Moving storage from online to local

[Poore]

I was initially going to use unRAID but had a friend recommend FreeNAS so I started to look around and do a lot of reading. The documentation here seems a lot better or at least easier to find. I had my build planned out for unRAID but after reading through the recommendations and how FreeNAS works I made some changes and wanted to see if this was acceptable

This is a Plex media server with about 30 users. Is there anything I should be aware of to help improve performance and access during setup? I currently have this server running but utilizing CloudBox and GSuite drive storage. With Google changing the costs and rules I'm not taking a change and just going local storage. I have a fiber 1000mb up/down connection

When doing my reading I couldn't find if plugins install where the OS is located or in the datastore?

Here is what I am working with:
*Mobo – Gigabyte GA-7PESH 4 – Doing Link Aggregation with Unifi US-8-150W switch
*CPU – 2 of Intel Xeon E5-2670 v2
*RAM - 4x [SK Hynix PC3-12800R DDR3 1600MHz ECC 16 x 16Gb = 256Gb ]
*GPU for transcoding – ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 Mini
*HBA - LSI 9300-16i 16-port LSI00447 12Gb
*OS Drive – 2 of ADATA SU800 128GB - Using the 2 internal SATA ports on MB for these.
*Dedicated SSD Write Log - Crucial BX500 240GB 3D - Read this was a good idea
*HDD – 10 WD 12Tb and 2 14Tb White Label - RAIDZ2 - the 2 14Tb drives were bought originally for unRAID. The recommend larger drives for parity
*PSU - Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 850W 80+ Gold
*Left over - Intel NVMe 660p 2Tb - I now have this left over. Originally Plex was going to have it's database and run from here.

 

[jayecin]

I would be concerned with Transcoding, both those CPUs combined could transcode a single 4k .265 movie to 1080p and be running around 60-70% total usage. The 1060 (and all Nvidia gaming GPUs) is limited to 2 concurrent transcodes, so you will be be able to transcode 3 4k movies at a time. If you dont have alot or any 4k content, it should be fine, but this build would be a tough sell for 4k content and 30 users.

Verify the load balancing mechanics of that switch. If it load balances based on MAC addresses only, you will only ever utilize a single link for remote plex media users, its probably not really even needed since the users will be limited to your ISP bandwidth which is also 1gbps. Link aggregation with freenas tends to cause more problems than it solves.

 

[ChrisRJ]

Using a single (no redundancy) consumer SSD for the write log is probably not a good idea. It will wear out relatively quickly and also there is a risk of data loss in case of power loss. A couple of years ago the recommendation was to go for SLC, but I guess those will be hard to find today. Anyway, I would only use a pair (mirrored!) of enterprise SSDs here.