CPU requirements for FreeNAS

[Deprecated]

Hello,

My current setup is as follows:

CPU: 2x5650 xeons (https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+X5650+@+2.67GHz&cpuCount=2)
RAM: 72G of ECC
Storage: 6x4T (z1 mass storage)
2x256G (mirrored ssd storage)
2x16G (mirrored boot)

My plan is to run a VM using the ssd mirror as OS storage and use docker containers for all the applications I currently have as jails.
My plex server currently has 20+ users so more CPU's allocated to the VM is pretty helpful.

So my question is how many cores of the 24 logical cores would I be able to allocate to the VM without hurting the performance of the freenas server?

 

[Ericloewe]

That's a pretty horrible idea. You want to move an application with extreme disk I/O, network latency and bandwidth, memory usage and CPU usage from a jail to a VM?
For starters, bulk storage in the VM would have to go over the virtual network, meaning NFS or SMB, neither of which will help your performance.

 

[Deprecated]

That's a pretty horrible idea. You want to move an application with extreme disk I/O, network latency and bandwidth, memory usage and CPU usage from a jail to a VM?
For starters, bulk storage in the VM would have to go over the virtual network, meaning NFS or SMB, neither of which will help your performance.

Would you recommend rebuilding the applications manually in jails instead of using the plugins? The plugins always seem to be multiple major versions behind the release.

Or should i just wait for 11.1 (11.2?) for docker support?

 

[Inxsible]

You could create standard jails and run apps. I run Radarr in a standard jail. I also run plugins for Plex, Transmission and Couch potato but I am not worried about them being a couple versions behind as most of the functionality is already available in those plugins.

 

[Chris Moore]

My plex server currently has 20+ users so more CPU's allocated to the VM is pretty helpful.

Why are you sharing media to 20 users? Do you have a hotel? I don't understand this.

 

[danb35]

Would you recommend rebuilding the applications manually in jails instead of using the plugins? The plugins always seem to be multiple major versions behind the release.

If you're really concerned about having the most up-to-date possible versions of those applications, then yes, installing manually in a jail would help with that. Or you could just not worry about such inconsequential matters.

Or should i just wait for 11.1 (11.2?) for docker support?

The "Docker support" in 11.1/11.2 will still be running the Docker containers in a Linux VM, just as was done in the late and unlamented FN10.

 

[Deprecated]

You could create standard jails and run apps. I run Radarr in a standard jail. I also run plugins for Plex, Transmission and Couch potato but I am not worried about them being a couple versions behind as most of the functionality is already available in those plugins.

I got the lifetime Plex pass a couple years ago so I would rather have those newer features. I did end up finding a script that will update to the latest bsd version from Plex that should work for now.

Why are you sharing media to 20 users? Do you have a hotel? I don't understand this.

What's wrong with this use case? I share with friends and family many of whom can't afford cable or Netflix

If you're really concerned about having the most up-to-date possible versions of those applications, then yes, installing manually in a jail would help with that. Or you could just not worry about such inconsequential matters.


The "Docker support" in 11.1/11.2 will still be running the Docker containers in a Linux VM, just as was done in the late and unlamented FN10.

That's a bit disappointing...

_________

Thank you guys for your responses, I've decided to go a different route and move the jails to the SSD mirror and stick with using jails.

 

[danb35]

That's a bit disappointing.

Why is that disappointing, or surprising? Docker is fundamentally a Linux thing. Yes, there's experimental work to run Dockers natively under FreeBSD, but "experimental" is the key word--and running Docker on anything other than Linux is always going to involve some kind of Linux compatibility layer.

 

[Chris Moore]

What's wrong with this use case? I share with friends and family many of whom can't afford cable or Netflix

I guess it might not be considered wrong, but it works the heck out of your hardware to the point you are looking for ways to make it better and that is probably going to cost you money at some point... That puts more burden on you.
Another potential issue, and I hate to mention it, is the licensing (copyright) issue of you providing media for other people, not in your home, to watch. I have a lifetime Plex Pass too and I don't think it was intended to be used that way, but I didn't read all the fine print.

 

[ovizii]

I guess it might not be considered wrong, but it works the heck out of your hardware to the point you are looking for ways to make it better and that is probably going to cost you money at some point... That puts more burden on you.
Another potential issue, and I hate to mention it, is the licensing (copyright) issue of you providing media for other people, not in your home, to watch. I have a lifetime Plex Pass too and I don't think it was intended to be used that way, but I didn't read all the fine print.

That sounds perfectly reasonable but then why'd the Plex people go and add the option to share with friends? They could have kept it at PlexPass only and sharing with family - just my 2cents.

 

[Inxsible]

That sounds perfectly reasonable but then why'd the Plex people go and add the option to share with friends? They could have kept it at PlexPass only and sharing with family - just my 2cents.

Asking rhetorical questions doesn't make it legal. The fine print in the agreement that Plex provided does !!

If that agreement allows it, you can go ahead and do it, but if not, then it could be considered illegal.

 

[ovizii]

Asking rhetorical questions doesn't make it legal. The fine print in the agreement that Plex provided does !!

If that agreement allows it, you can go ahead and do it, but if not, then it could be considered illegal.

I'm not asking rhetorical questions. I'm fully aware about how copyright works. I'm not encouraging any illegal actions.

