Video Encoding (Not Transcoding) With FreeNas Box

[ViciousXUSMC]

I am still in the build/plan phase right now.
I keep upping my equipment choices and cost because I keep trying to decide what I want.

At first I think I just wanted a NAS, then I wanted a NAS + Plex Server, Now I think I want a NAS, Plex Server, and Encoding Machine.

I do video editing on my desktop, I have been wanting to upgrade it for a couple of years now to speed up encoding, the budget to upgrade the computer is probably going into my FreeNAS box so it makes sense to have it doing double duty.

I use MeGUI on Windows currently and a Frame Server stream lossless to the encoder. I am pretty sure I can save the file to the NAS and have the Nas box do encoding.

My question is this, what is the best and/or easiest way to do this for good x264 or possibly x265 encoding?

I saw one guide that had you put Handbrake in a Jail, I have not gotten that working yet.
Can I just create a Virtual Machine and use the same tools I use now by loading the VM? Or would the overhead of the VM dramatically decrease my performance and make this not really work?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

would the overhead of the VM dramatically decrease my performance

Depends on what resources you allocate to the VM. Will encoding be time-sensitive? If not, maybe it doesn't matter.

 

[Jailer]

I used to do it using handbrake in a windows VM in Virtualbox before I upgraded my desktop to something more capable. Not sure if it would still work since they limited the system processes for jails sometime in the 9.10 update.

 

[ViciousXUSMC]

Well I am on Freenas 10 Beta now, maybe the addition of Docks and Behive will make it so I can do what I want.
Holding on on hardware until I know my options, would be a waist to get a dual 8 core power house just to be a NAS and maybe a bit of Plex.