Low Power CPU Suggestion

[0Neji]

Hi,

New to the forums so go easy :)

I'm looking to build a home NAS to hold my media files and transcode to various devices through the house. I've been researching this and it's a minefield - very overwhelming for a noob like myself.

So today I've been looking at CPUs - my needs are as follows:

1) Transcode/stream two or three 1080p videos at once
2) As low power as possible to achieve the above
3) As low price as possible to meet the above

I don't mind spending the extra to get what I'm after - the most important thing really is it being as low power as possible to transcode. This will be running 24/7 and I'm not the only one paying the bills so that's where the need comes from.

I've checked out the stickies and fairly happy that the suggested Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 will do what I need. I've also noticed a Intel Xeon E3-1220-V2 for around £20 cheaper. Not a lot of money, granted but is it worth forking out the extra for the E3-1230-V2 or will the slightly cheaper version do? Also suggested in the hardware sticky is the slightly more expensive E3-1230-V3. Again, same question really, that's an extra £20 - is it work going the extra for this?

EDIT: Just been doing some more reading around this and it appears that the i3s could also be an option - something like the i3-4330. Now that processor is at a very agreeable pricepoint, a good £50-60 cheaper than the others I was considering. question is, will it meet my requirements?

Obviously, any other cheaper options that I may have missed that meet my requirements would be more than welcome.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[JackShine]

Id go for an I3 they run pretty cool and don’t fail.

Of course FreeNAS is for storage, so your main PC does all the fancy shit.

 

[Fraoch]

But if you're doing transcoding via Plex in FreeNAS, it will rely on the CPU in the FreeNAS server.

The Core i3 will do fine for transcoding 2-3 streams.

 

[JackShine]

lol, u are silly

 

[Fraoch]

How so? That's entirely accurate.

 

[DKarnov]

If your priority is power draw over up-front price, get an Avoton board like this one. Google searching say the C2750 can easily handle two or three streams. I don't think I'd go C2550, though. That ASRock board also makes a fine FreeNAS base.

If you do decide to go socketed, get an i3-41x0 over the 43x0 - the difference is in the on-board graphics, and Plex doesn't use Quick Sync graphics acceleration for transcoding.

 

[sremick]

Not sure what your definition of "low power" is but my system is on the high-end and only draws 40-45W idle.

 

[0Neji]

Thanks for the responses, looks like I'll opt for an i3 4130 which is even cheaper than the i3 4330 although I'll have a look at the Avoton as well.

In terms of a motherboard for the i3 - would the Supermicro X10SSL-F be a good option? Overkill? I'd like to have something with the possibility of having 6+ disks but I notice plenty of cheap consumer boards but not really sure if they'd be suitable for such a NAS?

@sremick - That's be ideal really.

 

[marbus90]

*sigh* https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

 

[0Neji]

Thanks marbus90, apologies for the redundant question. In my defence I did read that thread first - I've just read so much about this over the past few days that I'd forgotten some of it!

 

[Ericloewe]

The X10SLL-F is okay, but the X10SLL+-F includes Micron RAM in its QVL. If you were planning on getting Crucial, it might be worth the extra expense (you also get matched Intel i210 GbE adapters).

 

[DaveFL]

You can get a TS140 for like $200. I would expect that to work.

Also, you might want to consider an Atom. This fellow claims he had no issues with 3 streams on a 2750. You won't get lower power than that.

https://cyberj0ck.wordpress.com/

Some example builds:

Could easily do without the slog in either.

http://www.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/2go6cm/my_freenas_build_with_supermicro_a1sai2750f_and/
http://pivotallabs.com/high-performing-mid-range-nas-server/

 

[ian351c]

I just wanted to pitch in with my $0.02 (or £0.02 as the case may be) (or is that 2d.?). ANYWAYS... I've done the whole "low power build" before (I currently have an ESXi Server running a Core i5-2400S and a FreeNAS server running a Core i3-2100T). I have found that with both machines spending the majority of their time mostly idle, they use very little power in the long run. Something on the order of less than 500 Watt-hours of electricity per day each (which means I'm paying a few cents per day to run them). And even then, the majority of the power use is the hard disks. For the extra cash you spend on the power efficient CPUs over the regular ones, combined with the fact that they sit mostly idle and the fact that Haswells are so power efficient to begin with, it just doesn't make financial sense to go down that road these days.

Of course, if you want to do it just to do it, or you're running your house on solar panels and every watt counts, carry on... ;)