BUILD New Build for Plex transcoding. Can you comment?

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ahumaro

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Jan 22, 2014
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Hi! how are you?

I'm planning to build a FreeNAS rig intended for store my important data and also for media files and transcoding with jailed Plex.

I am choosing a motherboard not listed in the recommended hardware but, what do you think about that particular component?

Chassis: Fractal Node 304
Motherboard: ASRock E3C226D2I
CPU: Xeon E3-1246 V3
RAM: 2 x Crucial 8GB ECC
PS: Silent Pro M2 850W
Storage: 6 x WD Red 4TB (for RaidZ 2)
Boot: 16GB Sandisk USB 3.0 stick

Do you think it sounds good?
Any advice or comment in the selection of components?

Thanks in advance!

Ahumaro.
 

mjws00

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Jul 25, 2014
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Looks nice to me. There aren't that many mobo's that are pure m-itx and take an 1150. The fancy ones are extended itx. The critical difference being 16GB max vs 32GB max, plus the option of a built in raid/hba controller.

The GPU on the 1246 does you no good, a 1230 or 1240 will work just as well. The power supply is utter overkill, the kids here like the seasonic psu's, you are limited to 6 drives by the case... so no need to get power for 20 ;). However, if you plan to migrate that gear elsewhere in the future.... rock on. A spare 850w psu is more useful than a spare 550w, imho.

Popular and good choices for the most part. I like the silverstone ds380 for m-itx. 8 hotswap plus 4 ssd and you can sneak in an extended itx board with the right psu. But cases, brands, form factor, future expandability are all personal preference.
 

Pharfar

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Jan 6, 2013
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I'm not a fan of small PC cases. The lack of cooling (airflow) is a big concern. Regarding PSU: Calculate approx. what your watt need will be, and then double that to find the optimal wattage of the PSU. A gold rated PSU will not be effective at low loads. Actually, the best efficiency will be at 50% load. That's why the Seasonic G360 is so popular in here ("low" watts, excellent quality)
 

ahumaro

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Jan 22, 2014
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Hi !!

Thanks for your wise comments.
Now I'm considering another PS:

Seasonic G 550

Also I'm considering the GPU-less version of the processor: Xeon E3-1241 V3

It has the same characteristics than my previous selection without the GPU.
But, since the price is only 5 dollar less, maybe I will keep the version with the GPU.
What do you think?

Ahumaro.
 

mjws00

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For $5 ($279 vs $284 on newegg) keep it all day. But you may not see much difference from a cheaper 1230v3 or 1220v3 ($199). Samba likes her clock speed, but truthfully even the 1220v3 and the ecc celerons are rarely the bottleneck. Maybe you end up throwing it in a different mobo at some point and benefit by the chip?. Up to you, I grabbed a 1220v3 only because it was on the shelf. But it never ever breaks a sweat. If it was ever the problem I'd be at an e5 not a faster e3.
 

ahumaro

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Jan 22, 2014
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Mates, thanks a lot for your suggestions and wise advises.

I now have a freenas running very well. I changed the PSU with a smaller one as you told me and, for the CPU I decided to stay with same model as my initial option.

Right now its working like a charm. Plex works great and also I am exploring jails and plugins like transmission and SABnzbd.

Best Regards!
 

sremick

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Sep 24, 2014
Messages
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This is similar hardware to what I was thinking of using. I guess I'm confused, then: I thought if you went with the GPU-less Xeon you needed a dedicated video card? "on board" graphics now came from the CPU, if you opted for it. Can someone clarify?
 

ahumaro

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Jan 22, 2014
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Hi sremick:

I think you need the graphic capabilities inside the CPU or as a dedicated graphic card. Is your decision.
In my case, I opted for the xeon WITH graphic capabilities (the price difference was minuscule).

And, talking about something that has been dazzling me a lot: until now, I haven't had the need to use the VGA port of the motherboard because this mobo has a very special feature: IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface)

That thing is really amazing, even with the server turned off, you can access to the IPMI interface (ethernet) and access the administrative webpage of the machine. Using the web interface you can change the BIOS settings, turn on or off the server, and also boot the machine and have the console inside the webpage.

