How much RAM do I really need?

[djdwosk97]

And therein lies the problem.

Well, I asked Asrock support; so we'll see.

 

[nightshade00013]

This is another horse that we get to beat to death. Simply put take the value of your data and your time and divide that by the cost of the hardware. If you are trying to get by cheaper by using something and making an assumption remember that your data is worth a whole lot more to you than the engineer at the company who made the enthusiast board you want to use. That is why it's cheaper that way.

Figure a triangle with Low cost, power efficient and data integrity at each corner, pick two. Post your decision here and someone will give you a build to work with, an X99 board will not be in the mix no matter what.

 

[djdwosk97]

This is another horse that we get to beat to death. Simply put take the value of your data and your time and divide that by the cost of the hardware. If you are trying to get by cheaper by using something and making an assumption remember that your data is worth a whole lot more to you than the engineer at the company who made the enthusiast board you want to use. That is why it's cheaper that way.

Figure a triangle with Low cost, power efficient and data integrity at each corner, pick two. Post your decision here and someone will give you a build to work with, an X99 board will not be in the mix no matter what.

It would take over five years for the slightly more efficient X10 board to consume $100 less electricity than an X99 board.

 

[nightshade00013]

At the loss of data integrity. By all means build whatever you want. You obviously do not want advice from the community. Might I offer you a place to get information you would rather have? I think Linus would be perfect for you to follow, his advice will suit your desires.

 

[djdwosk97]

At the loss of data integrity. By all means build whatever you want. You obviously do not want advice from the community. Might I offer you a place to get information you would rather have? I think Linus would be perfect for you to follow, his advice will suit your desires.

lol, right, I forgot that server grade boards are invulnerable. As a general rule high end consumer components don't just fail either, bad luck is bad luck -- not to say that I agree with the actual setup of Linus' server. Try to not sound like such an elitist prick.

 

[TheKiwi]

file transfers aren't a big deal, and from what I've read plex is able to take advantage of multiple cores and so the extra cores should outweigh the slower clock speed.

Although I'm still completely undecided as to which route to take :/

The E5 2603v3 is a bad idea for a lot of reasons. It's pretty much an awful CPU in every single way.

* The clock speed is extremely low
* No turbo-boost functionality, so the clock never goes higher.
* No hyper-threading.
* Half the cache of some other E5-2600 chips.

What this boils down to is that this CPU is half as powerful as my cheap Xeon E3-1231 v3 in passmark (passmark matters for plex), and it'll give you crap SMB file sharing performance because of the low clockspeed. The only advantage to this chip is the large amount of PCI-E and support for massive amounts of DDR4 RAM.

If you wish to stay on the E5 platform, you can pick up a much more suitable E5-1620 v3, or drop down the E3 platform and get a 1230 v5. Both of these options would perform far better then the CPU you are looking at in just about everything. They have two less cores, but the clockspeed and hyperthreading make up for it in a huge way.

As for server boards, a nice Supermicro really isn't a lot more then the consumer ones. It's worth it for the reliability, simplier part list (no silly extra sound controllers and "gamer" features to mess up your freenas install), better ethernet, and the IPMI features most server boards have.

 

[tres_kun]

How will the Asrock X99 WS-E/10G
handle freenas?
it has a lot to offer

 

[TheKiwi]

How will the Asrock X99 WS-E/10G
handle freenas?
it has a lot to offer

It'll probably work. I wont recommend it, though. Also, you might be better served making your own thread to ask this.

 

[jgreco]

One more thing to throw gas on the fire of indecision for you, the E5-2603v3 is a very underwhelming cpu with it 1.6Ghz clock. You are likely to find yourself cpu bound for file transfers and other tasks.

Correct, no turbo, no hyperthreading, it's a pathetic excuse for a CPU.

But more importantly, why the !#(@!$#*(#@($@# would you get that piece of trash for a single-socket board? Go get yourself an E5-1620v3 and call it a day. A little more expensive, a LOT more competent. Around here, we like the E5-1650v3 which is like a six core version of that.

