Still researching, question about CPU and Motherboard

[LiangShui]

Hello,

I know everyone says this, but I have been lurking around for a year now on and off, reading stickies and the manual and I would just like to start off by saying thank you to everyone who provides guides and resources on this forum.

My father passed away recently and I realised that you mainly leave behind memories. So I am still young and I want to make my own FreeNas box to keep all my photos and videos and bits and bobs so that hopefully in 10 years time I will thank myself! I didn't mean that for the soppy story, it was to answer the redundancy question!

I had a D link NAS but all very basic, just to get the flavour of a NAS. I had a 1TB WD Green and a 4TB WD Red. I made a Raid 1 with 1TB from WD Green and 1Tb from Red and then told it to make a separate partition on the remaining 3tb on the WD RED. However, the NAS ended up making a RAID1 and a JBOD span and then crashed and stop recognising the drives 2 months later. I got all my important data back from RAID1 but can't find a way to get the 3Tb back (not important data). I know this isn't the place to ask but I thought if anyone wanted a fun challenge then I would just put it out there.

Sent the box back and got my money back so all good. I have been reading and researching about how this all works and I have some ideas.

I started off by reading CyberJock's Hardware recommendations, and then of course the FreeNas Manual.

Then I decided what I really wanted the Nas box for apart for backing files up. So I had a think.
My plan was to record all the VHS my dad had left lying around and put them on the NAS.
Backup all my music and films.
I did set up plex when I was living with my flatmates, I got them to all chip in for a nowTV box and we all transcoded from our pc to the nowTV box. So I decided I wanted to have plex and transcode. I am not a pixelpeeper and I have a reasonably low standard when it comes to video quality. I only have 1 television capable of displaying 1080p and for the rest I am contempt with 720p 3Mbps. So probably 1 1080p 6Mbs and 1 720p 3Mbps simultaneously.

I was therefore quite interested in the Asrock C2750D4I (and I probably would have bought the FreeNas Mini if it shipped to France for free). Especially since in CyberJock's blog he reports 3 1080p transcodes!

I then started thinking about my disks. After a lot of thinking and having read about the risks of Raidz1 (Raidz1 is dead) I decided to go with Raidz2 and 4 4TB WD RED drives and expand in the future and buy another 4 4TB and make what I believe is called Raidz2+0, 2 raidz2 in a RaidO.

But then I started thinking about upgradability, and thought that I should probably buy a motherboard and a cpu so I could always expand if I wanted more power. So I was then considering Supermicro X9SCM-F and Xeon E3-1230v2.

But then I realised the power of Xeons. I have always wanted to find that personal handbrake compression sweet spot and compress all my videos to that bitrate, it just seems so logical to me to save all that space.
I now wanted to get that xeon cpu and when not using plex I wanted to use the cpu and have a watchfolder for handbrake.
I searched this forum to see if it was possible to run handbrake on freenas but I could only find a post about someone offering a solution to transcode using handbrake.

I then looked into vm's so I could run handbrake via windows or run a h264 cluster compression program such as RipBot 264 on windows. This article suggested that the time difference between native handbrake and a vm weren't that bad, at least not for my personal preference.

I was therefore sold on the X9 motherboard and xeon v2 cpu. However, I live in France, and apart from 2nd hand on ebay (I am not really sure about buying a cpu 2nd hand?) I can't find the Xeon E3-1230v2 in France/ships to France on reasonable price.

I then started looking at Super Micro X10 and X11 following jgreco's supermicro motherboard part number guide to find the appropriate cpu. However, a response from jgreco had me uncertain as to if I really needed a newer generation of Cpu. It just seems like I need a recent Cpu because I can actually find one in France and I will have to buy an expensive motherboard that is compatible with the cpu, it's an expensive cycle.

I read Ericloewe's post about the differences between X10 and X11 but I don't think I will benefit from the novelties, furthermore, I don't think I will need 64GB ram?