All im saying is that plex has put a friends option in there and of course anyone sharing with friends is only sharing their personal holiday videos.

Please don't assume.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[danb35]

why'd the Plex people go and add the option to share with friends? They could have kept it at PlexPass only and sharing with family

How would Plex distinguish between your friends and your family?

If that agreement allows it, you can go ahead and do it, but if not, then it could be considered illegal.

Your agreement with Plex doesn't make it legal for you to share copyrighted material owned by other parties. Whether it's legal or not (and the extent to which any given user cares) are separate issues, but your license agreement with Plex isn't going to affect Disney's rights.

 

[ovizii]

@danb35 exactly my point. How does plex distinguish between my friends and family? They can't. So why put two options in there?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[Inxsible]

Your agreement with Plex doesn't make it legal for you to share copyrighted material owned by other parties. Whether it's legal or not (and the extent to which any given user cares) are separate issues, but your license agreement with Plex isn't going to affect Disney's rights.

I wasn't implying that.

What I meant with respect to the Plex agreement was only the part about using Plex's technology to share across multiple parties. What is being shared is a completely separate issue -- as you mentioned. It could involve the copyrights of various parties.

In other words, if Plex's agreement has restrictions on how many parties you can share to or if there is verbiage about sharing across different countries etc, then it could make it illegal, if you flout those rules that are listed in the Plex agreement.

* I haven't read Plex's agreement, I am just pointing out how the use of technology could also be restricted in numerous ways

 

[Inxsible]

I'm not asking rhetorical questions. I'm fully aware about how copyright works. I'm not encouraging any illegal actions.

All im saying is that plex has put a friends option in there and of course anyone sharing with friends is only sharing their personal holiday videos.

Please don't assume.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

I never said anything about copyrighted material and didn't assume that you don't know how copyright works.

Maybe you should not assume either.

 

[Chris Moore]

There was a time when Napster was a thing, but it got shutdown because of copyright issues.
I would hate to see that happen to Plex, especially after I bought a lifetime Plex pass.
I just think it best to limit, very scrupulously, the people that can share media as not all media sharing is without risk.

As a side issue, having 20 users streaming from one Plex server, the server has got to be a beast. What kind of CPU utilization are you getting?
If you are looking to improve your system, disk access speed would be improved by adding an additional vdev to you pool.
I also noticed that you have your pool of 4TB disks setup as RAID-z1 which doesn't offer much protection from a disk failure.
Also, keep in mind, if you are using those SSDs for the jails where Plex runs, I think the trancode process does a lot of read/write to the disk and that might cause a lot of wear on the SSDs, potentially leading to what might be called, "early failure"...

 

[danb35]

My plex server currently has 20+ users

Does this mean you have 20+ users simultaneously watching something? Or just that you have 20+ users in total, but the number active at any given time is much lower? Very different requirements for these two scenarios.

 

[Deprecated]

There was a time when Napster was a thing, but it got shutdown because of copyright issues.
I would hate to see that happen to Plex, especially after I bought a lifetime Plex pass.
I just think it best to limit, very scrupulously, the people that can share media as not all media sharing is without risk.

As a side issue, having 20 users streaming from one Plex server, the server has got to be a beast. What kind of CPU utilization are you getting?
If you are looking to improve your system, disk access speed would be improved by adding an additional vdev to you pool.
I also noticed that you have your pool of 4TB disks setup as RAID-z1 which doesn't offer much protection from a disk failure.
Also, keep in mind, if you are using those SSDs for the jails where Plex runs, I think the trancode process does a lot of read/write to the disk and that might cause a lot of wear on the SSDs, potentially leading to what might be called, "early failure"...

Updated signature with system specs, haven't topped 15% usage yet. I think the z1 vs z2 argument is a little over blown, and anything important is on daily remote backups. Since I have physical copies of the media anyways it would just be a frustrating month of rebuilding.

As for the SSD's, from what I recall that only affected early ones, and SSD's are designed for a lot of small read writes which makes them great os drives. In any case they are mirrored and from different batches

Does this mean you have 20+ users simultaneously watching something? Or just that you have 20+ users in total, but the number active at any given time is much lower? Very different requirements for these two scenarios.

Usually only 4-6 simultaneous streams

_______

As a side note this is all media I have purchased an sharing with friends and family without spending shipping costs to send them the disks.

In any case the ethics and legality should probably be discussed in a separate thread outside of the hardware section

 

[nightshade00013]

All legality aside(since there are still people who just torrent stuff anyway), build out another cheap FreeNAS to give to family. Doesn't need to be super powerful for an in home stream. For that matter have them chip in a few bucks to pay for it. A simple 1U Supermicro system will work. I literally bought something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/1U-Server-X...I-Rails-DVD-/132342311299?hash=item1ed0376983 for my stepdaughter to have as her own FreeNAS. Since you can always reseed send one big drive or four cheap small ones setup in stripe.

Setup said system then setup Syncthing on your system and their new system and synchronize while at your home. The system is now seeded and ready to go. ship them the system, and let them stream from their home while syncing things up to the master system. All the other systems should be setup so no one has access to the media directories.

This will do a couple things. First off you will not be using your internet to constantly stream, will reduce your power to transcode streams, and will offload the number of users. They can even use your plexpass still as they will just select their local server rather than yours. They will see faster load times too since they don't have to send requests to your home.