FreeNas Plex Build Advice Wanted

[Woodchuk]

I am looking to build my first FreeNas box. I want to use it to store family photos and files and run my Plex Media Server. I need to support 8 uses at any given time transcoding files from plex.

I have read the recommended hardware guide and many build posts.
Here is what I have so far:

CASE: Fractal Design R5
Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X10SL7-F-O
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231V3 3.4 GHZ
RAM: Crucial DDR3 ECC Unbuffered DDR3L 1600 - Would 16GB be sufficient or should I bump this to 32GB?
HDD: 8 same sized WD red Nas drives (likely 4 TB) (plan to use RaidZ2)
Boot: I have seen many posts about USB vs SSD for boot drive. At what cost is it worth going SSD over USB?

Additional SSD?: Many posts recommend and many don't recommend using a SSD for Plex to make thumbnail loading faster while scrolling through your library. I plan to have around 18TB of movies. Is an SSD needed to have thumbnails load instantly or is HDD just fine?

Any input would be appreciated.

 

[garm]

Some quick thoughts before my morning commute.

The memory you have isn’t in the tested list. Try sticking to those.
The CPU won’t cope with 8 parallel transcodes.
I run my IO intense applications on cheap SSDs instead on my main storage pool to spare writes to it.

 

[Jailer]

If you are starting a build knowing you need 18TB of space I would go with larger drives to begin with. 16GB of memory should suffice. Also why are you starting a new build with 3/4 year old previous generation parts?

The memory you have isn’t in the tested list. Try sticking to those.

Crucial is the house brand for Micron. As long as they are listed on Crucial's site as compatible he should be ok.

 

[IQless]

If I'm not mistaken 8x4TB drives in RaidZ2 will grant you just under 20TiB of actual storage. Factor in the recommended free space for the pool of let's say 20%, then you are down to about 16TiB (someone please correct me if I'm wrong here).

I would go with some bigger drives from the start to avoid potential performance problems :)

 

[Chris Moore]

I plan to have around 18TB of movies.

Like @IQless said, you won't have enough space to store your data with the configuration you have listed.
There is a good pool capacity calculator here if you want to try some options: http://wintelguy.com/zfs-calc.pl

I would suggest that you use 6 drives at 8TB each, still at RAIDz2, to get to the capacity you seek.
Be sure to do your burn-in testing on the drives before you establish your pool and start loading data into it.
I also suggest that you have one or two drives available, already tested, for spares.

 

[Chris Moore]

Also why are you starting a new build with 3/4 year old previous generation parts?

You can save significant cash and still have perfectly adequate performance with older parts. It isn't like we are building a competitive gaming rig.
I frequently suggest builds using X9 series boards from Supermicro. I recently bought the CPU, RAM and system board for a build and got an 8 core Xeon E5 with 64GB of memory for under $600. In some of the new systems, you would pay that much just for the memory.

For example, this DDR4 memory is $842:
https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-PC4-2133-288-Pin-CT4K16G4RFD4213-CT4C16G4RFD4213/dp/B00KUSMVVS

Where this DDR3 memory is only $316:
https://www.amazon.com/Timetec-Supermicro-1866MHz-PC3-14900-Registered/dp/B07BMM25HM

You can get even better prices for used DDR3 if you shop around on eBay but you won't find deals on new memory.

 

[Woodchuk]

Thanks for the advice on the drive space, I will switch to 6 8TB drives on RaidZ2.

Looked into the newer equipment options and found this:
MOBO: Supermicro X11SSm-F
CPU: Intel Xeon e3-1230 V5 3.4GHz
Memory: Samsung DDR4 ECC 16GB (on the recommended brand list)
This saved me about $160.19 to switch to newer hardware. (newegg purchase, may not save that much if buying from ebay)

 

[Jailer]

You can save significant cash and still have perfectly adequate performance with older parts.

Go price some unbuffered DDR3 and and you'll see why I asked the question I asked.

 

[Chris Moore]

Go price some unbuffered DDR3 and and you'll see why I asked the question I asked.

Well, that is why I am looking at registered ECC instead. New UDIMM memory is crazy expensive.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Chris Moore]

Thanks for the advice on the drive space, I will switch to 3 8TB drives on RaidZ2.

I said 6 drives, not 3. The quantity matters.

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[Jailer]

Well, that is why I am looking at registered ECC instead. New UDIMM memory is crazy expensive.

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But the board he has selected doesn't support registered memory.

My whole point being if you are building a new system the price delta is so narrow between socket 1150 and socket 1151 that unless you already own the socket 1150 pieces I don't see any reason to build a socket 1150 system.

 

[MatthewSteinhoff]

need to support 8 uses at any given time transcoding files from plex.
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231V3 3.4 GHZ

Plex recommends 2,000 PassMarks per transcoded 1080p HD stream. Eight transcoded streams is 16,000. Which is a lot. The E3-1231 is a beefy 9,631. You probably only have half the CPU you need if that is an actual requirement. You have the option of transcoding in advance but that eats up disk space.

I'd also have to run the numbers to see if a single Z2 pool could do eight HD streams.

Cheers,
Matt

 

[Chris Moore]

Plex recommends 2,000 PassMarks per transcoded 1080p HD stream. Eight transcoded streams is 16,000. Which is a lot.

That is why I was thinking a Xeon E5 would be appropriate. Something like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SR1A6-Inte...-Core-CM8063501374901-Processor-/192451846800
It has a CPU Mark of 15907, which is pretty good, and it is only $172 and you can get a board that will support it for another $200:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-X9SRL-F-E5-2609-LGA-2011/222949505211

 

[Woodchuk]

I said 6 drives, not 3. The quantity matters.

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3 was a typo, meant 6 sorry

 

[LIGISTX]

I guess my only question is, do you really need 8 simultaneous transcodes? That’s a lot of people doing a lot of streaming.

For local network movie consumption, could you not just use original quality to stream? This obviously depends on the source material and the clients ability to play said material, but 8 simultaneous streams will also require a pretty beefy internet connection. I have 200/20, and going from my ISP to another ISP even though I have the bandwidth, it can be hard to watch a single 1080p movie that only requires 5-8mbps which my connection should support just fine.... usually requires buffering stops every ~25 minutes.

Just curious, maybe I missed where you detailed this already.


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[Philip Richardson]

Just in case this is an option - Have you considered creating a dedicated server for Plex? With a workload like that, it could be cheaper to buy a standalone machine, install ubuntu server and a graphics card, buy a Plex pass and enable hardware acceleration?