So I made and attached an excel spreadsheet screenshot on what I think my options are and the price I have found in euros. It still seems that the Xeon E3-1230v2 x9 combo is the best option price/benchmark (i do realise benchmark isn't everything). But to be honest, I am quite confused at the moment and not sure if:

- I should buy the Xeon E3-1230v2 and X9 motherboard or if I should get a more recent cpu and motherboard?
- Is there any benefits I am missing about having an up to date cpu and motherboard?
- If I should buy a second hand cpu off ebay?
- I reckon 20GB ram for the plex jail and a vm running handbrake should be enough, am I right?
- Does my upgrade plan of 4 4tb drive raidz2 and then another 4 drives later on sound good?
- Is my idea of handbrake in a vm silly or does it sound doable?

Thanks for reading all this and thanks again to all of you for your advice. Sorry for making it very long, I know this is my first post but I don't really know how I can give back to the community. So I thought I would make a detailed post explaining my thought process and linking guides and posts I found, so that anyone having the same problems as me and was searching the forum, could benefit from the same useful information I found.

Oh and also I have been told that a lot of the VHS are recordings from old Tv shows, so if anyone wants me to lookout for a particular tv show or something, I could have a look out when going through the VHS.

 

[Ericloewe]

I didn't mean that for the soppy story, it was to answer the redundancy question!

Not at all, it's something we quite understand. Archiving things may not seem sexy to your average person, but their opinion will surely change when it's them losing their things, especially if they were emotionally significant.

I decided to go with Raidz2 and 4 4TB WD RED drives and expand in the future and buy another 4 4TB and make what I believe is called Raidz2+0, 2 raidz2 in a RaidO.

We don't call it that, but it's a fair description of what would happen if you were to add a second vdev to the pool. You can also just make a new pool, with all associated advantages and disadvantages.

- I should buy the Xeon E3-1230v2 and X9 motherboard or if I should get a more recent cpu and motherboard?

Pricing has been stable for the older generation stuff, so I find it rather unattractive. X11 is still oddly difficult to come by in Europe, I had to get my X11SSM-F from sona.de. It's decent service, but don't buy memory from them, they don't ship it well.

What I don't understand is why you're jumping for boards that have LSI SAS controllers. If you're planning to boot from USB, an X11SSM-F will happily take eight drives without an SAS controller. If you want to boot from an SSD, you can still add an SAS controller later, with slightly less favorable pricing - which might make sense, depending on how far off the second vdev is.

- If I should buy a second hand cpu off ebay?

There's not too much to go wrong on a CPU, assuming the seller is honest.

- I reckon 20GB ram for the plex jail and a vm running handbrake should be enough, am I right?

My recommendation is to start at 16GB and add more later, if and as needed. Also, stick to the highest density DIMMs available (8GB for X9/X10, 16GB for X11).

- Does my upgrade plan of 4 4tb drive raidz2 and then another 4 drives later on sound good?

Sure.

- Is my idea of handbrake in a vm silly or does it sound doable?

It'll be easier with FreeNAS 10. In 9.10, you need to either get handbrake running in a jail or run in a VM with virtualbox.

 

[LiangShui]

Thank you for your quick reply, and sorry for my slow reply I was searching the forum.

Pricing has been stable for the older generation stuff, so I find it rather unattractive. X11 is still oddly difficult to come by in Europe, I had to get my X11SSM-F from sona.de. It's decent service, but don't buy memory from them, they don't ship it well.

Thank you for recommending sona.de, I think Germany will be a good option for shipping to France (I know that some french friends who built gaming PCs got their hardware from Germany). I looked up X11SSM-F on sona.de and they are selling it at 240€ and the Xeon 3.4GHz E3-1230v5 at 285€, does that seem like a good choice?

There's not too much to go wrong on a CPU, assuming the seller is honest.

Since you said that I decided to go back on ebay. Since sona.de seems like a good choice for motherboard and cpu, I looked for a PSU. I was initially going to go with fractal design R4 that I can get for 100€, but then I saw a Supermicro SC933S2-R760B on ebay for 194€. Considering jgreco recommends (as a quick rule of thumb) the SeaSonic G-550 for 8 drives on a xeon E3 v3, which would cost me in France roughly 115€. I was thinking that this 3U chassis and 760W Triple-Redundant AC power supply would be a good deal in the long-run, considering I intend to expand to 8 drives later on. But then the X11SSM-F is a 9.6" x 9.6" Micro-ATX and the SC933S2-R760B is for 12" x 13" E-ATX and 12" x 10" ATX. But since the chassis supports bigger motherboards than the motherboard I intend on buying is this such a problem? Or can it not be worked around easily (this is probably the worst question I have asked, sorry if it is simply no).

