Recommendations for a Synology NAS replacement

[Surferride]

Hi Community,

I am migrating from a Synology NAS DS1513+ which has been running for 10 years so far. But I am not in good mood with what Synology is doing nowadays (older processors, lock down environment, lack of proper compatibility with big drives pushing for their own brand, etc.) So I am thinking on building a server with TrueNAS or unRAID that would allow me to run not only the NAS but has also enough power VMs, Plex Server, Containers, etc.

I am inclined to go for the Supermicro SuperWorkstation 531A-IL which has the W680 chipset and would allow me to have a Gen 13 Intel processor with a lot of power and integrated iGPU for hardware transcoding when needed. And I think (if I am not mistaken) it should be quite power efficient no?.

I´ve been doing a lot of research, if I end up using ZFS, I understand I would benefit of ECC RAM, but there are very limited options in regards to motherboards that dont cost a fortune and support Intel Gen 13th gen. I also would like to have 2 x M2 fast nVME drives mirrored for cache or boot volumes that will hold all the containers too so they are snappy. I already purchased 2x Seagate EXOS 20 TB CMR drives that I understand should go well with whatever I decide to build.

Electricity costs here in Switzerland have skyrocketed so I would like to keep things running as smooth as possible, for example spinning down drives in the night if not needed and any other good best practice. I plan to use the current or a new UPS with the system to protect it in case of power outage and have it properly shut down.

I plan to backup to locally attached external USB drives, and also against the old Synology NAS DS1513+ while its till running, maybe I even consider taking this old NAS to a friends house for remote backup.

What do you think about my plan? Any other recommendations on hardware? Another alternative is to build another less powerful type of NAS and run the containers and Plex in something like a Beelink or Intel NUC which I also understand can be power efficient. This Intel NUC style of PC could also have the external USB drives for loal backups attached to it.

For now I am running my network at 1Gbps, but would start thinking to be able to upgrade my house to 10 Gbps to benefit from my local internet provider speeds offering 10 Gbps for USD 10 more than what I am paying now.

Sorry for the extense of this post, and thank you for your time reading it and suggesting ideas and components.

 

[Ericloewe]

If you're really concerned about power consumption, the C3000 atoms are hard to beat, though I'm not sure they can keep up, depending on your transcoding needs.
They're not particularly cheap, but cheaper than X13 platforms. 2x M.2 can also get tricky on those...

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Look into my signature for my main home NAS. I have four spinners, 64 GB of ECC memory, 2x NVMe for a jail and VM pool, 1x NVMe Optane SLOG and 2x 2.5" SATA SSDs for boot in there all running somewhere from 60 to 80 watts.

I never use desktop/workstation boards to build servers, but then that's me

I cannot advise on the hardware transcoding because I never use that. I transcode the videos up front to a format all my devices can play, then put them on the NAS. Handbrake is good for that.

 

[kiriak]

I replaced a (small) Synology 2 years ago.
My first and most important consideration was data integrity.
So the only way for me was TrueNAS and I had more success with Core rather than Scale (I am a user with no IT background).

I had little success with apps on Scale and also I feel better having my NAS to do as little other jobs as possible.
So the need for a couple of VMs and a few containers was satisfied with a USFF PC running Proxmox.

This way the TrueNAS hardware can be build according to the recommendations a lot cheaper.
Also depending on needs it can run only a couple of days each week.
My mini PC has a consumption of only 4-5 W and add on top of this about 3 W for every 8 gb of RAM. My TrueNAS machine is ON every weekend.
I do not use Plex or any other power hungry apps so your needs may be different.

In my mind for a home user it is like this ->
- for data integrity TrueNAS is the best solution but reccommended practices (like ECC RAM, proper NICs, etc) should be followed.
- for VMs, containers etc. there are other easier and cheaper solutions.
- one can combine the above solutions

If (physical) small size is a priority then HP Microserver Gen10 is probabbly the smaller you can go (with proper hardware).

 

[Surferride]

Look into my signature for my main home NAS. I have four spinners, 64 GB of ECC memory, 2x NVMe for a jail and VM pool, 1x NVMe Optane SLOG and 2x 2.5" SATA SSDs for boot in there all running somewhere from 60 to 80 watts.

I never use desktop/workstation boards to build servers, but then that's me

I cannot advise on the hardware transcoding because I never use that. I transcode the videos up front to a format all my devices can play, then put them on the NAS. Handbrake is good for that.

Thank you for your comment!

 

[Surferride]

I replaced a (small) Synology 2 years ago.
My first and most important consideration was data integrity.
So the only way for me was TrueNAS and I had more success with Core rather than Scale (I am a user with no IT background).

