Which new platform with ECC?

[Tipper94]

Hey, I'm new to this NAS world, I bought a synology nas 6 months ago but have outgrown it. I mainly only use it for PLEX.

I want to build something with new hardware from scratch myself. I can read here that ECC ram is a must have.

I have found the W680 platform, where I will be able to get Intel 12th gen and ddr5 ECC ram. It seems like a good idea. However, I see this platform is very new and I read here and there about problems.

I'm simply not technical enough to do a lot of troubleshooting.



I have found an AM5, X670, ASUS PRIME X670-P, which also supports ddr5 ECC, but then I don't get the best out of plex, and must also have a graphics card in it (I don't quite know how it works, just know everyone says Plex=intel)



Any platforms I've overlooked? It seems difficult to find a proper platform when you want to build from scratch.

I'm considering dropping ECC and then go with, Asrock Z790 Phantom Gaming Riptide and then I have to hope for the best until a stable ddr5 ECC platform appears.

 

[Whattteva]

I have found the W680 platform, where I will be able to get Intel 12th gen and ddr5 ECC ram. It seems like a good idea. However, I see this platform is very new and I read here and there about problems.

That's not the only problem... Have you seen the price of the motherboards and DDR5 ECC sticks?

I have found an AM5, X670, ASUS PRIME X670-P, which also supports ddr5 ECC, but then I don't get the best out of plex, and must also have a graphics card in it (I don't quite know how it works, just know everyone says Plex=intel)

This is really due to Intel's QuickSync.

Any platforms I've overlooked? It seems difficult to find a proper platform when you want to build from scratch.

Yes, last-gen server stuff.

Honestly, considering Plex seems to be your highest priority. I'd just go for a regular non-ECC build with an Intel processor that supports QuickSync. It may not even be TrueNAS. DISCLAIMER: I've never used this particular distro, but I've seen some people recommend OpenMediaVault.

 

[ChrisRJ]

I want to build something with new hardware from scratch myself.
[..]
I'm simply not technical enough to do a lot of troubleshooting.

Those two things don't go together very well. Why exactly could you not continue using Synology by means of adding bigger HDDs?

 

[joeschmuck]

Since it appears you are making a media server with all the Plex talk... You should do some research into Plex, all the device you plan to "actually" watch video content on, and then of those devices, do they accept the video content as-is and transcode as needed themselves (most do these days). Also you don't need to setup Plex to transcode at all, it can just host the content. If you are using a Synology to host now and you have no issues hosting video content then I'd say you do not need to transcode content on the TrueNAS server. This means you do not need a high powered system. No additional graphics card, nothing fancy at all. There are some minimum requirement like 16GB RAM, Intel NIC (Not RealTek), just look at the recommended hardware guide in the Resources section. If you choose to not use ECC RAM for example because you are only creating a media server, that is up to you and I do understand it. but if I had a lot of media content, having the ECC RAM would be a good thing as if you had data corruption, you might have to restore a lot of data, which means manually deleting the offending files, running a scrub to ensure there are no more errors, restoring the media files with new ones. So there are pros and cons and you have to live with them.

I'm simply not technical enough to do a lot of troubleshooting.

While this may not be true, what I'm hearing is you would not desire to do any troubleshooting. TrueNAS is likely not for you then. While it's not that difficult to setup, it isn't beginner level stuff. It has to be maintained and when a problem happens, they are not always easy to fix without some kind of willingness to troubleshoot, get your hands dirty. You have the read the user guide, that is the first place to look for help. For example, when a hard drive starts to die you will get some alerts (if you setup TrueNAS correctly) and then you need to take action. yo need to identify the physical drive, and then follow the instructions in the user guide to replace the drive. It's a few steps in the GUI, shut down the system replace the correct hard drive, power up and bring the new drive online and resilver it. Make sure it worked. This is the simple stuff that way too many people have a hard time doing correctly.

Sorry for being wordy, I just want to make clear that TrueNAS does require some commitment and maintenance to function properly. If you can install larger hard drives into your current solution as previously suggested, that may be your best option.

And as mentioned above, OpenMediaVault is also popular, although I've never used it either.

 

[Tipper94]

Thanks for reply!

So I've worked with user IT for a couple of years, so it's not because I'm completely lost in what I'm doing, but a server and a normal gamer PC and a smaller office landscape are two completely different worlds :D

So no, I'm not really excited about choosing a platform that hasn't been tried and there's knowledge available online.

But you have some good points in it, maybe it's a solution I have to reconsider. The problem with the synology I have now, I don't think it plays plex well enough, it buffers even at 1080p. And no, no problems on the network.
Furthermore, I have 5 segate 14TB in it, so I have 42TB usable and im at 37 TB used now.

That's why expansion has to be done no matter what, and that's why I've started to get into other solutions.

 

[ChrisRJ]

But you have some good points in it, maybe it's a solution I have to reconsider. The problem with the synology I have now, I don't think it plays plex well enough, it buffers even at 1080p. And no, no problems on the network.

If it is really not a network issue, which would indeed have been my prime suspect, that means a CPU limitation. Can you explain in a bit more detail how the Synology setup looks (e.g. WiFi or cable) and how the testing is done?

 

[artlessknave]

Gaming

this is server, not a gaming machine. spend the money on a server board with features that are useful for a server. things like audio, WIFI, overclocking are a waste, while IPMI, dual INTEL nics, ECC, reliablity are useful.

just because it supports ECC doesn't mean it's a good choice for a server.
the resources section has recomended hardware guides.

 

[joeschmuck]

this is server, not a gaming machine.

I don't think that is what he was saying. He was saying that the server PC world and gaming PC world are two different things. He's not as knowledgeable in the server world.

 

[joeschmuck]

I agree with @ChrisRJ that it's likely a CPU limitation slowing down the network transfer speeds.

it buffers even at 1080p.

I'm curious if you are able to tell what the transfer rate is during the heavy playbacks. Also, what else the NAS might be doing. I recall that the less expensive dedicated NAS devices could only make it up to 25mbps, not very fast, this is why I went to FreeNAS/TrueNAS, full bandwidth and lower cost.

 

[artlessknave]

He was saying that the server PC world and gaming PC world are two different things

I kind of lost the context for it in my reply selection.

I'm considering dropping ECC and then go with, Asrock Z790 Phantom Gaming Riptide and then I have to hope for the best until a stable ddr5 ECC platform appears.

they were saying they would abandon ECC and go with a gaming platform to wait for a DDR5 workstation platform, which isn't really point-ful. DDR5 doesn't bring anything to the table worth waiting for, and it's very likely that some used parts following the recommendations would be much better anyway.

 

[joeschmuck]

LOL, Up at the beginning, I thought it was a few posts ago you were referring to. Disregard my comment