AMD Ryzen build - simple home media server

[sammysam4983]

Hey folks!

I've had a FreeNAS server running on an AMD A6 APU for a little over a couple years and I'm toying with the idea of putting together a whole new build. The main question I have is whether or not a Ryzen 7 1700X CPU will FreeNAS. I don't need business-class performance. It just sits in a dark place at home running Plex Media Server. Don't know if this is an important point or not, but there's only ever up to 4 streams running at any time, and most of the time just 1 or 2.

I know Intel is the recommended CPU all over the place, but I've had zero issues with my little APU running FreeNAS. The only time it's had an issue in 2+ years is when either the house lost power or I shut it off. I looked through the forums to see what's been tried with Ryzen, but I wasn't able to find much. As soon as I'm done posting this build list I'll go do some research on what kind of support FreeBSD has for the platform.

Anyway, on to the important part. All links are from Amazon except for the Motherboard. That one's not available on Amazon so I linked it from Newegg.

AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Processor (YD170XBCAEWOF) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X3W9NGG
CRYORIG H7 Tower Cooler For AMD/Intel CPU's - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S7YA5FQ
GIGABYTE GA-AB350N-Gaming WIFI (rev. 1.0) - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813145017
Corsair LPX 16GB DDR4 DRAM 2666MHz (CMK16GX4M1A2666C16) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019HVO62A
(4x in RaidZ) WD Red 6TB NAS HDD 5400 RPM (WD60EFRX) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LO3KR96
EVGA SuperNOVA 550 G2 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0106RDI3W

 

[LTCM]

I know I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but how do you expect to get video out of this rig? With no ipmi, I'm assuming you will want to hook up a monitor, but I don't see a gpu on your list.

 

[sammysam4983]

I know I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but how do you expect to get video out of this rig? With no ipmi, I'm assuming you will want to hook up a monitor, but I don't see a gpu on your list.

The box will actually run completely headless, so there's no need for display output 99.99% of the time. For the rare occasion that I do need direct display output, the motherboard runs an integrated HDMI output and I connect the box to the television that it sits under. If, for whatever reason, the on-board display output doesn't work I usually have a spare video card laying around that I can install on an as-needed basis.

 

[BigDave]

Bring a pioneer is a hard thing to be, you are however not completely alone.

 

[LTCM]

The box will actually run completely headless, so there's no need for display output 99.99% of the time. For the rare occasion that I do need direct display output, the motherboard runs an integrated HDMI output and I connect the box to the television that it sits under. If, for whatever reason, the on-board display output doesn't work I usually have a spare video card laying around that I can install on an as-needed basis.

So that board will post with no graphics? If you can confirm that once you get everything installed, it would be much appreciated.

 

[sammysam4983]

So that board will post with no graphics? If you can confirm that once you get everything installed, it would be much appreciated.

I expect it would. There's not "no graphics" because the CPU and board run integrated graphics just like on most consumer machines. That's the point of there being integrated HDMI and DisplayPort on the board itself. I don't know about actual server-grade boards, but on any board I've ever had the POST simply looks to see if output hardware exists (integrated or via dedicated GPU) and is operable, not whether or not something is actually being output.

If I ever do get around to building this list, I'll confirm either way for you.

 

[LTCM]

I expect it would. There's not "no graphics" because the CPU and board run integrated graphics just like on most consumer machines. That's the point of there being integrated HDMI and DisplayPort on the board itself. I don't know about actual server-grade boards, but on any board I've ever had the POST simply looks to see if output hardware exists (integrated or via dedicated GPU) and is operable, not whether or not something is actually being output.

If I ever do get around to building this list, I'll confirm either way for you.

I only ask because the current ryzen chips do not have onboard graphics - they are not APUs in AMD speak. I haven't seen an AB350 (or any am4) board which supports intergrated graphics with any (edit:again, current) ryzen but I'm not familiar with this offering specifically.

Personally, I see no operating output device, thus my question on if it will post.

 

[aussiejuggalo]

The only AM4 chips that have graphics are A10 9700, A6 9500 & A8 9600 which are the Excavator versions. The Ryzen chips don't have any graphics at all, there are some Ryzen ones coming with Vega but that wont be for a while.

 

[sammysam4983]

I only ask because the current ryzen chips do not have onboard graphics - they are not APUs in AMD speak. I haven't seen an AB350 (or any am4) board which supports intergrated graphics with any (edit:again, current) ryzen but I'm not familiar with this offering specifically.

Personally, I see no operating output device, thus my question on if it will post.

The only AM4 chips that have graphics are A10 9700, A6 9500 & A8 9600 which are the Excavator versions. The Ryzen chips don't have any graphics at all, there are some Ryzen ones coming with Vega but that wont be for a while.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I see know. I actually did not research that one point when putting this all together. I was unaware that the AM4 socket was shared by newer APUs and the Ryzen platform, but only APUs run integrated graphics. In that case, I have a spare GPU sitting around here somewhere that I'll throw in for setup and headless POST.

The whole reason I'm looking at Ryzen instead of another APU is because of the whole split-core thing the APUs do. I actually like my A10-7850K in my desktop machine, but I figure the sheer thread-count increase available from a Ryzen upgrade would be significantly more beneficial than upgrading to an A10-9700. Am I wrong? I've searched through the forums here and can't really find any solid information about the A10-9700 and its performance running FreeNAS.

 

[ezra]

Looks good, no ECC? I kinda get it if its only a Plexmediaserver... Also perhaps the 1700x is overdoing it if its only a plex box... I was looking at the 1500/1600 for 100 bucks less. But I'll also run a VM on it.

I bought this https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/my-first-freenas-build-ryzen1700x.59630/
Will start to build 6th Jan when I get back. We should keep each other informed!

 

[sammysam4983]

Looks good, no ECC? I kinda get it if its only a Plexmediaserver... Also perhaps the 1700x is overdoing it if its only a plex box... I was looking at the 1500/1600 for 100 bucks less. But I'll also run a VM on it.

I bought this https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/my-first-freenas-build-ryzen1700x.59630/
Will start to build 6th Jan when I get back. We should keep each other informed!

I'll DEFINITELY be interested in what kind of results you get. If I ever get around to building this list, I'll update the thread with my results/hurdles.

 

[ezra]

Thanks, I'll keep you updated..

 

[wackymole]

My ECC 1700 does at least 4 1080p streams at once, but it is not FreeNAS 11.1 stable. It crashes every 3-15 days for me. Looking to rebuild soon... eventually they will identify the bug, but it saves no local logs.