I had little success with apps on Scale and also I feel better having my NAS to do as little other jobs as possible.
So the need for a couple of VMs and a few containers was satisfied with a USFF PC running Proxmox.

This way the TrueNAS hardware can be build according to the recommendations a lot cheaper.
Also depending on needs it can run only a couple of days each week.
My mini PC has a consumption of only 4-5 W and add on top of this about 3 W for every 8 gb of RAM. My TrueNAS machine is ON every weekend.
I do not use Plex or any other power hungry apps so your needs may be different.

In my mind for a home user it is like this ->
- for data integrity TrueNAS is the best solution but reccommended practices (like ECC RAM, proper NICs, etc) should be followed.
- for VMs, containers etc. there are other easier and cheaper solutions.
- one can combine the above solutions

If (physical) small size is a priority then HP Microserver Gen10 is probabbly the smaller you can go (with proper hardware).

Thank you for your comment. Unfortunatelly the HP Microserver line doesnt seem to suppot hardware transcoding.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

You could pick my setup, use the onboard M.2 for a single boot drive, the 2x 2.5 SATA SSDs for an SSD pool and the PCIe slot for a small graphics card if there are any that fit. Not being a gamer I honestly know zilch about graphics. I use a Macbook Pro as my main work system and everything else is servers with SSH and console only.

 

[Surferride]

You could pick my setup, use the onboard M.2 for a single boot drive, the 2x 2.5 SATA SSDs for an SSD pool and the PCIe slot for a small graphics card if there are any that fit. Not being a gamer I honestly know zilch about graphics. I use a Macbook Pro as my main work system and everything else is servers with SSH and console only.

Hi there, your main NAS system starts at USD 1500 here in Switzerland. For even less than that I found the following SuperMicro Barebone which looks quite good too but might offer more flexibility: https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/workstation/tower/sys-531a-il

But when I sum up everything I end up in USD 2500 a but too high for what I was thinking.

Today an idea crossed my mind into the direction of Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen2 (AS6704T) and add an Intel NUC Style for running containers too, but I will be missing all the flexibility of TrueNAS. There are so many options and so many variables to consider that I am gettings dizzy.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

You could go with a cheaper Supermicro barebone with an Atom CPU and the same chassis as mine - look into my backup NAS. Use this for storage only and enjoy the low power consumption, low noise and super robust platform, and run TrueNAS CORE on it. Get some embedded NUC style thingy with sufficiently powerful graphics that fits your budget, run Plex on Linux with transcoding, while mounting the data via NFS from TrueNAS.

Just an idea.

That midi tower looks interesting, but I would not buy anything without hot plug bays for the spinning disks at least.

Anyone of the other regulars doing anything like this? I mean run Plex on a dedicated home entertainment system while keeping the data on TrueNAS?

I have three systems here in my home lab. TrueNAS CORE, stability and productive services first. Dedicated OPNsense, same policy. Third a hybrid ESXi plus virtualised with pass-through TrueNAS SCALE to toy with.

180 watts 24x365 - that's why I invested in balcony photovoltaics recently.

My point is: frequently people want to cram too much into one machine. A small Atom based Supermicro box makes an awesome low power NAS. It is not strictly necessary to run Plex with transcoding on that very system.

HTH,
Patrick

 

[Surferride]

You could go with a cheaper Supermicro barebone with an Atom CPU and the same chassis as mine - look into my backup NAS. Use this for storage only and enjoy the low power consumption, low noise and super robust platform, and run TrueNAS CORE on it. Get some embedded NUC style thingy with sufficiently powerful graphics that fits your budget, run Plex on Linux with transcoding, while mounting the data via NFS from TrueNAS.

Just an idea.

That midi tower looks interesting, but I would not buy anything without hot plug bays for the spinning disks at least.

Anyone of the other regulars doing anything like this? I mean run Plex on a dedicated home entertainment system while keeping the data on TrueNAS?

I have three systems here in my home lab. TrueNAS CORE, stability and productive services first. Dedicated OPNsense, same policy. Third a hybrid ESXi plus virtualised with pass-through TrueNAS SCALE to toy with.

180 watts 24x365 - that's why I invested in balcony photovoltaics recently.

My point is: frequently people want to cram too much into one machine. A small Atom based Supermicro box makes an awesome low power NAS. It is not strictly necessary to run Plex with transcoding on that very system.

HTH,
Patrick

Thanks again, yeah, this is what I am also considering. Given that I will probably be better of from a lighter processor for NAS exclusive usage, and with an Intel NUC style of device I can serve all the other resource intensive activities

I am trying to get the other 11 neighbors of my building to leverage the 55K kWh potential we have in our rooftop and install solar panels, but I think this will be hard to do. Lets see...

