Help with my new build

[BrooklynMatty]

Good Morning All,

I am building my first FreeNAS server and wanted to get input on my planned build and my main concerns are which MB/CPU combo to use, needed power supply and UPS. The purpose of our build is to provide storage for my local network at home and to handle the following services;

• Plex Transcoding 1-2 streams at a time, most likely 1 though. These would can range from DVD to Bluray (20-50gb)
• Direct Stream bluray movies to my XBMC HTPC's (2 of them, one is amazon fire tv and other is ZOTAC Atom PC) via NFS or CIFS (if i figure out NFS, only used SMB in past w/xbmc)
• Owncloud / BT Sync Setup
• SABnzb / Couchpotato / Sickbeard plugins setup

Parts
Case: Fractal Define R4 (Purchased)
MB: Supermicro MBD-X9SCM-F-O or ASRock C2750D4I
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2x8) CT2KIT102472BD160B (Purchased - compatible with either board)
CPU: E3-1230 v2 (for supermicro board)
Main zPool: 4x WD Red 3TB (RAIDZ2)
Secondary zPool: 3-4 drives ranging from 1TB to 3TB (7200rpm) - already own these and would use these as a second pool. I have too many external drives, this would be just to clean up my messy table and don't want them being in my main zpool.
PS: SeaSonic SSR-360GP ??? or do i need 450W to be safe?
UPS: (Obviously depends on PS)
Higher Wattage: CP1000AVRLCD or APC BE750G
Lower Wattage: CP685AVR 685VA

My thoughts
I am leaning towards the asrock atom SOC motherboard since the amt of SATA ports and the power it can deal out for the small power consumption. The Supermicro and Xeon would be nice, but comes out to slightly more $ with less SATA options, but positive is its supermicro name and xeon power. Will my the use of my setup be good with the intel atom? What power supply would be needed for my 4-8drive setup and which UPS would go well for it?

Thanks in advance

 

[Ericloewe]

Atom is probably fine, but it won't beat a Xeon. They are known to handle transcoding quite well, so at least that won't be a problem with the Avotons.

Supermicro has the more mature product, but the ASRock is well known around here and apparently reliable, so far. There was some gossip about trouble with the Marvell controllers, but that died down some time ago.

As for the PSU, the G-360 might not be enough if you're going to use 7200RPM drives. The G-450 has the added advantage of being semi.modular, as well.
Power consumption will never reach 360W while the server is on - the peak comes as the drives spin up - so any of those UPSes should be fine, provided they're compatible (and at least somewhat close to outputting sine waves).

 

[BrooklynMatty]

Atom is probably fine, but it won't beat a Xeon. They are known to handle transcoding quite well, so at least that won't be a problem with the Avotons.

Supermicro has the more mature product, but the ASRock is well known around here and apparently reliable, so far. There was some gossip about trouble with the Marvell controllers, but that died down some time ago.

As for the PSU, the G-360 might not be enough if you're going to use 7200RPM drives. The G-450 has the added advantage of being semi.modular, as well.
Power consumption will never reach 360W while the server is on - the peak comes as the drives spin up - so any of those UPSes should be fine, provided they're compatible (and at least somewhat close to outputting sine waves).

Thanks Eric
Motherboard combo is my biggest concern, if it wasnt for the SATA ports available, it would be a hands down bet since expanding past 4 drives would mean i would need a SATA Controller to make another Zpool (another $). Trying to keep costs down. Will the Xeon be able perform all my tasks without stutter? Will NFS be fast enough for transfering BD movies?

I think i will go for the G450 then, just for future proofing the build (7200rpm drives).

 

[Ericloewe]

Thanks Eric
Motherboard combo is my biggest concern, if it wasnt for the SATA ports available, it would be a hands down bet since expanding past 4 drives would mean i would need a SATA Controller to make another Zpool (another $). Trying to keep costs down. Will the Xeon be able perform all my tasks without stutter? Will NFS be fast enough for transfering BD movies?

I think i will go for the G450 then, just for future proofing the build (7200rpm drives).

The Xeon will easily handle most home user workloads.

CIFS might have better support than NFS, but both are fast enough for GbE.

You can also look for deals on the X10SL7-F, which already includes an LSI SAS 2308 controller. If you get a good deal on it and the Xeon to go along with it, it's an excellent solution.

 

[BrooklynMatty]

Would the 1220v3 be sufficient or having the hyperthreading of 1230v3 make a difference, the cost difference is ~50 and that is a big difference being the total cost of the system.

 

[mjws00]

I've got the 1220v3, it streams does VM's, and a whole lot more without breaking a sweat. Doubt you'd ever see a difference in real life. The 1230 was a better value when the 1220 lacked HT... currently it's 4 threads vs 8. Pretty insignificant imho.

 

[BrooklynMatty]

I've got the 1220v3, it streams does VM's, and a whole lot more without breaking a sweat. Doubt you'd ever see a difference in real life. The 1230 was a better value when the 1220 lacked HT... currently it's 4 threads vs 8. Pretty insignificant imho.

what kind of transcoding do you do and what bitrates? Just wondering since i plan on doing very high bitrate/quality BD stuff. Just want to be extra sure :)

 

[mjws00]

I'm not a super high bitrate transcoder. Pretty much all my stuff is h.264 and 1080p. Sometimes via plex, sometimes via CIFS. But there are many many threads with folks doing 10 streams on less. That said, plex transcoding is one of the places able to make use of hyperthreads... so there is that. To my way of thinking you'll be well overpowered. It is truly difficult to bottleneck these xeons. Normally you are gonna run out of bandwidth. The only way you are going to top it is dual e5's.

1230v3 is a bit faster and you pick up 4 threads for $50. 1240 beats that for $30 more.... I think you'd have to try REALLY REALLY hard to see the difference, you are at the top of the pile not trying to squeak by which affords you a little room to breathe, imho. All of these smoke any atom based rig.

The plex forums are full of threads on people trying to transcode large numbers of files. Google-fu activate. You should find a level of comfort with any e3 solution in a hurry.

"Extra sure" is accomplished via extra cash. ;) But I really don't think your requirements are that high, truth is the atom might do it as well. I don't have one so can't speak to it.

 

[mjws00]

So just for kicks did some transcoding with debug on for ya. Transcoding a 1080p source to 2Mbps 768p on the 1220v3 with 32GB ram, shows a speed of 12-14. So supposedly we could transcode 12 streams at full speed. For comparison my other plex server on an i5 2500 @ 3.3Ghz does 11-13. Virtualized on 1 core, 1 thread and 8GB ram on the 1220v3 it does 3.8.

So it scales pretty linearly based on cores and threads. I was pretty impressed with how much performance info it will spew when asked.

 

[BrooklynMatty]

So just for kicks did some transcoding with debug on for ya. Transcoding a 1080p source to 2Mbps 768p on the 1220v3 with 32GB ram, shows a speed of 12-14. So supposedly we could transcode 12 streams at full speed. For comparison my other plex server on an i5 2500 @ 3.3Ghz does 11-13. Virtualized on 1 core, 1 thread and 8GB ram on the 1220v3 it does 3.8.

So it scales pretty linearly based on cores and threads. I was pretty impressed with how much performance info it will spew when asked.

Thanks for the testing ya did, i appreciate it and it is very good to know.

Now i'm just waiting for a deal to come back, somehow there was a combo deal on newegg that literally went dead without any dates on their page and i missed it , i really should have credit card next to my bed :).