I don’t think that that CPU will be enough to transcode more than one low-bit 1080p rip. What has been your thought regarding this and the fact that you quote 5 users? I assume the intention isn’t then to transcode for all of them?
FreeNAS is certainly a viable option, you might want to check the FreeBSD part of the forum for more insight as I know it requires specific hardware to function at its best. Do also note that under FreeBSD you will not have access to the premium music feature so you are aware of that.
In lieu with above, RAID choice today should also cover choice of a filesystem that can handle stuff like bitrot. I like raidz, given you are thinking about FreeNAS I would assume that’s also a viable option for you.
Edit: Let’s ping @sremick - he is good at FreeBSD so I’m sure he has more detailed insight.
I would change the CPU and the Board. The C2550 won’t be enough to transcode for 5 users at the same time. I would opt for a Xeon E3-1220 v3 (if your budget allows the 1230 v3, Xeon because ECC) and a cheap mainboard like the Asrock B85M Pro3. The board can be switched out to a Supermicro X10SL7-F once you need more space.
@Peter_W
As for me saying up to 5 users, yes, most likely they will never be transcoding that much at the same time. Subtitles might take some transcoding tho and that feature will proably be used by multiple users at the same time.
Been looking into the FreeNAS forum on their webiste too, looks good, but i’m always open for “better” options if there are some.
@sica said:
I would change the CPU and the Board. The C2550 won’t be enough to transcode for 5 users at the same time. I would opt for a Xeon E3-1220 v3 (if your budget allows the 1230 v3, Xeon because ECC) and a cheap mainboard like the Asrock B85M Pro3. The board can be switched out to a Supermicro X10SL7-F once you need more space.
Looked into your suggestions and the prices are around the same, even cheaper for the Xeon E3-1230 v3 - Asrock B85M Pro3 combo.
Checked the benchmarking on it and I see that there is a big difference there, especially when at the same price.
(should mention I’m looking at Norwegian prices in Norwegian stores)
Xeon E3-1230v3 - 9303
Avoton C2550 - 2329
As for the ASRock B85M Pro3 motherboard, what i see right away is that the number of sata ports (4 x SATA3, 2 x SATA2) that doesn’t leave any room for addng more HDD’s (concidering the case takes 8 HDD’s) Also, is there a big difference between Sata3 and Sata2?
Also, the RAM it takes is Non-ECC.
As for the Supermicro board you mentioned, that would blow my budget way off (£300 for just that one)
You are right… I did miss that even though the memory controller is in the CPU you still need a board that supports ECC-RAM.
In that case I would probably go with the Gigabyte GA-X150M-PRO ECC Board (sets you back around 100 € in Germany) and the Xeon 1230 v5 (sets you back around 250 € in Germany). The combination is around 50-70 € above the C2550 with a lot more power.
Once you want to go with ECC Memory which is in fact highly recommended when using ZFS the boards are obviously quite expensive.
The power supply is fine. Please note that the Gigabyte Board uses DDR4 instead of DDR3 which might be more expensive in Norway and might exceed your budget.
@sica
Looked up memory compatibility, Crucial sais it is compatible on their website, but Gigabyte does not list it under compatible memory. It should be good enough when Crucial sais it is ok?
Took a screenshot of the compatibility list at the Gigabyte website and the check on the Crucial website for the memory I chose above
Have you chosen your OS yet? You select hardware for the OS, not select hardware first then try to beat the OS into using it later (then complaining that the driver support isn’t there, or that since you’ve invested the money you have to get it working somehow as you can’t afford to buy something different).
I know the Gigabyte brand, but I don’t have experience with it and FreeNAS. I know it’s not popular hardware for FreeNAS so I’d research the crap out of it first before spending money.I know the Asus brand too, and they make better motherboards than Gigabyte, and I still wouldn’t use an Asus motherboard with FreeNAS. I chose very specific hardware for my FreeNAS box and I’d strongly suggest you do the same. It’s not for throwing on any random hardware you can get a deal on or have lying about.
@sremick said:
Have you chosen your OS yet? You select hardware for the OS, not select hardware first then try to beat the OS into using it later (then complaining that the driver support isn’t there, or that since you’ve invested the money you have to get it working somehow as you can’t afford to buy something different).
