Will It True NAS New Build with little knowledge

[JB3]

Hello, I am looking to upgrade my current File / Media / gaming situation for my house. I currently have 3 desktop gaming computers and 1 headless FreeNas Box running that was all built 13 -14 years ago. I have made small upgrades to them (mostly Video cards and Ram) but even that is limited due to the old hardware. Nothing wrong with them per say except they can no longer keep up with the new features of life :).

I have moved into a new home with many new features and would like to streamline my set up.
I would like to Build NAS that would house both Files / cloud / and Plex.

1. I have wired the house so nothing will be WIFI.
2. I have 4-6 users at any given time
3. all devices in home are 4K UHD capable
4. main theater room is capable of any type of video playback and sound track
5. I have a large array of media and the trans coding could be little to a lot at any given time.

I can not figure out if I need to take PLEX out of the NAS or integrate it with the NAS. I have put together a couple of builds but still can not make my self pull the trigger and now I am thinking just to get something prebuilt. I will have a separate gaming style PC so If its better to just not integrate PLEX with the NAS I can go that route but i would rather it be part of the NAS.

I am currently looking at this Box for setting up TrueNas:
refurbished pre build (will this get it done or do I need more)

Another question is the pass mark for this CPU, how does that work if you run two of them? Does it double or does it not work that way.

All help is appreciated and if I have not explained well let me know and I will try. I was much more knowledgeable 13 or so years ago but my work and gaining a family has taken me in a different direction. I try to keep up just enough to keep the family going and support the devices in my home.

One last bit is I have a golf simulator and this is the reason I need to run a gaming PC. This rely's on the GPU heavily, I was thinking of a way to get all this done with one box but I do not think there is a way around having two boxes giving I need a proper GPU to run the simulator.

 

[JB3]

I guess i wrote to much, and i will just ask more to the point. I saw i need a passmark of 17000 to run what i think i want to on PLEX. Must be some of you in here that has similar chips to what I am looking at. And i was not sure what i get by having two of them, seems like it would be twice as good :)

• is this a good box https://www.newegg.com/dell-poweredge-t430-tower/p/2NS-0008-70F43?Item=9SIA8Z0J145190?
  • is it ez to upgrade the NICs or any other component in the box
  • single Chip in the above box has score of 17327 does that double for running two chips or does it not work that way.
  • Can I run anything on this hardware or would it have to Windows server.

What I want to achieve

• Plex server
  • 4 to 6 Clients 4k some trans coding
  • 4 to 5 VM machines
• File server
  • 3 users I run a small home office
• Cloud ( not sure on the name as I have not done this yet )
• Could be more but I am not there yet.

I have a server room but I have yet to invest in racks, it does run cold in the room and the entire home is wired.

Any guidance would be very appreciated. I have little experience with server grade hardware.

 

[JB3]

NO reply's here but I continue to research and read other thread reply's. I will continue to update my own thread and converse with myself though.
I will decommission my Current FreeNAS that was built a lifetime ago with spare parts laying around.
Currently running (old miner setup turned Nas)
Gigabyte 970-DS3p
AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 250 Processor
16G ram

I will order the Used T430 ( I don't have a Rack yet in my server room)

• 2x Intel Xeon E5-2680 v4 2.4GHz (3.3GHz Turbo) 14 Core Processors. (I am pretty sure i read Turbo is useless in TN)
• 64GB (4x 16GB) DDR4 2400MHz Registered ECC Memory.
• Dell PERC H730 1GB Mini 12Gb/s SAS/SATA Storage Controller w/Battery (RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/60 and Pass-Through).
• 6x Dell Enterprise 3TB 7.2K SAS 6Gb/s 3.5" Hard Disk Drives.
• Integrated Dell Broadcom 5720 Dual Port 1GbE LOM.
• iDRAC 8 Enterprise Remote Management.
• 2x Dell 750 Watt Platinum Efficiency Power Supplies.

