NAS System Almost Exclusively For Plex

[Yorick]

Any reason C246 could do it but not C242? Or, for the 1% of my content that may require transcoding, couldn't the CPU handle that?

It can, absolutely. And you can always have Plex “optimize” ahead of time.

The C246 has the logic to support iGPU, the C242 does not. Board and BIOS also have to support it, and the X11SCH-F does, as reported by users who interacted with SM support about that.

As you say, it’s more a nice to have, by no means a must.

 

[ornias]

The C246 has the logic to support iGPU, the C242 does not. Board and BIOS also have to support it, and the X11SCH-F does, as reported by users who interacted with SM support about that.

Part of the "problem" is the fact SM never expected people to use the iGPU as an accelerator.

 

[LeDiable]

It can, absolutely. And you can always have Plex “optimize” ahead of time.

The C246 has the logic to support iGPU, the C242 does not. Board and BIOS also have to support it, and the X11SCH-F does, as reported by users who interacted with SM support about that.

As you say, it’s more a nice to have, by no means a must.

With all that in mind, I'm leaning toward the X11SCL, plus ditching the iGPU and getting the Core i3-9100F. And the cost savings will be used to get more RAM.

Now to sort out the case dilemma.

 

[Yorick]

Part of the "problem" is the fact SM never expected people to use the iGPU as an accelerator.

I’m not sure I follow. Whether it’s used for a graphical user interface or an accelerator makes no difference to the board.

SM has boards with iGPU support and without, for people who want to use it and people who don’t. Doesn’t seem to be a problem, just addressing boards to the market.

 

[Constantin]

Case: Norco RPC-470 - 4U, 10 internal 3.5" bays, 3 external 5.25" bays, 2 front & 4 middle fans. I'm not sure I need hot-swap bays at this time. At least I'm hoping I won't need to swap drives any time soon.

Run away. There are far better cases. That case is cheap and the way they have the drives arranged is likely similar to the Norco 431 HDD toaster I reviewed. There are awesome used supermicro cases on eBay and elsewhere that cost less and perform better. Why pay more to get less? I have a Lian Li A76 that I am very happy with. Not as Pro as the SuperMicro 836 but for my small pool it works just fine. The 836 can be had for as little as 250 bucks with drive caddies, backplane, and all that. Some sellers include a server-grade board for a minimal upcharge.

 

[ornias]

There are also extremely cheap cases available, with an actual hot-swap fanwall in the middle... I agree the Norco 431 is not that great when it comes to airflow... Indeed also doubt that the 470 is any better.

 

[LeDiable]

Run away. There are far better cases. That case is cheap and the way they have the drives arranged is likely similar to the Norco 431 HDD toaster I reviewed. There are awesome used supermicro cases on eBay and elsewhere that cost less and perform better. Why pay more to get less? I have a Lian Li A76 that I am very happy with. Not as Pro as the SuperMicro 836 but for my small pool it works just fine. The 836 can be had for as little as 250 bucks with drive caddies, backplane, and all that. Some sellers include a server-grade board for a minimal upcharge.

I bought the 836 this morning, along with a lot of other parts. $300 + shipping for the case with a pair of 920w super quiet PSUs, backplane, a couple of SAS cables, hdd trays, basically ready to drop in the board, CPU & RAM. Seemed reasonable compared to some other options. It was more than the Define 5 + a PSU, but the 16 front hot swaps, 2 rear 2.5" hot swaps ate a nice plus. All told, I'm in for about $1300 after shipping & taxes, but about $450 of that was the 64GB (2x32gb sticks) of RAM.

When I've got time tomorrow I'll update the original post with the updated config so y'all can tell me what an idiot I was with the things I bought ;)

 

[Constantin]

Well done. A much less expensive alternative to my A76. The only case hardware that comes close to Super Micro is the chenbro gear.

That Norco 431 really frustrated the living daylights out of me. Between the nonexistent airflow over the HDDs and the lack of cable support / backplane for the HDDs to plug into, it was destined to burn my NAS to a crisp in no time. The lack of space for a regular PSU didn’t help either.

