A mobile processor based FreeNAS box

[toyebox]

To start, I might as well list the equipment in the box~

• Motherboard: Jetway NF9G-QM77 Motherboard
  • mini-itx
  • socket G2 (second/third gen intel mobile processors)
  • expandable addon cards
  • dual intel NIC's
• Processor: i7-3940xm (formally an i7-2670qm)
  • Extremely fast (almost 10,000 on passmark scale)
  • iAMT supported
  • AES instructions supported
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance Performance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3L 1600MHz PC3 12800
  • Not ECC because the mobo doesn't support it--i have yet to have an issue (don't yell at me)
• RAID card: 9240-8i LSI (M1015)
  • Crossflashed to IT mode of course
  • Added a small 40mm Noctua thin fan on the heatsink (I will tell you why at the bottom)
• PSU: Athena Power AP-U1ATX30A 1U
  • Replaced the dual 40mm fans with Noctua 40mm full size fans
• Case: U-NAS NSC-800 Server Chassis
  • Awesome quality (except for a few little things discussed below)
  • Smallest 8 bay case with great heat dissipation
  • Replaced the 120mm fans with Noctua Fans
• Hard Drives: 6x Seagate NAS drives (3x ST4000VN000 & 3x ST4000VN008 = new version)
  • In a Mirrored configuration
• USB: Sandisk ultra fit
• SSD: 250GB Samsung 850 Evo
  • This is strictly used for jails

First of all, I want to say that I am so extremely ecstatic with this build, i couldn't be happier. It takes everything I throw at it and more. It looks beautiful, it's quiet (not one of my concerns, but nice to have! ), and it works effortlessly. I am not sure how many builds are on here utilizing a mobile processor socket... My reasoning was solely due to what i had lying around at the moment. The box initially started with a i7-2670qm processor which worked flawlessly, but due to my large network of Plex users, i needed to upgrade for the trans-coding.

Currently I have three jails setup with Downloading software, Plex, media management software, and a web server running WordPress for my blog. Up until a couple days ago, i had a OpenVPN server as well for remote access away from home. I recently put together a pfSense box and have migrated that there.

Some notes about this build:

~Motherboard~
When initially putting the idea together and figuring out what to get, i heard many many gripes and complaints about this. Obviously it wasn't a "well known" board, but due to the unique use of a mobile processor, i had to find something. I cannot speak any higher about this board and what it's capable of. I used the supplied CPU heat-sink--but not for lack of trying to find a better one--there just aren't any! Regardless ,the heat-sink does a fine job at keeping it cool. I recently retrofitted a new 50mm Noctua fan on the heat-sink (Which was no easy task with the minimal clearance and how the old one was mounted) and it has brought the temps down drastically. I plan on buying the up-gradable expansion card that supplies four more gigabit connections.

~Case~
Hands down, best case for the job in my opinion. Air flow is fantastic with the two 120mm fans (they act as an exhaust, pulling air across the drives) . I tried turning them around just to play devils advocate, but i saw a rise in temperature but an average of 2 degrees. There are two things that are small, but still bother me about the case. The lid/cover is a very big pain to get on. It definitely seems easier to come off and on after doing it a bunch of times though. The lid bends quite easily and you can tell it's just sheet metal--even though, with it on, it looks awesome! The second thing is the slot where the motherboard sits. There is a long pin that the motherboard screws into, and due to where the connections on the motherboard are.. it makes it a bit difficult to finagle the motherboard down and behind it.

~SSD~
I decided to use an SSD for my jails for a couple reasons. I wanted to cut down on read/write for one. Secondly, due to how large my media collection is, I found it important to have all the media info on an SSD for quick access. I also have replication tasks that auto backup my jails to my tank every day. All of my Plex transcoding is done on the SSD as well. I only did this configuration because this is what i saw as being the best solution. If anyone has suggestions or thoughts, feel free to comment!