I know the Gigabyte brand, but I don’t have experience with it and FreeNAS. I know it’s not popular hardware for FreeNAS so I’d research the crap out of it first before spending money.I know the Asus brand too, and they make better motherboards than Gigabyte, and I still wouldn’t use an Asus motherboard with FreeNAS. I chose very specific hardware for my FreeNAS box and I’d strongly suggest you do the same. It’s not for throwing on any random hardware you can get a deal on or have lying about.
Thanks for your input!
Have done some extra digging, the Gigabyte board will not boot headless, so would have to buy a GPU to get it working (asked Gigabyte themselves)
So what I have startet to look into is a a supermicro board Supermicro X11SSL-F
This one costs €254, so yet another bump in the cost, but solves all the problems with compatibility.
Only downside is that there are only 6 SATA ports on the board, but concidering that upgrading to a board with 2 more would cost another €100 I will be happy with the 6.
Another thing I came across is problems with the “SanDisk Ultra Fit 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive”. Aparently they overheat a lot, so will get me a couple of USB 2.0 flashdrives for the OS.
@sremick will be able to give you a better answer but if the only difference is the number of SATA-ports (that affects you) I’d also not go down that route. There are good HBA cards to buy on the cheap and install for further expansion later on (and those will most likely use a different lane on the motherboard, since PCIE, so it would be benifical from that viewpoint too). I’m running one of those cards myself, the LSI 9240-8i (IBM M1015). But as always, double-check the OS of your choice for support and configuration options.
I did find a thread on the FreeNAS forum where this mobo was mentioned and cleared for FreeNAS. Also posted over there asking and has gotten a green light (also been searching around the web, not finding anything negative regarding compatibility with FreeNAS).
So what I’m switching ut is the mobo and the USB sticks + I might trow in a 140mm fan to get some extra air intake.
Edit: Oh, also doing the R5 case as I found that it cost the same as the R4.
It does add up. But on the other hand, you’ll get a system that will work (as close to possible) flawless while performing great. There’s nothing that beats that feeling of building a computer of any sorts, knowing that you haven’t cut (too many) corners and that things will just work (for years to come) after the configuration is complete.
One thing we haven’t touched is the backup part. Building this system will grant you a solid storage system that prevents many of the issues like bitrot and other corruption - but it isn’t and shouldn’t be seen as a backup solution. It might not be pertinent to aquire such solution directly since it’s a home environment (and not business critical) but please keep that in mind that you need to fix a (pref offsite) backup solution as well. If you haven’t one already, that is.
@Peter_W As for backup, I will be having a spare 2 TB WD Red drive from my current NAS box I will need to find a use for, using it for backup sounds like a good use for it. Probably overkill if you are thinking of having a backup for the config file tho.
So would love to hear your suggestion and specifics of what you mean with backup.
Also, any ideas for a good use for the 2 TB drive?
And again, thank you for helping me out, I appreciate it!
First of all I will be enabling snapshots after I have gotten the biggest bulk of media onto my drives (no need to use it in the beginning, just gonna take up massive amounts of space). This way I can roll back to a previous date if i manage to mess things up.
Also going to do remote backup. Since I have an old NAS box and a WD Red 2TB extra, I figured I could have that running, can use it as a cloud server and keeping it for backing up my FreeNAS (config file, snapshot(if possible, since it wont be ZFS)).
Can also use my Windows laptop for backup as well.
What plug-in I will use for this I am not sure yet tho…
I’m on my phone, but for backup I use crashplan (for os, confs, personal docs) as a cloud backup solution. My media (and all that is kept in the cloud) is regularly put on external usb-disks that is kept offsite and offline.
It all boils down to level of interest; how important the data is, how easily recreated the data is etc. I don’t think a universal solution exists that fits all, especially not in a home environement.
Hence there exists many backup (and storage) threads on these forums with plenty of good information on how different people have solved their needs. Read carefully and I’m sure you’ll find a suitable candidate (or combo od several).
I run SuperMicro in my desktop workstation. Good stuff. Only reason I didn’t go with them for my Plex box is they didn’t have the right combo of features for a Mini-ITX form factor.
I keep going back and forth about Crashplan. I can’t make up my mind if it’s worth it for my situation.
