how to find out the cpu and motherboards power consumption

[qinking126]

i plan to build a cheap nas this year. most of hte time I will use it to download movies and other stuff. I want to transcode movies to ipad or other mobile devices, will use plex to do it. I want my cpu to be powerful enough (at least can handle 1080 movie transcoding) but also energy efficient (it will be on 24/7/365).


following 2 links are cpu and montherboard I want to buy. they are very cheap.

quesiton 1: I checked their spec, couldn't find anything there. I kpet hearing ppl saying some cpus have low power consumption. how to find out their power consumption. below what number is consider low power consumption.

question 2: can this cpu handle 1080p movie transcodes. i want to stream movie to my apple tv and ipad.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ASIN=B0040BPHJO&linkCode=as2&tag=brisblo0b-20

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ASIN=B00981571O&linkCode=as2&tag=brisblo0b-20


UPDATE:

this is the updated list. hopefully this will fit my needs.

CASE: Fractal Design Define Mini Cases
CPU: Intel Core i3-4130T Haswell 2.9GHz LGA 1150 35W
MB: ASRock B85M Pro4
PSU: CORSAIR CX series CX430
RAM: n/a, still doing research.​

 

[DrKK]

With this CPU, you can expect 1080p transcoding to take something like.......20? 30? hours per hour of movie. So about 2 days for a movie.

And in any case, you *CANNOT* run FreeNAS on cheap hardware. This motherboard is not even remotely good enough to run a stable, reliable, FreeNAS. If you are this constrained by price, it may be the case that FreeNAS is not a good fit for you.

 

[qinking126]

With this CPU, you can expect 1080p transcoding to take something like.......20? 30? hours per hour of movie. So about 2 days for a movie.

And in any case, you *CANNOT* run FreeNAS on cheap hardware. This motherboard is not even remotely good enough to run a stable, reliable, FreeNAS. If you are this constrained by price, it may be the case that FreeNAS is not a good fit for you.

transcoding movie is to change the file format, copy it over to ipad then play it on my ipad. thats not something I want to do.

I am confused between transcoding and streaming. what I really want is to stream 1080p movies from my freenas server to my ipad and other mobile devices at home. Is this CPU good enough to do that?



CANNOT run FreeNAS on cheap hardware. depends on what you need. this is just for downloading, and streaming movies. I dont mind to lose them. i only watch movies 1 time, I dont mind to re-download them if i lost them. other important files, I will have a backup on my computer. if I lost everything on FreeNAS server, I can always format the drive and get a copy from my computer.

 

[Michael Wulff Nielsen]

Considering what you want to do with box I think FreeNas might be overkill for your needs. One of the reasons everyone keeps screaming ECC memory is because ZFS does a lot of internal checksumming to verify your data. If you scrub a volume and your memory is defective, you can (if you're unlucky) blow away the entire volume.

For a simple media-server I would think that you are better served by using Linux or something like Windows Home Server running Plex. Your data are probably better protected on NTFS/EXT3-4 as well when running on cheap hardware.

As for your cpu, check out my simple transcoding thread: http://forums.freenas.org/threads/plex-transcoding-performance-initial-measurements.16360/

The cpu you are considering is almost on par with the one I used in single-threaded scenarios. When it comes to a multi-threaded workload an old core 2 duo is faster than that Sempron.

I would suggest using an Intel Core i3-4130, it's relatively cheap, low power and there are a ton of motherboards available.

But I still don't think FreeNas is the right fit for you, since you don't really need enterprise data-protection.

 

[qinking126]

Considering what you want to do with box I think FreeNas might be overkill for your needs. One of the reasons everyone keeps screaming ECC memory is because ZFS does a lot of internal checksumming to verify your data. If you scrub a volume and your memory is defective, you can (if you're unlucky) blow away the entire volume.

For a simple media-server I would think that you are better served by using Linux or something like Windows Home Server running Plex. Your data are probably better protected on NTFS/EXT3-4 as well when running on cheap hardware.

As for your cpu, check out my simple transcoding thread: http://forums.freenas.org/threads/plex-transcoding-performance-initial-measurements.16360/

The cpu you are considering is almost on par with the one I used in single-threaded scenarios. When it comes to a multi-threaded workload an old core 2 duo is faster than that Sempron.

I would suggest using an Intel Core i3-4130, it's relatively cheap, low power and there are a ton of motherboards available.

But I still don't think FreeNas is the right fit for you, since you don't really need enterprise data-protection.

thank you so much. based on what you suggested, i will increase my budget to get a better system.

CASE: Fractal Design Define Mini Cases
CPU: Intel Core i3-4130T Haswell 2.9GHz LGA 1150 35W
MB: ASRock B85M Pro4
PSU: CORSAIR CX series CX430
RAM: n/a, still doing research.

 

[Michael Wulff Nielsen]

I think you misunderstood me a little. FreeNas is not a good fit for a system without ecc memory.

To get ECC memory you need a server motherboard. Popular boards include the SuperMicro X9/X10 series. Personally I have ordered an Asus P9D-M board, but it hasn't arrived yet so I can't speak as to whether it is any good.

Believe me you can quickly and effectively kill a zpool without ecc memory if you are unlucky. So if you wish to use FreeNas I strongly urge you to get a server motherboard. :)

The "ASRock B85M Pro4" is a consumer motherboard with no ecc support and therefore not a good fit for FreeNAS.

 

[gpsguy]

While that statement is true for Intel, it's not true for AMD CPU's.

One of our moderators (joeschmuck) is using an Asus M5A78L-M and an AMD FX-4300 (3.8GHz) CPU with ECC RAM.

To get ECC memory you need a server motherboard.

 

[Michael Wulff Nielsen]

While that statement is true for Intel, it's not true for AMD CPU's.

True. :) Amd is just not really on my radar these days. Thats why I didn't think of it. But I am tempted to get that motherboard, it costs 1/5th of my Intel board. Any drawbacks?