~Processor~
This thing is a beast (in my eyes anyway). I had a 2670qm in the box initially, and it ran great as well! The 3940xm hits a whopping 9373 Passmark score which should handle anything. Futhermore, it only has a TDP of 55W! I ended up switching to this processor not only because of the double in my processing power, but also for the iAMT features. For anyone who doesn't know what iAMT is, it allows remote monitoring of your system, from shutdown to startup. You can remotely view your headless box and everything. It truly is a fantastic feature.

~RAID Card~
Not much to say about this little monster--I had to add a small fan to the heat-sink though. I hope this helps someone who encounters the same issue as me: I had random reboots and they seemed to get worse and worse when accessing the drives. I had numerous people on the forums helping, with no avail. It ended up being the LSI card overheating and restarting the computer. a small 40mm fan fixed it. I assume it has to do with the ambient temperature in the case, with it being so small.

I think it touched on everything that was important! I would like to make one last disclaimer: I by no means am an expert at FreeBSD or FreeNAS. I only took what I have read and experienced and put them on paper for others. If you guys (or gals) have thoughts or opinions, i am open to listen to them!

Matthew~

 

[joeschmuck]

So you already have this built and running. You should be cautioned that since you don't have ECC RAM, you could be subject to data corruption at any time in the future, but I think you understood this risk already. Just because of this I would not recommend anyone to build this system.

On the other hand, it sounds like the CPU is working well for you. Most mobile CPUs are not very good for video transcoding so it's good to hear that this works for this CPU, but until seeing some benchmarks on transcoding, I would not recommend a mobile CPU, especially if it can't support ECC RAM.

 

[toyebox]

So you already have this built and running. You should be cautioned that since you don't have ECC RAM, you could be subject to data corruption at any time in the future, but I think you understood this risk already. Just because of this I would not recommend anyone to build this system.

On the other hand, it sounds like the CPU is working well for you. Most mobile CPUs are not very good for video transcoding so it's good to hear that this works for this CPU, but until seeing some benchmarks on transcoding, I would not recommend a mobile CPU, especially if it can't support ECC RAM.

Yes you are correct in assuming i knew the risks already. Like i stated at first, I built this purely as budget build given the low amount of funds i had at my disposal. One thing i did do though, is set myself up for an easy upgrade of motherboard/CPU when i am ready to spend the money. pop out the old, put in the new!

also, i see you are an electrical engineer in virginia--I hope to be down there in the Yorktown area when i am restationed this summer. Where you military at all? I am an Electricians Mate in the CG.

Do you have any other feedback for the other parts used?

 

[joeschmuck]

I put in my 20 years in the Navy on submarines. We went 10 knots to nowhere. We had a few good port calls and generally a lot of fun underway. When you have 110 to 115 people inside a small black tube for just over 3 months at a time, well officer and enlisted become a tight group of guys. I worked on the MK 88 Mod 2 Ballistic Missile Fire Control System and crawled around in the missiles a bit, okay it was a lot. Launched a lot of those missiles as well, even on all four UK subs before I got out of the Navy. I'm working in the same program but actually making some money now and do more manager work than hands on work. I still travel to the boats (what we call the subs) periodically. You have heard of the Computer Bug? Well that originated in the building I currently work in. I saw the moth taped into the log book before it was donated to the Smithsonian several years ago. I have another 7 years to go before I can retire for the final time but if my wife hits the lottery, well we can all dream.

I hope you are enjoying the CG, looks like you have a few years in. My advice is to try an advance as quickly as possible and if you get to the 10 year point, consider staying to retirement. Enlisted retirement money is nice to have each month, BUT if you can go into an officer program and it's something you think you might like, DO IT! Financially it's a huge difference, especially after retirement. I myself never liked the politics of officer life but had I realized the financial difference, well I know I would have done things a bit differently.

Do you have any other feedback for the other parts used?

