BUILD Plex NAS Server Build Questions & Validation

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bjurewicz21

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So I’m new to FreeNAS and have spent over a month reading through all the stickies and many other build threads, and I think I have come up with a build. But seeing as I am no expert I don’t entirely trust myself ensuring it will all work together and accomplish everything I would like it to.

FreeNAS Purpose:
1- Plex Media Server (minimum 2 streams now and highly expandable to allow friends to view over the internet in the future once I feel comfortable being the system admin)
2- Local back-up of pictures & files
3- Offsite back-up of pictures & files for parents
4- Other (haven’t gone through all the plugins yet so suggestions are welcome)

My first thread is here: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/plex-nas-build-questions.35562/

In my first thread I thought about using the Atom C2750, however was convinced that I should step up to use the Xeon E3 for future expand-ability. So I rethought my build, reread the stickies and started planning, and this is what I came up with.

MOTHERBOARD: SuperMicro X10SL7-F-O ($270)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182821

CPU: Xeon E3-1241 v3 (Passmark 10056) ($275)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117315

MEMORY: Crucial 16GB Kit (2x8GB) CT2CP102472BD160B ($143)

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-DDR3L-1600MT-PC3-12800-CT2KIT102472BD160B-CT2CP102472BD160B/dp/B008EMA5VU/ref=pd_bxgy_147_text_y
*Even after reading the X10 RAM sticky I still had a hard time ensuring the memory would be compatible (hopefully this one is, otherwise someone please correct me and call me an idiot)
**Probably add 2nd kit when 2nd vdev is added

BOOT DRIVE: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 16GB x2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FYNSZA/?tag=ozlp-20
*Planning to mirror boot drive as a cheap insurance policy :)

SSD: Planning on using it for Jail so that my hdds can spin down
*can this be added later or should it be added right away?
**reason for spin down is that this NAS will mainly only be used over the weekends.

HDD: 6xWD Red 3TB (already purchased) (Normal=$720 but Sale=$600)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236344
*Will be expanding with a second vdev of 6 drives to end up with 12 total, however I could get more as I will aim to fill whatever chassis is bought (ie: 16 bay case I would buy 2 more drives and have 2 vdevs of 8 drives each)

CASE: *Looking for other suggestions. I would prefer a tower, but am open to a rackmount as long as it can be set on a shelf instead of mounted in a rack.
Nanoxia Deep Silence 1
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008J1I0I6/?tag=ozlp-20
with a bay adapter http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198059

PSU: Looking for input. I really liked the idea of the Corsair zero rpm fan at low loads, but I know that Seasonic is the most recommended brand. Has anyone used the corsair?
Corsair RM450 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139052
Seasonic SSR-450RM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151124

Thank you in advance for any assistance :)
 
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PSU: Looking for input. I really liked the idea of the Corsair zero rpm fan at low loads, but I know that Seasonic is the most recommended brand. Has anyone used the corsair?
Corsair RM450 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139052
Seasonic SSR-450RM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151124
Personally, I'd go with the Seasonic. I have the little bit bigger brother to the 450. Seem to work great and the modular cables are a plus.
 

mjt5282

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I own several of the same motherboards and nearly the same CPU's. I would recommend buying the Supermicro SATA DOM 32Gb (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816139090) instead of mirrored USB drives. My little experience is that they can be relatively flakey. Don't forget to flash the embedded LSI to driver 16, IT mode.
 

bjurewicz21

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Thanks for the responses.

I guess I will be going with the seasonic psu. I think I was caught up a little bit in the marketing of the zero rpm fan for the corsair psu.

Mjt5282 that's a nice idea but I don't think I can justify paying 10x more then what I can get a 16gb flash drive for. The SanDisk cruiser fit is only $6.99 on amazon, and I feel confident enough with people like cyberjock using that as their boot device that it will be reliable. However if I do end up seeing some weird stuff happening I will consider upgrading to a satadom. Also yes thank you for that reminder I will be sure to flash the LSI controller to IT mode (although it will be my first attempt in doing something like that).
 

ryanakata

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bjurewicz21,

I signed up yesterday as I am too building a system to match your exact purpose. I am using the Fractal Design Node 304 ($59 on NewEgg right now), and I have an emphasis on silence as it will be located underneath my tv area as it serves up Plex for the family.

What about the C2750 did you not like? It seemed to me that it would be more than capable for your purpose as well as low power consumption and zero noise. I'm torn between the SuperMicro MBD-A1SAi-2750F-O or the ASRock c2750d4i.

If you stick with the Xeon, it looks like Amazon has it a tad cheaper. I'm not trying to sway you one way or the other on the board and CPU, just wanting to hear your reasoning. To be honest once you pull the trigger, I'm probably going to do a mirror build.
 

bjurewicz21

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So in the beginning if you read my first post (https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/plex-nas-build-questions.35562/), I actually planned this build using the Atom C2750 on the ASRock board since it gave me all the extra SATA connections. However, after looking through my current need of minimal streaming and basically a basic idea of what to do with FreeNAS I decided that I wanted to have more capable power behind my machine. The power could then be used to utilize other plugins while still maintaining plenty of transcoding in PLEX. Also, I plan to open this up to my friends and I don't want to be under powered and have to throttle some of the transcodes. Besides this I am thinking that I am already spending a lot of money on the system, why not spend a little bit more and be able to use it for a much longer period before it would require to be replaced. Aside from the added power, I also reasoned that if something were to ever happen to the motherboard or CPU I would only have to replace one instead of the entire system (hopefully).