So, from the first moment on, all the installation, administrative tasks and initial configuration of my machine have been done via this web interface remotely from other PC.

But again, even using this feature, you need graphic capabilities because this IPMI is linked with the graphics of the system.

Ahumaro
 

cyberjock

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Mar 25, 2012
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19,526
No, there's 4 possible outcomes:

1. No video card, onboard, on-chip, or otherwise.
2. On-board video card- A video card that is on the motherboard (not the CPU itself).
3. On-chip video card- A video card that is entirely within the CPU itself.
4. Discrete video card- A video card that is added via PCI, PCIe, AGP, etc.

You can run with #1 on some boards, but not all. Not the most recommended since if something goes wrong you have no way of easily troubleshooting it.

You can run #4 on almost all boards, but some boards are designed to only use a certain slot for video card. Still others only let you use certain video cards, etc.

You can do #2 and/or #3. Notice the "and/or" as it is possible to have an on-board and on-chip. If you have an on-board video card and also bought a CPU with video on-chip you've wasted money and will see a higher power bill and more heat wasted... forever. The on-chip video cannot be completely powered down and does NOT provde the output to the on-board video. So you paid for the same thing twice.

Almost *all* servers we recommend here are #2 because on-board is the only configuration that supports IPMI. So if you are using IPMI you are pretty much guaranteed to be a #2. AFAIK there is *no* on-chip video cards that support IPMI.

In short, if you are buying what we recommend around here, that means a motherboard with IPMI, which means your CPU should *not* have video features built-in. They will do nothing but cost you lots of money in the long run because the video portion of the chip is still powered on, but cannot be used. Whoops!
 

Ericloewe

Server Wrangler
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Feb 15, 2014
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20,176
Hi sremick:

I think you need the graphic capabilities inside the CPU or as a dedicated graphic card. Is your decision.
In my case, I opted for the xeon WITH graphic capabilities (the price difference was minuscule).

And, talking about something that has been dazzling me a lot: until now, I haven't had the need to use the VGA port of the motherboard because this mobo has a very special feature: IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface)

That thing is really amazing, even with the server turned off, you can access to the IPMI interface (ethernet) and access the administrative webpage of the machine. Using the web interface you can change the BIOS settings, turn on or off the server, and also boot the machine and have the console inside the webpage.

So, from the first moment on, all the installation, administrative tasks and initial configuration of my machine have been done via this web interface remotely from other PC.

But again, even using this feature, you need graphic capabilities because this IPMI is linked with the graphics of the system.

Ahumaro

IPMI provides a good-enough video adapter that drives the VGA port and is used to generate the image that gets sent over the network.
 

sremick

Patron
Joined
Sep 24, 2014
Messages
323
Cyberjock,

The motherboard I'm considering is the ASRock E3C226D2I, the very same one that the OP mentioned. I never saw this specific model mentioned as a "recommended" board although it is a "server" class board, and according to the OP supports IPMI. From what I'm hearing from you all, I'm fine using a non-GPU CPU in this board, although I'm not clear if the motherboard's video comes from the IPMI module/chip, or specific on-board video. The motherboard has a VGA port built-in. The specs say the video chipset is an ASPEED AST2300 which appears to be a management chipset so I'm guessing it's mostly there for the IPMI and supports the on-board VGA as a secondary benefit.
 

Ericloewe

Server Wrangler
Moderator
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Feb 15, 2014
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20,176
Cyberjock,

The motherboard I'm considering is the ASRock E3C226D2I, the very same one that the OP mentioned. I never saw this specific model mentioned as a "recommended" board although it is a "server" class board, and according to the OP supports IPMI. From what I'm hearing from you all, I'm fine using a non-GPU CPU in this board, although I'm not clear if the motherboard's video comes from the IPMI module/chip, or specific on-board video. The motherboard has a VGA port built-in. The specs say the video chipset is an ASPEED AST2300 which appears to be a management chipset so I'm guessing it's mostly there for the IPMI and supports the on-board VGA as a secondary benefit.

Exactly. Supermicro uses the AST2400 (which is 100 better than the 2300 in some way) in all IPMI X10 boards, as well as the Atom boards. No complaints here, everything works well enough.
 
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