Not really. Hopefully you ran the recommended burn-in testing. The most important being MemTest86 and running that for a few days just to ensure you have no RAM, Timing, or Power issues. I did look up the case and it looks pretty nice but please make sure that if you need to pull/insert a hard drive, secure the power first. Just because you can hot swap a hard drive doesn't mean you should. I've seen the power connector be slightly off one time and the parts melted. So power off always.

 

[toyebox]

I put in my 20 years in the Navy on submarines. We went 10 knots to nowhere. We had a few good port calls and generally a lot of fun underway. When you have 110 to 115 people inside a small black tube for just over 3 months at a time, well officer and enlisted become a tight group of guys. I worked on the MK 88 Mod 2 Ballistic Missile Fire Control System and crawled around in the missiles a bit, okay it was a lot. Launched a lot of those missiles as well, even on all four UK subs before I got out of the Navy. I'm working in the same program but actually making some money now and do more manager work than hands on work. I still travel to the boats (what we call the subs) periodically. You have heard of the Computer Bug? Well that originated in the building I currently work in. I saw the moth taped into the log book before it was donated to the Smithsonian several years ago. I have another 7 years to go before I can retire for the final time but if my wife hits the lottery, well we can all dream.

I hope you are enjoying the CG, looks like you have a few years in. My advice is to try an advance as quickly as possible and if you get to the 10 year point, consider staying to retirement. Enlisted retirement money is nice to have each month, BUT if you can go into an officer program and it's something you think you might like, DO IT! Financially it's a huge difference, especially after retirement. I myself never liked the politics of officer life but had I realized the financial difference, well I know I would have done things a bit differently.


Not really. Hopefully you ran the recommended burn-in testing. The most important being MemTest86 and running that for a few days just to ensure you have no RAM, Timing, or Power issues. I did look up the case and it looks pretty nice but please make sure that if you need to pull/insert a hard drive, secure the power first. Just because you can hot swap a hard drive doesn't mean you should. I've seen the power connector be slightly off one time and the parts melted. So power off always.

Well sir, thank you for your service, for I know it was much harder than mine currently. I have 8 years in, and just made E6. I will be going to something called the ACET program which is two years of college to finish a degree, followed by a direct commission job. I do like my current field, but how much money I will get at retirement has been my drive for the past few years. The difference between an e7 and an o4 is substantial.

So as I plan my second build, I am looking at some hardware . i have read everything I could on recommended hardware . taking a 2000 passmark score into mind, would I be alright picking up an older Xeon with a high passmark, maybe a 2695v2 to have a multitude of Plex transcodes? Or would I still be better off going newer with s Xeon D 1540--with the lower passmark score.

 

[joeschmuck]

The difference between an e7 and an o4 is substantial.

That is no lie.

Passmark scores are nice to reference however I would never just use those for comparison. I feel that you need to take into account several factors such as the encoding of your media and how many streams you plan to run at once. Also, newer Xeon CPUs typically use less power to get the same performance which translates into less heat, slower running fans, less noise, etc... Having multiple cores is good but 12 cores is a bit of overkill in my opinion. And if you are planning to use FreeNAS 10 and do a lot of VM work then maybe hold off on that purchase until after it's out and you can see what a few other people are doing. If you do not intend to do a lot of VM work then again, 12 cores is a bit much.

 

[toyebox]

That is no lie.

Passmark scores are nice to reference however I would never just use those for comparison. I feel that you need to take into account several factors such as the encoding of your media and how many streams you plan to run at once. Also, newer Xeon CPUs typically use less power to get the same performance which translates into less heat, slower running fans, less noise, etc... Having multiple cores is good but 12 cores is a bit of overkill in my opinion. And if you are planning to use FreeNAS 10 and do a lot of VM work then maybe hold off on that purchase until after it's out and you can see what a few other people are doing. If you do not intend to do a lot of VM work then again, 12 cores is a bit much.