My recommendation is to start at 16GB and add more later, if and as needed. Also, stick to the highest density DIMMs available (8GB for X9/X10, 16GB for X11).

I searched the forum and found that in 2014 you and cyberjock said that it was ok to use one ram stick and upgrade to a second ram stick later. Would you still recommend buying one 16GB ram stick now and buying another 16GB ram stick possibly when I expand to 8 drives?

It'll be easier with FreeNAS 10. In 9.10, you need to either get handbrake running in a jail or run in a VM with virtualbox.

Will it be easier in FreeNAS 10 because of "the new bhyve VM hosting mechanism in FreeBSD 10" that will replace plugin/jails?

 

[Ericloewe]

I searched the forum and found that in 2014 you and cyberjock said that it was ok to use one ram stick and upgrade to a second ram stick later. Would you still recommend buying one 16GB ram stick now and buying another 16GB ram stick possibly when I expand to 8 drives?

Will it be easier in FreeNAS 10 because of "the new bhyve VM hosting mechanism in FreeBSD 10" that will replace plugin/jails?

Yeah.

but then I saw a Supermicro SC933S2-R760B on ebay for 194€

That thing looks like it predates SAS, which would seriously complicate things, since you'd need to replace the backplane (if such a replacement is even available).
If you end up with a backplane that has an SAS expander, you will need an SAS controller. Supermicro also has backplanes without expanders, which you can use with SATA controllers (and, for instance, use a separate SAS HBA + expander later when you want to use more than eight drives).

 

[LiangShui]

Yeah.

Sorry I forgot to ask, will using only one ram stick really decrease my performance on plex and handbrake via vm to a degree that it will be noticable?

That thing looks like it predates SAS, which would seriously complicate things, since you'd need to replace the backplane (if such a replacement is even available).
If you end up with a backplane that has an SAS expander, you will need an SAS controller. Supermicro also has backplanes without expanders, which you can use with SATA controllers (and, for instance, use a separate SAS HBA + expander later when you want to use more than eight drives).

I believe you are right, I think it uses 7+7 U320 SCSI, which was replaced by SAS? Although the official site says that it should come with a "SCSI Backplane with SAF-TE", I am not sure if the ebay seller will provide one. To be quite honest with you I think I am getting a little out of my depth and overcomplicating things for myself with expanders and controllers, I should probably stick with a separate motherboard and psu then?

I also had a question I forgot to ask previously: although handbrake can run in windows in a vm in the current stable version of 9.10, is there any reason why handbrake wouldn't perform well being virtualized in Freenas/BSD?

Thanks for all your help!

 

[Ericloewe]

Sorry I forgot to ask, will using only one ram stick really decrease my performance on plex and handbrake via vm to a degree that it will be noticable?

Doubtful. Memory bandwidth is certainly a secondary concern compared to ease of expansion.

is there any reason why handbrake wouldn't perform well being virtualized in Freenas/BSD?

What do you mean, Windows VM under FreeBSD host with virtualbox? It'll be sucky to the extent that virtualbox generally is.

 

[LiangShui]

Doubtful. Memory bandwidth is certainly a secondary concern compared to ease of expansion.

Thanks

What do you mean, Windows VM under FreeBSD host with virtualbox? It'll be sucky to the extent that virtualbox generally is.

Yea FreeBSD as a host and virtualbox having Windows as a VM. Then Handbrake running in this Windows VM. Sucky as in handbrake wouldn't really be able to exploit the xeon cpu? I don't mind if it means the encoding on handbrake is a bit slower, but obviously I don't want it to grind to a halt and take days when it would usual take an hour on a windows host?

Thanks

 

[Ericloewe]

It would probably be somewhat slower per thread, and you're limited by the number of CPUs given to the VM.