 

[LeDiable]

Well, a few days later than hoped, but I did get an updated hardware list. Summary of the changes to my original plan (which is nearly everything)

• Supermicro 836 chassis replaced the Norco.
• i3-9100F instead of the 9100 or 9300.
• 64GB of RAM instead of 32.
• 6x4TB Ironwolf drives.
• LSI 9207-81 card instead of the Dell H310.

Only a couple parts left to be delivered. I've built 6 or 7 PCs before, but it has been quite some time, and honestly I'm getting a bit nervous about this. It should go smoothly, but I'm nervous one of the ebay purchases will have issues.

Anyway, I started thinking about getting a proper rack instead of putting this thing on the PC shelf of my desk. This is an area that is 100% new to me, so I'd like to get some thoughts on this. The chassis is about 25.5" deep, plus you'll have cables sticking off the back. On a whim, I checked the local CraigsList, and someone happens to have a Winsted 20U rack model 90012 (with top & side panels plus a pedastal), basically new in boxes, for $80. Now, this is only a 24" deep cabinet, and while I don't really care about the server's butt hanging out the back, can anyone tell me if this would be a bad idea, or a good deal? Can I get rails that would allow that?

Another option would be to buy rack rails from Amazon and use lumber to build my own. I'm handy (but no craftsman), so I'm not really opposed to that to save some cash and maybe even make it somewhat decorative.

Thanks!

 

[LeDiable]

Another question - the hot swap bays came with trays, but no blank/dummy inserts. Any tips on the best way of blocking off airflow through unused trays so air is forced across the installed drives?

And just to aggrevate my mild OCD, the caddies have numbered labels stuck on them, but they're not even close to a sequence, unless someone can figure out the pattern here:
1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 12, 12, 14, 15
I've got a label maker, so that will probably get fixed some time after things are up & running.

 

[LeDiable]

While looking at the tracking info for my SATADOMs & HBA, I realized I screwed up and the HBA only has a low-profile plate, while my chassis uses full-height slots. I don't have anything like that lying around so I'm considering buying a Supermicro AOC-S2308L-L8i and flashing to IT mode and returning the other card. The seller I bought the chassis from has the card for $45. Since I got the chassis a day after it shipped, the card would hopefully be here quickly as well.

 

[LeDiable]

Minor update. Assembled the internals today. Leaving the HDDs for later. Haven't powered up yet, as I ran into two distinct problems related to cabling:

• I failed to notice the included backplane cable is SFF-8087 to SFF-8643, but my HBA only has SFF-8087 ports. Placed an Amazon order for that, should be here Saturday (thank goodness for Prime).
• Of the 5 case fans, only the right rear and the right fanwall fans are close enough to headers to be plugged in. The other two fanwall fans are 2-4cm short. The left rear fan is well short of a header, about 10cm. Additionally, I've got a 6 fans (CPU & 5 case fans), but only 5 headers.
  • There was already an extension on one of the rear fans, so I moved that to the left fanwall fan.
  • For now, I've plugged the middle fanwall fan into the backplane until I can get more extensions.
  • For the left rear fan, I'm going to leave it out for now. It is right behind the Noctua NH-D9L which is oriented to push air out the back. Once Amazon or Newegg have the Noctua NF-8A PWM back in stock, I'll pick up a pair of those. They come with Y-cables so I'll plug both into the header where I currently plugged in the right rear fan.

Dang server chassis. Some day, this thing may actually get powered up. Although I'm really tempted to now so I can get the HBA flashed to IT mode and maybe start all the burn in stuff.

 

[LeDiable]

Well yet another roadblock. The SATADOMs I purchased came with a 4-pin power cable. The motherboard can supply power on the two yellow SATA ports, but apparently not to these disks.

Replacement power cables are very rare, and the few that I have found are $15-20. Someone over at servethehome identified the plastic housing & crimp connectors to make it himself, so I may have to try that. $7-8 from digikey depending on how many spare parts I get. Knowing myself, I'll want some extras.

For now, the CPU stress test is running, so far the CPU hasn't gotten to 55C yet. I ran memtest for 6-7 hrs, no errors. Will run that again for a longer period soon.