As far as the power consumption you talk about, @cyberjock made comments about how the idle power consumption between the weaker processor (even if you drop all the way to pentiums) and a Xeon won't even be noticed, and its always better to have the available power there if you ever need it because you never know what you will end up doing with the system in the future as your needs grow.

I went on to justify this to myself with math (I'm and engineer who does cost/benefit analysis for part of my job).
MOBO+CPU Price Passmark Passmark/Price
ASRock+C2750 $400 3929 9.82
SuperMicro+Xeon 1241 $545 10056 18.45

Conclusion:
36% price increase yields a 156% performance improvement
Extra $145 makes your money worth twice as much if using passmark for value

Eventual price of component, yea I was planning on shopping around when I pull the trigger (hopefully find a sale like i did with the HDDs) but I like the easy navigation of NewEgg for planning stuff as opposed to amazon where one search yields 18 of the same item sometimes. Also be sure to note whether it is the tray version or box/retail version.

As far as Case goes, I love the idea of the Fractial Design silent cases but I'm someone that would rather invest upfront for a case for the final product (which will be 12drives) then have to buy one case then replace it in order to get to the final product. My only Fractial Design case to consider is the Fractial Design XL R2. For a long time I had considered using the Fractial Node 304, it has a lot of great reviews about cooling and sound dampening. One of the review I read actually warned to have reservation about the case since a lot of times small case + sound dampening = poor air flow, however with how many people use that case on these forums I am pretty confident that it is a very suitable case.

Hope this answers all your questions, let me know if you have any more and I will try my best as a noob sorting through all of this to show you my decision process.
 

ryanakata

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Absolutely answered my questions. I like you have been reading for over a month and am still torn. The ASRock c2750 board can be had for $369. Also there is an extension for chrome and Firefox called hoverhoud that I use all the time. I do all my lookups on Newegg and hover over a button to check the amazon and tiger direct prices.

I don't plan on ever having more than 6 drives and will probably initially start with 3x 4TB drives.

Sounds like you have your mind made up though, time to order some parts and get a build log started!
 

bjurewicz21

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I would highly recommend just putting the upfront costs in an doing a 6drive raid z2, I intially thought about saving the money and just slowly expanding my drives but decided against it. Also that way you will have plenty of room for future data and have the ability to have 2 drive failures, as even if you do 2 vedvs of 3 drives each with raid z1 you will lose the same amount of space but only have the ability for 1 drive failure in each vdev.

Also not sure which drives you are looking at but I found the 3tb NAS drives to be the cheapest per TB of the NAS drives :)

PS- thanks for the extension I will be sure to use it and save myself some time :)
 

ryanakata

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I was looking into the 4tb wd reds to put with an existing 4tb drive I already have. I may place the nas on hold until this fall to see what the new processors may bring. I am hoping to use a passively cooled processor.
 

ryanakata

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Maybe the supermicro or asrock c2750 will drop even more in price.

Until then, I get to stare at an empty Fractal 304 that desperately needs some internals.
 

hertzsae

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If you're only planning on supporting 2 Plex streams, you could get away with an i3 instead of a Xeon. You may want to just start with 32GB of memory to ensure that its all compatible from the start.
 

bjurewicz21

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Yea in the beginning I could do that, but I would rather just front the cost for a xeon now then have to buy an i3 now then in a year buy a xeon anyways. To me that seems like a waste, unless the Xeon D will drive the price down on the E3s....
 

hertzsae

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I doubt the Xeon D will drive the price down. They aren't trying to compete with their own product. The only thing that will likely drive the price down will be the E3 v4. Once the D comes out, I'm guessing the recommendations for the general masses that run Plex and those that don't will get an Avaton. The Xeon E3 will fill a small niche where people need a little more power than a D, but don't quite need an E5.
 

bjurewicz21

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Do we know what kind of performance/cost the Xeon D or v4 will have?

I don't think I will put the build off all the way until winter, when the v5 is released, but maybe if the v5 looks really good or if I want a v4, i will wait for the v5 to come out and then grab a v4 once premium price drops a little.
 

ryanakata

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Intel has even released some preliminary benchmarks comparing Xeon D to Avoton, and it's showing to be about 3.4x faster, about 1.7x faster per watt.
 

bjurewicz21

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After a brief look online....the Xeon D will take DDR4 though which is quite a bit more expensive, although that means you are paying for the ability to go up to 128gb of ram (but I feel as though most users won't ever need that much).
 

ryanakata

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Which is why I just picked up the 2x8GB DDR3 ECC kit by crucial on amazon. Now to decide between the C2750 or a small Xeon.
 

hertzsae

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A few thoughts:
I expect the Xeon D to have lower performance than an E3 v3. It will have a lower per thread (or per core) performance than an i3, but may be better at multiple Plex streams due to number of cores. The E3 v4 will be faster and likely lower power than the v3, but probably not by too much on either front. Judging from the price of Avotons, I'm guessing that all of the prices will be pretty similar. From Intel's point of view, they are saying it's going to cost about the same for a low end server grade motherboard and CPU. They want you to make your choice between Avoton, D, or E3 based primarily on cost/power/performance needs instead of cost.

I like the Nanoxia. It's the only computer I've built in the last 5 years, so I really can't give good comparisons. I miss my old Chenbro's size, but the Nanoxia is much quieter. A lot of my decision had to do with what Microcenter (local store that pricematches Newegg) had in stock at a reasonable price.
 
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