 

[MrGuvernment]

Ya, i know everyone wants to run plex to stream, but most TV's can handle it now and if not you get an NVIDIA shield or Roku device and it can do it, assuming you are not trying to push massive BlueRay rips across wifi....

 

[Etorix]

But when I sum up everything I end up in USD 2500 a but too high for what I was thinking.

To keep costs down, have a look at second-hand server hardware at ricardo.ch.
A NAS does not need last generation hardware, only good drives.

 

[Surferride]

To keep costs down, have a look at second-hand server hardware at ricardo.ch.
A NAS does not need last generation hardware, only good drives.

Yeah, it’s tempting, but the fear is that these older devices usually consume way more electricity and as you know we are seeing a huge spike of electricity costs in Switzerland. In 2023 I had a 350% increase in Lenzburg

 

[Ericloewe]

True for high-end servers to some extent, less so for the embedded stuff. Recent generations have ramped up performance by throwing more power at the problem, to a large extent. The most irritating impact is on idle power, which feels way too high for the last decade of development.

 

[Davvo]

A substantial part of a system power draw comes from the HDDs: you can either spin up and down them (with some inconveniences) or use SSDs (either SATA or NVMe) to reduce it.

For transcoding you could use and external GPU, if I'm not wrong you want a NVIDIA's GTX card, or a Intel CPU with iGPU and Quick Sync if I remember correctly.

If you want to save power, avoid workstation motherboards as they generally consume more than server ones.

The point is if you want low-power it generally means smaller sizes (matx, itx, etc), and smaller sizes means higher cost and less features.

Transcoding is really needed in case of streaming content outside your network (I recently read the post of a user that uses a fire stick to watch his content while abroad using hotel's wifi and TV) or don't have cables inside your house: consider wheter you really need it.

Also, do note that within ZFS (and thus TN), the only real cache drive is the L2ARC, which is a read cache that you should only consider if you have at least 64GB of RAM; there is no write cache in the sense of improving standard write speed (the SLOG improves a niche type of writes and it's mainly used with VMs), and the metadata VDEVs are not cache (in the sense of being disposable).

If you look in my signature you will find a list of resources and my system: look at the very least for the hardware guide since it might help you gaining a better understanding of your needs/options. I will try to find some options for you, will post if I find anything worth looking (with that being said, you where already pointed to great solutions).

P.S.: as a rule of thumb don't go older than Coffee Lake if you seek power efficency.

 

[Etorix]

Yeah, it’s tempting, but the fear is that these older devices usually consume way more electricity

Atom C3000 boards, already pointed by @Ericloewe, are notorious for sipping power. As are old-but-trusty Broadwell-era Xeon D-1500 (Supermicro X10SDV). If you do transcoding outside of the NAS, these are the best lead for a power-efficient NAS.
But you have to decide upfront if you want 10 GbE (onboard).

If you want transcoding in the NAS, look for C246 boards with Coffee Lake i3 or Xeon E-2100/2200, or C256 boards with Tiger Lake Xeon E-2300.

A2SDi, X10SDV or X11SCH boards are all things you may find second-hand.

 

[danb35]

i know everyone wants to run plex to stream, but most TV's can handle it now

I'm not sure if you've used both methods; I have. The experience is completely different. Using Plex (or Emby) is a lot like browsing your own private Netflix--it's attractive, with poster art, metadata, and a pretty good degree of organization. The built-in capability on so-called "Smart" TVs, in my experience, just gives you a file browser. Yeah, it works, but it just isn't the same thing. Never mind the remote access and sharing capabilities of Plex.

 

[Ericloewe]

X11SCH boards are all things you may find second-hand

At least in Europe, availability still seems to be rather crappy. A2SDi boards are rare second-hand at the moment, but they do crop up occasionally.
X10SDV boards are typically plentiful, but mostly in less-desirable configurations (e.g. 4 cores with 10GBase-T only), but the x16 PCIe 3.0 slot is very useful and can be bifurcated to support all sorts of weird and wonderful things, with the right physical adapters.

 

[MrGuvernment]

I'm not sure if you've used both methods; I have. The experience is completely different. Using Plex (or Emby) is a lot like browsing your own private Netflix--it's attractive, with poster art, metadata, and a pretty good degree of organization. The built-in capability on so-called "Smart" TVs, in my experience, just gives you a file browser. Yeah, it works, but it just isn't the same thing. Never mind the remote access and sharing capabilities of Plex.

I guess I have just stayed old school :D I just use Kodi and map NFS shares to it from my TrueNAS. My Sony TV allows me to install Kodi direct on it since it runs Android. With most TV's these days using Android (aside from LG own OS?) should be able to load Kodi. But, of course use the tool one prefers.