New Build - Hardware recommendation

[crosbb]

Background
I have a 4-5 year old server running WHS and I am ready to move on. My existing setup serves as a file share for movies, TV shows, music, home videos and pictures. I also run Sabnzbd, Sickbeard and Couch potato and a MySQL database for XBMC library info. I also have me eye on headphones and Maraschino, so that would add more to the load.

This thing has slowed to a crawl over the years and I want to give FreeNAS a shot. One goal I have before starting is new hardware. I currently have 1GB ddr RAM and an older dual core AMD CPU.

New Configuration
I want to go with a new Intel platform and am thinking of either the G540 or an i3 with 16 GB RAM. I have several 1 and 2 TB drives that I will continue to use.

My question is with this much activity on this server will 2 cores keep up? Would a 4 core i5 serve me better, or maybe one of the AMD quad cores? I'm trying to keep costs down, but I don't want to bottle neck my new server right out of the gate.

Thanks for your help.

 

[survive]

Hi crosbb,

I'm running an 8 X 1TB zaidr2 system on a Supermicro board with an i3-2100 and it works great. I can't say I've ever come close to maxing out the processor...taking a look at my CPU graph, since May I can maybe see one spot where I was using 1 of the 4 threads completely.

That said, I would spring for an Ivy Bridge i3 over a pentium. I would be really surprised if you came close to topping out one of those chips.

-Will

 

[crosbb]

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I will go for the i3 Ivy Bridge.

 

[gt_614]

In my opinion that's a bit overkill. I use an AMD Sempron 145 that I picked up from Newegg for 30$. I have a CIFS share setup and use the plugins Minidlna, transmission, Sickbeard and Sabnzbd. My plugin PBI is bonded to the add on nic.

My complete hardware setup

AMD Sempron 145
GA-78LMT-S2 Mobo
8 GB Ram
(4) 3TB WD Green drives
NETIS AD-1103 Giga Ethernet Adapter

I have this setup in a Raid-Z array. I get about 65MBs on write speeds and never come close to exceeding processor or memory max.

 

[crosbb]

It's good to know a lower powered CPU would work as well.

My main concern is having issues with all of those processes running and still serving media files. In my current setup, I get hesitation/skipping when watching a Movie while Sabnzbd processes a file when done downloading. I want to avoid any of these issues now and in the future. I don't have a problem spending a little more now to get the headroom down the road. Who knows what else I will use this server for. My current server went from a simple file share to much more than that.

My plugin PBI is bonded to the add on nic.

I'm new to Freenas, does this mean that the plugins (Sabnzbd, sickbeard, etc.) can use a seperate NIC card dedicated to that traffic?

 

[raidflex]

I use a Pentium G530/16GB RAM with 8x2TB drives in a RAIDZ2 and I can push 100MB/sec to my windows 7 box. So an i3 will be more then a enough. One benefit that I would see with the i3 is better performance with apps like sabnzbd where it needs to extract and repair files. But even then my G530 handles that perfectly fine.

I also use XMBC and have done extracting/repairing in SAB while streaming to one of my XBMC boxes without any issues.

 

[gt_614]

It's good to know a lower powered CPU would work as well.

My main concern is having issues with all of those processes running and still serving media files. In my current setup, I get hesitation/skipping when watching a Movie while Sabnzbd processes a file when done downloading. I want to avoid any of these issues now and in the future. I don't have a problem spending a little more now to get the headroom down the road. Who knows what else I will use this server for. My current server went from a simple file share to much more than that.


I'm new to Freenas, does this mean that the plugins (Sabnzbd, sickbeard, etc.) can use a seperate NIC card dedicated to that traffic?

Yes you can dedicate different nics for your plugins and/or CIFS/NFS shares.

 

[crosbb]

Thanks for everyone's feedback. I just ordered the i3-3220 with MB and RAM, maybe more than I need for now, but the system can grow with my needs, at least that's what I'm telling myself :)

I also picked up another 2TB drive to give me a complete random cluster of drives. I am reading up on the different configurations for zfs and am looking for suggestions. Knowing my use of streaming media/downloading content, how would you best configure these drives?

2x 2TB
2x 1.5 TB
2x 1 TB

I was thinking of creating 2 Raidz vdevs of 3 drives each in one pool
vdev1 - 2x 2TB + 1x 1.5 TB
vdev2 - 2x 1TB + 1X 1.5 TB

If my math is correct that gives me ~5 TB of usable space.

The other obvious configuration would be 3 vdevs each with 2 mirrored disks. This would yield ~4.5 TB of space.

I like the Raidz 3 drive vdev configuration in general for future expandability, plus it gives me more usable space now.

My goal is redundancy of all of my files (which I currently don't have) and best use of my drives for both data protection and performance. I realize once I set these up, I'm stuck with the configuration to a point so any help is appreciated.

Thanks