 

[jgreco]

How will the Asrock X99 WS-E/10G
handle freenas?
it has a lot to offer

Like what? Besides reducing the balance in your bank account, that is.

Why not just get a board made for the task? That board's designed to be a workstation. Some things, like the x16 slots, are useless with FreeNAS. Some things, like the X540 ethernet, are known to be potentially problematic with FreeNAS. There's no value to having sound. There's little value to having eSATA. What a waste. It's a nice board for a workstation but at $500 it costs more than twice what we'd suggest.

Go get yourself a nice X10SRL-F board ($240). Take some of the cash you just saved and go all out on the CPU instead, get a nice E5-1650 v3. You'll have a totally spectacular Plex platform.

 

[jgreco]

Yeah, 80tb raw might be a bit too much for a 32gb system to handle well.

When I originally bumped the minimum RAM requirement up from 6GB to 8GB, I also rewrote a lot of the remaining wording there to be a little vague as to what was meant. The rules aren't hard and fast as long as you're not stupid-small. It basically boils down to the fact that more memory is better than less. It deliberately doesn't say whether it's a ratio of RAM to raw disk, or RAM to pool space, or RAM to used disk space.

The proposed system is getting close to what I'd consider a poor configuration, but isn't actually there.

 

[djdwosk97]

The E5 2603v3 is a bad idea for a lot of reasons. It's pretty much an awful CPU in every single way.

* The clock speed is extremely low
* No turbo-boost functionality, so the clock never goes higher.
* No hyper-threading.
* Half the cache of some other E5-2600 chips.

What this boils down to is that this CPU is half as powerful as my cheap Xeon E3-1231 v3 in passmark (passmark matters for plex), and it'll give you crap SMB file sharing performance because of the low clockspeed. The only advantage to this chip is the large amount of PCI-E and support for massive amounts of DDR4 RAM.

If you wish to stay on the E5 platform, you can pick up a much more suitable E5-1620 v3, or drop down the E3 platform and get a 1230 v5. Both of these options would perform far better then the CPU you are looking at in just about everything. They have two less cores, but the clockspeed and hyperthreading make up for it in a huge way.

As for server boards, a nice Supermicro really isn't a lot more then the consumer ones. It's worth it for the reliability, simplier part list (no silly extra sound controllers and "gamer" features to mess up your freenas install), better ethernet, and the IPMI features most server boards have.

Depending on the workload the significantly lower clockspeed may not make that much of a difference considering the extra cores, and so far from what I've read Plex is able to take advantage of more cores anyway (more so than it would be affected by the slower cores). I've already asked this question further up in the thread but still haven't actually gotten any responses on the matter. So whether or not that initial assumption/research is accurate is something else entirely.

Yes, I know the v3 is a more powerful choice, however I'd also be limited to 32gb of RAM, and the V5 is significantly more expensive (and for my workload a Pentium is enough for right now even). I also really question that passmark requirement. Everything I've read points to every 2000~ in passmark means one 1080p transcoded stream. Well, I have no issues running two 6MB/s transcoded streams and three only has a very rare occasional stutter. The difference is that an X99 LGA2011-3 board will allow me to go Haswell-E for the same cost as a Skylake i3, step up to a supermicro board and that's no longer the case, and thus LGA2011-3 no longer makes sense for me. And the X99 board is still using an Intel NIC.

But for other reasons, I'm probably going to go with a Skylake i3 anyway.

 

[TheKiwi]

Depending on the workload the significantly lower clockspeed may not make that much of a difference considering the extra cores, and so far from what I've read Plex is able to take advantage of more cores anyway (more so than it would be affected by the slower cores). I've already asked this question further up in the thread but still haven't actually gotten any responses on the matter. So whether or not that initial assumption/research is accurate is something else entirely.