I will add two SSD drives (one for boot)
I will swap the H730 with a HBA330 (LSI 9300-8i). It says it will pass through but it seems to be a pretty strong consensus on this board to use the HBA330.

I should test the drives before I set them up and add data, i am researching the best way to do that. I could look to upgrade the network but i dont think its needed just yet.

 

[MisterE2002]

Did not read fully, but are you sure this H730 is a real HBA? So, a supported chipset with the LSI firmware preferably.

Note: Those server brands usually use non conventional motherboards or picky memory sticks. So a prefab can cause in the future. Supermicro is here the exception (they have proprietary stuff also though)

 

[JB3]

If I mis interpret something I am sorry, I am deep inside a big learning curve and I think I am overloading on information :)

Did not read fully, but are you sure this H730 is a real HBA? So, a supported chipset with the LSI firmware preferably.

I am not sure about the H730 but it comes with the machine. I do not have experience with server hardware and I have never used any raid controllers or such so this will all be a learning experience for me. I have just read so much on this forum about how the it can cause major headaches down the road even after you get it working for what ever reason. I didn't mind swapping it out to the 330.
I am replacing it with a HBA330 (LSI 9300-8i)

Note: Those server brands usually use non conventional motherboards or picky memory sticks. So a prefab can cause in the future. Supermicro is here the exception (they have proprietary stuff also though)

I am already headed down the rabbit hole. Its either going to be great or very educational. Either way it will be great!! I will in the next 12 months purchase a rack and will probably either sell or repurpose this machine and build a rack mount server.

 

[MisterE2002]

If I mis interpret something I am sorry, I am deep inside a big learning curve and I think I am overloading on information :)

No problem.
I used this pdf guides a lot:

• https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/
• https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

I am not sure about the H730 but it comes with the machine. I do not have experience with server hardware and I have never used any raid controllers or such so this will all be a learning experience for me. I have just read so much on this forum about how the it can cause major headaches down the road even after you get it working for what ever reason. I didn't mind swapping it out to the 330.
I am replacing it with a HBA330 (LSI 9300-8i)

Note: i am not that familiar with HBA's. But community suggest to select based on the chipset.

I am already headed down the rabbit hole. Its either going to be great or very educational. Either way it will be great!! I will in the next 12 months purchase a rack and will probably either sell or repurpose this machine and build a rack mount server.

first time right? Seems a better/cheaper idea.

 

[JB3]

Well, I have made the move and got a new TN Scale up and running. Now the real fun begins with setting everything up and figuring out how I want to make the Pools. I think this one should serve me for a very long time.

• I went with 2 striped SSDs for the boot drive \
• added a m.2 for Cashing as i wanted to try this out
• added 6 2.5 hot swap bays in the front above the 8 3.5 bays. Added a PCi sata card for that.
• HBA330 (LSI 9300-8i) looks to have dropped right in and work. Its in IT mode. I will of course have to test this further to confirm no issues
• Might add 10G nics later as I have a plenty of slots available but i need to research if I can even properly use it. or what benefit it might add

Also thank you to this community, even if I do not directly communicate there is so much knowledge for what ever you want to do on here. Lots of guides and information and usually presented in a way that even the layman can understand.

 

[sretalla]

I went with 2 striped SSDs for the boot drive \

You probably mean mirrored... likely a waste

added a m.2 for Cashing as i wanted to try this out

almost certainly a waste

added 6 2.5 hot swap bays in the front above the 8 3.5 bays. Added a PCi sata card for that.

Watch out for these cheap ones (maybe too late): https://www.truenas.com/community/r...t-multipliers-and-cheap-sata-controllers.177/

HBA330 (LSI 9300-8i) looks to have dropped right in and work. Its in IT mode. I will of course have to test this further to confirm no issues

Good. This is where you should be to have reliable disk attachment.

