I’ve never built a NAS before, but after 5 years of using my old trusty QNAP NAS, it has become way too underpowered to run what I need.
I’m looking to build something that will primarily act as a torrent box/Plex server running Sonarr and Radarr for automatic download and library management. I know that transcoding 4K HEVC (10bit) remux files is out of reach except for the most beastly builds, but ideally, I’d like it to be able to transcode a couple of 4K SDR (8 bit) x.265 webrip files simultaneously. I’m happy to ‘optimize’ any files more demanding than that in advance.
That being said, I’m going to use parts from my old HTPC as I’m upgrading it.
Here’s what I’m thinking:
Intel Core i5-7400
[ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITX]
I know it doesn’t have a huge amount of expandability, but I think I could make 1x PCIe port and 1x M.2 port work. I also know that it only supports 1 gigabit ethernet, however network traffic rarely demands that level of bandwidth anyway.
16GB 2666MHz RAM
GeForce GTX 1050Ti 4GB
[Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case]
I know it doesn’t have hot swap bays, but I chose this case because of its price, looks, and drive capacity.
I’ve heard a few people talking about this, and since my mobo has an M.2 slot, I thought this was the best way to get extra SATA ports without using the only PCIe connector which will be occupied by the GPU.
Sounds a good plan to me.
I have almost the same setup
Difference is:
My MB is another model
CPU: I have an i5-6500
GPU: I have a Quadro P600
And the drives, I have an array of 18Tb
Nice to see your M.2 adapter to SATA, It’s my big discovery of the last year …
I’m doing almost the samethind than you with this setup. Sharing data to my homelab, Plex and jackett/sonarr/radarr dockers. And also a torrent client with VPN
It works well for me
With you GPU, you should be able to transcode almost everythings, but watch this video to unlock your GPU Maximum Streams. (interesting part is a the end)
What kind of transcoding performance are you getting with your P600? I’ve heard that its on par with the 1050Ti. Do you think my transcoding expectations are realistic with my GPU?
You don’t need an extra drive for the Plex meta data. Your Cache drive normally is used for your docker container images and docker data so you can add the extra drive to your array. Just remember that the biggest drive has to be the parity drive.
Some other containers you may want to add also:
Bazarr for automatically downloads of subtitles.
PiHole to block ads and malicious IPs
Bitwarden password manager
Xteve to import m3u live TV to Plex
Jackett indexer proxy/translator
Tautulli plex reporting
Thanks for the suggestions! I may add a few of those!
When you say I don’t need a separate drive for Plex metadata, are you saying that the cache drive and the metadata drive should be the same drive?
I’ve heard that it’s not a good idea to have Plex metadata stored on mechanical disks because it’s constantly in use and is slower to retreive when multiple people are browsing the share.
Yeah, I use m.2 slot for my cache drive, you said your cache drive is going to be a SSD so you should not have a problem. You have a problem if your using your data drives as a storage for your docker containers and data since these are usually slower.
Also be aware that typically when you use a m.2 slot you may loose 2 sata ports so you may want to look at your mother board docs.
Thanks, that’s exactly what I’ll do then.
Can I ask how big your cache SSD and Plex SSD is?
I’m thinking to use a 250Gb SSD for Plex and a 1Tb SSD for cache. Does this seem reasonable? FYI I have a gigabit fibre connection, so I feel like I’d use 1Tb cache easily in one day.
You can do what ever you want, all I am saying is that you don’t need to have a separate SSD for cache and Plex data. Unraid can use the cache drive for both cache and docker container/VM data including the plex data. Your not going to improve performance using separate drives.