Yes, I know the v3 is a more powerful choice, however I'd also be limited to 32gb of RAM, and the V5 is significantly more expensive (and for my workload a Pentium is enough for right now even). I also really question that passmark requirement. Everything I've read points to every 2000~ in passmark means one 1080p transcoded stream. Well, I have no issues running two 6MB/s transcoded streams and three only has a very rare occasional stutter. The difference is that an X99 LGA2011-3 board will allow me to go Haswell-E for the same cost as a Skylake i3, step up to a supermicro board and that's no longer the case, and thus LGA2011-3 no longer makes sense for me. And the X99 board is still using an Intel NIC.

But for other reasons, I'm probably going to go with a Skylake i3 anyway.

A skylake i3 is fine. But keep in mind the E5-1620 v3 I mentioned. It's not a lot more then the E5-2603v 3 and it's a much better CPU.

 

[djdwosk97]

A skylake i3 is fine. But keep in mind the E5-1620 v3 I mentioned. It's not a lot more then the E5-2603v 3 and it's a much better CPU.

X11SSM-F-O -- $210
16gb unbuffered DDR4 -- $140
i3-6100 -- $120
1220v5 -- $220
1230v5 -- $275
SSD -- $40

X99m Extreme4 -- $165
X10SRL-F -- $235 (This was showing up as $280 for me on google, so that's why I was favoring X99)
16gb Registered DDR4 -- $100
2603v3 -- $220
1620v3 -- $310

My options:

• X99m Extreme4 +2603v3 + 16gb Registered DDR4 --> $500
• X99m Extreme4 + 1620v3 + 16gb Registered DDR4 --> $600
• w/ a bundle X10SRL-F + 2603v3 -- $460 + 16gb Registered DDR4 --> $570
• w/ a bundle X10SRL-F + 1620v3 -- $550 ($535 if I go for an Asrock EPC612D8) + 16gb Registered DDR4 --> $660
• X11SSM-F-O + i3-6100 + 16gb unbuffered DDR4 + SSD --> $510
• X11SSM-F-O + Xeon E3 1220v5 + 16gb unbuffered DDR4 + SSD --> $610
• X11SSM-F-O + E3 1230v5 + 16gb unbuffered DDR4 + SSD --> $665

Having opened up the Newegg link and realizing that the X10SRL-F is actually $50 less than it was being shown as may change things a bit, although the i3 is still quite a bit cheaper. Realistically I'll probably never do anything other than handle plex and more than likely there won't be more than three transcoded users (at most) -- although I kind of want to leave room for more, but at the same time I'd rather not spend the money.

 

[TheKiwi]

X11SSM-F-O -- $210
16gb unbuffered DDR4 -- $140
i3-6100 -- $120
1220v5 -- $220
1230v5 -- $275
SSD -- $40

X99m Extreme4 -- $165
X10SRL-F -- $235 (This was showing up as $280 for me on google, so that's why I was favoring X99)
16gb Registered DDR4 -- $100
2603v3 -- $220
1620v3 -- $310

My options:

• X99m Extreme4 +2603v3 + 16gb Registered DDR4 --> $500
• X99m Extreme4 + 1620v3 + 16gb Registered DDR4 --> $600
• w/ a bundle X10SRL-F + 2603v3 -- $460 + 16gb Registered DDR4 --> $570
• w/ a bundle X10SRL-F + 1620v3 -- $550 ($535 if I go for an Asrock EPC612D8) + 16gb Registered DDR4 --> $660
• X11SSM-F-O + i3-6100 + 16gb unbuffered DDR4 + SSD --> $510
• X11SSM-F-O + Xeon E3 1220v5 + 16gb unbuffered DDR4 + SSD --> $610
• X11SSM-F-O + E3 1230v5 + 16gb unbuffered DDR4 + SSD --> $665

Having opened up the Newegg link and realizing that the X10SRL-F is actually $50 less than it was being shown as may change things a bit, although the i3 is still quite a bit cheaper. Realistically I'll probably never do anything other than handle plex and more than likely there won't be more than three transcoded users (at most) -- although I kind of want to leave room for more, but at the same time I'd rather not spend the money.

