, but have you tried with just the pair of 8GB sticks (to get better RAM bandwidth)?

 

[Fraoch]

What's the CPU usage during transcoding? It must be something else, the E3-1245 should be able to transcode several streams simultaneously with power to spare.

 

[Mlovelace]

What's your network setup? That CPU is more than enough.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Yes, something else is wrong in your setup. You can easily transcoded video.

 

[raidflex]

I can trans-code multiple 30-40GB blu-ray rips at a time with my Xeon E3-1230v3, so there is defiantly something wrong. I would also recommend removing the 4Gb stick. You are also losing dual channel by using 3 sticks.

 

[Scareh]

seeing he can stream non transcoded files of similar size without problems, its not his network.

1) try removing the 4 gig stick like previously stated and make sure they are in the correct channels
2) watch the cpu/network throughput when you stream and see if something pops up

 

[Joe Tucker]

Thanks to each of you for taking the time to respond. Turns out that there was something wrong with the individual MKV I was trying to play. I copied several others onto the server and all but that is one fine. I'm able to play multiple transcoded streams and everything is working flawlessly.

Als0 - I will remove the 4GB stick. Good info there.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I will remove the 4GB stick. Good info there.

I recommend testing with and without the 4GB stick. Many times more RAM trumps faster RAM.