Might add 10G nics later as I have a plenty of slots available but i need to research if I can even properly use it. or what benefit it might add

Depending on how many simultaneous 4K streams you want to run, but you're unlikely to notice for 1080p

 

[JB3]

I went with 2 striped SSDs for the boot drive \ added a m.2 for Cashing as i wanted to try this out

almost certainly a waste

I kinda agree with you but, I have a ton of drives sitting around my office. I still have 3 M.2 drives sitting doing nothing after using this one for cash. and I had 4 120g ssd sitting.

added 6 2.5 hot swap bays in the front above the 8 3.5 bays. Added a PCi sata card for that.

Watch out for these cheap ones (maybe too late): https://www.truenas.com/community/r...t-multipliers-and-cheap-sata-controllers.177/

Ok, this was a good read, I will read the link from 45drives today as its a little more. I only went down the road due to having 4 3.5 bays with absolutely nothing in them, just covers. Maybe I could add another proper controller. The Hot swap Bays and sata card I got are ez return if i wanted to go SAS route or just another direction. I was thinking to use these SSD's to run App's. I wanted to keep my 6 SAS drives separate for only storage. TN is suggesting raid2z but i need to read much more on the raid as I have not for a long time.

HBA330 (LSI 9300-8i) looks to have dropped right in and work. Its in IT mode. I will of course have to test this further to confirm no issues

Good. This is where you should be to have reliable disk attachment.

I read about this one a lot but was not going to buy two of them, I now have a 730 just sitting not sure if I should try it for the secondary if it can be put in proper pass through.

Might add 10G nics later as I have a plenty of slots available but i need to research if I can even properly use it. or what benefit it might add

Depending on how many simultaneous 4K streams you want to run, but you're unlikely to notice for 1080p

Most all the device (11 devices ) are 4K and most of the content is 4K. But I should at most have no more then 2 4K streams being served from TN.

Thanks for the info, information is a never ending endeavor :)

 

[JB3]

From the reading and research I have done so far I really should just leave the second network unplugged unless I have a switch and can properly configure both side. Can someone confirm this.

 

[joeschmuck]

From the reading and research I have done so far I really should just leave the second network unplugged unless I have a switch and can properly configure both side. Can someone confirm this.

Confirmed

 

[JB3]

Confirmed

Thank you good Sir.

 

[sretalla]

LAGG can work with no knowledge from the switch side, but not in LACP mode (so basically just for failover).

 

[joeschmuck]

Most all the device (11 devices ) are 4K and most of the content is 4K. But I should at most have no more then 2 4K streams being served from TN.

If your video content is 4K then you are looking at no transcoding. If your video content is lower than 4K, odds are you still do not need to transcode as the playing device will likely do all the work. Smart Devices are very good these days. I'd say the real issue from my perspective is if you want to play a video on your smartphone over wifi, and a 4K video is just way too much data, you should have Plex downgrade the video content to a smaller size to save on wifi bandwidth. With a wired Ethernet connection everywhere else, I don't really see much of an issue.

So to address the cache, you are best to remove it as it just adds more complications down the road. It's not about using everything you have on hand, it's about making a reliable device. Also unless you have the correct use case and enough RAM to support it, a cache will typically slow a system down. When you ask for a video to be played, TrueNAS will first look through the cache to see if it's there. Odds are it will not be there unless you play that video frequently. This searching for the video consumes time, it might be milliseconds but it's a delay none the less. But removing it is entirely up to you. Maybe the next time you upgrade you will remove it. Even that little SSD consumes power and generates heat, both undesirable things.

As for the second NIC, most people have no use for it nor have any idea how to set it all up to work properly, but you really need to have a reason for it. It will not double your home bandwidth or anything remotely like that. I would expect in Scale that you could assign the second NIC for a specific task in a VM (expect=hope), but I have no experience with VM's in Scale.

Remember one rule "K.I.S.S."

 

[ChrisRJ]

Remember one rule "K.I.S.S."

The most important thing to know in IT !!