Any of the Skylake builds are good, but the "no usb support" thing does push the price up, yeah. If the SSD wasn't a factor, they'd be the best option for sure. I still have doubts about that 2603v3 being suitable if you are using any windows clients to access files directly on the NAS, because of the extremely low single-threaded speed for samba (and the fact that overall it's the slowest CPU in passmark, even compared to the i3). I'd pick the i3 over it, personally. You'd save power, too.

If you want extra performance, the 1220v5 seems nice. The 1230v5 and 1620v3 options are both good, but at the price difference I'd personally pick the 1620v3 for that little bit more. I'm also gonna say go with the server boards.

 

[djdwosk97]

Any of the Skylake builds are good, but the "no usb support" thing does push the price up, yeah. If the SSD wasn't a factor, they'd be the best option for sure. I still have doubts about that 2603v3 being suitable if you are using any windows clients to access files directly on the NAS, because of the extremely low single-threaded speed for samba (and the fact that overall it's the slowest CPU in passmark, even compared to the i3). I'd pick the i3 over it, personally. You'd save power, too.

If you want extra performance, the 1220v5 seems nice. The 1230v5 and 1620v3 options are both good, but at the price difference I'd personally pick the 1620v3 for that little bit more. I'm also gonna say go with the server boards.

Yeah, I'd go with the 1620v3 over the 1230v5 as well if not just for the extra RAM support.

The only time I ever really do file transfers is if I'm trying to add new content -- and I would probably be limited by my wifi connection anyway (everything in my house has to be wireless due to reasons, so I'm only getting like 13MB/s between my computer and the server). But regardless, I'm probably stuck between the 1620v3 and the 6100. The 6100 should be enough for now, I'm just thinking in the future, if the 6100 can handle three transcoded 1080p streams, what's going to happen once I have some 4k content to stream....Which is pushing me towards the 1620v3. But I also really don't want to spend that kind of money (I don't even really want to spend the $500 that the 6100 would cost me -- the only reason I'd want to upgrade now is because I'd like to move to ECC memory, otherwise what I have now really is sufficient -- there's only really one transcoded stream at any one time right now).

 

[TheKiwi]

If you plan on going to 4K, you'll want the 1620v3/1230v5. 4K is extremely intensive to transcode. It's basically four times as hard as 1080p, and that's not including the fact that 4K content often uses newer and more advanced file formats that take more power to process.

The parts cost $160~ more now, but it may be better then having to upgrade later for 4K. Up to you.

And remember, there's still the haswell/X10 option. It's the cheapest and makes the most sense, and it's just as fast as the 1620v3/1230v5 option. Only downside, the 32GB RAM limit, which may be totally fine for your use case. I went with haswell for my 6*3TB RAIDZ2 last month,

 

[djdwosk97]

If you plan on going to 4K, you'll want the 1620v3/1230v5. 4K is extremely intensive to transcode. It's basically four times as hard as 1080p, and that's not including the fact that 4K content often uses newer and more advanced file formats that take more power to process.

The parts cost $160~ more now, but it may be better then having to upgrade later for 4K. Up to you.

And remember, there's still the haswell/X10 option. It's the cheapest and makes the most sense, but you have a 32GB RAM limit, which may be fine for your use case.

At some point I'll definitely start streaming 4K, but that's probably at least a few years out. So I can't decide whether it makes more sense to not think about it and go cheap now or if it makes sense to future proof. Generally I'm of the belief that it makes more sense not to spend a ton more in future proofing because by the time you'll need that performance the hardware for it will be around the price delta.

But I wasn't considering 4K when I decided that I didn't like the 32gb limit of haswell. But if I'm not going to future proof for 4K, then I probably won't run into a 32gb ram limit.

 

[tvsjr]

You get a bunch of storage and a powerful box, and suddenly you'll start thinking "what if" where 4K is concerned. Buy the extra HP now.

 

[djdwosk97]

You get a bunch of storage and a powerful box, and suddenly you'll start thinking "what if" where 4K is concerned. Buy the extra HP now.

Even a 1620 would struggle transcoding 4K for more than one, maybe two users, no?