FreeNAS Mini Transcoding

[SwisherSweet]

Hi, I'm considering purchasing the FreeNAS Mini and one of the uses will be a Plex server. Will the FreeNAS Mini be powerful enough to transcode MKV files for 2 different clients at the same time?

 

[joeschmuck]

While I want to say yes the truth of the matter is it will depend on the quality of the MKV file and the quality you want Plex to handle. I have lots of MKV files but they are DVD quality so I'd say yes to that. If you are talking two 4K video streams then I don't know.

EDIT: There are some folks here that have this system and may be able to answer it. Since iXsystems sells the unit, maybe a question to the marketing team would help.

 

[nojohnny101]

Like @joeschmuck said, the question you ask is more complicated than can be answered with the information you provided. As was alluded to above, it depends on:
- quality of the original file
- quality of the output file
- client you are playing the files on
- and some other factors
If I were you, probably the best gauge you can use is the one that Plex has on their website. They provide general guidelines for the pastMark score that the CPU must have per stream of transcoded media.

 

[danb35]

Well, Plex recommend 2000 passmark per stream for 1080p transcoding. The FreeNAS Mini has an Atom C2750, with a rating of 3800. So it might barely handle two streams at 1080p, or would probably handle two at 720p, as long as it isn't doing much of anything else at the time.

 

[LotLits]

I have a freenas mini that seems to have no issues with 2 people on Plex at the same time, even with many 1080p videos. CPU doesn't really move above 20% on my min.

Attached (hopefully) is a screen shot of 2 users watching 2 1080p videos at the same time.

Note: Mine's a recent purchase and I'm still trying it out but it seems to have plenty of power for me.

[Edit] I only have one 4k video and it does struggle with that (at least in the web player) so I won't speak for that.

 

[joeschmuck]

Thanks for providing that information. It would be nice to get further details on 4K video streaming but I'm not sure if the OP cares about 4K, if not then the FreeNAS mini may be the ideal thing. And honestly, the mini doesn't have much space for storage and 4K video files consume a huge amount of space, these things do not go hand-in-hand. I like my DVD quality videos, they work just fine and while I can tell the difference between a 500 line image and a 1080 line image, from a distance it's not a deal breaker for me.

 

[LotLits]

Yeah, I can't say for sure what the issue is with the 1 video I have in 4K. It's of the sun, possibly from NASA, but I can't recall where I got it from so it might not be a very good test. ;)

Attached is a slightly better graph of 2 1080p movies playing. 1 was casting to my chromecast and the other to the Web UI of my laptop. You can probably see when I tried my 4k video. Could be an issue with the video itself (it plays a bit through the video before seeing issues).

 

[Stux]

Most likely the 4K video needed transcoding and the 1080p videos did not.

To transcode 4K you'd need to be able to transcode 2-4x 1080p.

 

[SwisherSweet]

Thank you all for commenting. I'm brand new to the forum and just learned about FreeNAS, so very happy to see vibrant community support.

I am currently playing with FreeNAS on an old HP dx5150 with a few 1TB drives and only 2GB of RAM (upgrading to 4GB, which is the max) and AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+. It does real well for file serving, even faster than my Drobo 5D with eSata installed. However, it struggles on an raw MKV file streaming to an Apple TV at 1080P.

I lost a lot of data on my Drobo 5D. Something happened (not sure what) but half the data just disappeared one day. I 'm hoping FreeNAS will give me a far faster and more reliable file server, and having act as an app server (jails) and VM host, I can get even more mileage.

So I was considering buying the FreeNAS Mini. My other option is my 6 core Mac Pro. It can hold 6 data drives (albeit, SATA 1 or 2, not 3) and has 2 Kingston Predator PCIe flash cards installed, which I might be able to use as read/write cache. All I use it for is playing Call of Duty (the original). With Unraid, one can play games on a running VM. Not sure if FreeNAS 11 will allow me to do the same.

 

[joeschmuck]

FreeNAS is likely to not run stable with less than 6GB RAM. The minimum is 8GB. I'm glad you are just playing with it so if things start acting wierd, it's likely the lack of RAM. Things will be slower as well while the system is using the SWAP partition a lot.

The price of the FreeNAS Mini the last time I checked it was on par for the cost of parts if you were to build it yourself. While I'm sure iXsystems gets a discount for bulk purchasing, I doubt they are making a huge profit providing the system to the consumer.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

My other option is my 6 core Mac Pro. It can hold 6 data drives (albeit, SATA 1 or 2, not 3)

SATA 2 won't be a bottleneck unless you run an SSD pool. Mac hardware compatibility might be an issue, but it would be interesting to try.

 

[BluSLS]

I have purchased the latest FreeNAS Mini XL+ and it can handle 1x 4k stream. It cannot handle transcoding a 4K video. CPU utiilization sits in the high 90's and the video stutters like crazy. Being 2019 you would think that the system would have been upgraded to have the capability of processing 4K videos to 1080p and playing more than 1x 4k stream.

 

[joeschmuck]

I have purchased the latest FreeNAS Mini XL+ and it can handle 1x 4k stream. It cannot handle transcoding a 4K video. CPU utiilization sits in the high 90's and the video stutters like crazy. Being 2019 you would think that the system would have been upgraded to have the capability of processing 4K videos to 1080p and playing more than 1x 4k stream.

You have made an assumption. You should have done some research on the hardware and if it have the CPU horsepower required, after all it's not called "The FreeNAS Highend Media Server". As a general purpose data server, the system is satisfactory and has low power requirements, which is very desirable. Have you tried to return the hardware? If you need to play at 1080p, I'd recommend that you convert your media into 1080p so it can stream to content in native mode, that would work very well. I know many folks would not like doing that however it may be your only option if you are stuck with that system. I do wish you good luck.