I see. I guess i didn't see it as overkill because of the amount of streams i have going on. I don't have any optimized versions of the files i have, and i didn't plan on creating any due to the large library. At any given time i could see between 1 and 10 streams, and each one possibly transcoding at once. Is it still considered overkill with so much transcoding?

I would love to go for the newer platform to help "futureproof" myself. But with that, i have never been one to buy a SoC system for that exact reason. Always something that can be upgraded. I guess I just don't want to have to upgrade any time soon again haha.

I have seen things like Plex Remote Transcoder--which seems to be broken more often than not, due to the upgrades of plex. So that doesn't seem like any sort of solution to my problem, not to mention its lack of support for FreeBSD.

 

[joeschmuck]

At any given time i could see between 1 and 10 streams

10 streams, that is quite a lot. In my home I would never have more than 3 streams but honestly, I don't see that ever happening, 1 stream is generally it.

So I've done some brief checking and it appears that Plex really will excel using lots of cores/threads. If you really feel that you may run up to 10 streams at once then maybe an 8 or 12 core CPU is right for you. I did read that if you are transcoding VC-1 encoded video that Plex will only run in a single thread for that stream. And I understand that a lot of BlueRay rips are likely VC-1 format, but that doesn't mean they need to be VC-1 format. So in this situation the CPU needs to be fast enough to transcode it. I'm not saying you are in that situation but it's something to look at. Most of my rips are DVD quality because I really don't need BlueRay quality, if I really want to watch it in BlueRay, I'll just pop the disc into the BlueRay player. Most of my rips are movies for the grandkids and going this route keeps the original media in good condition.

Before buying that 12 core CPU, I'm sure you could read in the forums about how Plex is working for them and more importantly finding someone who actually does stream many video streams.

 

[toyebox]

10 streams, that is quite a lot. In my home I would never have more than 3 streams but honestly, I don't see that ever happening, 1 stream is generally it.

So I've done some brief checking and it appears that Plex really will excel using lots of cores/threads. If you really feel that you may run up to 10 streams at once then maybe an 8 or 12 core CPU is right for you. I did read that if you are transcoding VC-1 encoded video that Plex will only run in a single thread for that stream. And I understand that a lot of BlueRay rips are likely VC-1 format, but that doesn't mean they need to be VC-1 format. So in this situation the CPU needs to be fast enough to transcode it. I'm not saying you are in that situation but it's something to look at. Most of my rips are DVD quality because I really don't need BlueRay quality, if I really want to watch it in BlueRay, I'll just pop the disc into the BlueRay player. Most of my rips are movies for the grandkids and going this route keeps the original media in good condition.

Before buying that 12 core CPU, I'm sure you could read in the forums about how Plex is working for them and more importantly finding someone who actually does stream many video streams.

That's some good info about the VC-1 format. I didn't know that and i think i'll take a look at my media. The amount of streams usually comes from family all over. I will say, the most i have seen is 6 concurrent streams at a time, but the possibly for 10 is there so i would rather be prepared :P Thanks for the legwork you put in, and the advice!

 

[joeschmuck]

I recommend you do an internet search for things like "plex freebsd multithreaded" or similar and just start reading. There is a lot of data out there but it should also be tempered by how old some of that data is and what platform Plex is running on. You can join the Plex forums and ask questions, just ensure you state you are using FreeBSD/FreeNAS to run Plex on and of course you might need to provide some system specs depending on the question you ask. Also you should take into account the devices watching the video content and what formats they can accept. If you are smart about it you will encode the videos into a format recognized by the devices playing the video and thus reduce your Plex Server transcoding needs. If you have people coming over using a tablet or cell phone, those I would not worry about, but if you always play videos to say 3 different TVs in your home then find a common format and encode your videos to that. One way to know if the format is acceptable is to use DLNA vice Plex (DLNA is also built into Plex) and if your TV can play the video over the DLNA then it does not require transcoding which is a very good thing.

So enjoy reading up on Plex, it's a fantastic program and I'm sure you will have a good learning curve over the next month.