Considering building a PC-NAS, is this an over-kill?

Hi Guys,
This is a quick question. I'm considering building a PC-NAS from scratch. The main purpose will be for storing my data and have them accessible over wifi, and plex.

So I understand OMV requires barely any processing power. But given that I'm planing to run plex, I am trying to build something that would last me long and not need to be upgraded soon.

For instance, I now have all my movie in 1080p x264 but in the future, 4K will probably become more common and I will eventually have to switch to 4K. This is why I'm trying to build something which is not just "good enough". But at the same time, I feel like I'm about to waste a lot of money on resources I'll never use.

I live alone so will usually have 1 (max 2) instances of plex running, with or without some data transfer to my laptop. I may also deicde to share my plex logins with some friends (max4-5) so they can access my library.

For the build, let me start by saying I'm planing to go for ~80TB total storage with SnapRAID. I was thinking the AMD Ryzen 5 1600X would defintiely be a powerful enough processor (has about 13K passmarks so can run over 6 instances of plex simultaneously). This would go with 8GB of DDR4 RAM. Given that the type of processor pretty much dictates teh type of motherboard and RAM, this will end up being quite an expensive setup (WITHOUT considering the HDDs still).

I'd like some feedback. Do you think it's worth it? (I'm planing to keep using it for at least 10 years from now) Or do you think this is just an overkill and waste of money, power and resources? I'm kind of facing a dilema here.

Zitat von subzero79

Maybe the cpu strength is too much, you’re thinking of plex.
These days there are plenty of arm sbc that are capable of 4k reproduction, think amlogic s905x and rock chip both of them have plenty of support using libreelec, and there are more chips to come.
If you take plex out of the equation maybe think of a more energy efficient cpu (less money) maybe put that money in more ram or storage.

Thank you for the reply.

I cannot take plex out of the equation because the main cause of me being interested in NAS was wanting to run plex So it is pretty much the core of my project.

Regarding those ARM boards, I have had a look. But my problem is that I'm aiming to have ~80TB of storage so we're talking ~10 HDDs which are all linked by SATA. To my knowledge very few boards have native sata support and if they do, it's just 1 or 2 ports. So I will end up having to go through some messy circuitry, thus prefer having a nice clean motherboard capable of accomodating all of this.

So once we agreed I need a motherboard, then the issue of the processor comes in place. The Ryzen is 200$, a good yet more economic one is about 100-150$ less. But if I'm going for such a project with 80TB and a full motherboard, then 100-150$ extra will not break the bank...

But yes I do feel like I'm over-killing it, but not sure what viable alternatives I have...

Zitat von subzero79

For arm board I mean to be used as clients for reproducing 4k content. I have one s905x and one s905w both of them do 4k without issue.

the only think I like from plex is the plex pass option to take content offline for mobile devices, works pretty good. When I am doing traveling I pay one month just to access this feature only, the rest of the time plex stands idle (database gets fatter only) as I use kodi, and lately Netflix.

But then if you use plex all the time and is always transcoding then you need a decent cpu.

Yeah I'm honestly not a big fan of the S905x.
My ultimate project is home automation. My NAS/Plex will hopefully be a part of my bigger home automation project. I like Plex because it is well integrated with the home automation platform I'm planing to use (home-assistant).

So first step is to ssetup my NAS/Plex and make sure it's bullet-proof, then go into the home automation project and integrate this nas/plex into it. I'm not sure systems such as the s905x would be easy to integrate...

Zitat von flmaxey

When you say "6 instances of Plex simultaneously", 13K passmark would be the requirement for transcoding 1080P streams for smart phones, android tablets and similar devices. (I.E. the server takes on the CPU load for recoding .AVI or .MKV video files, on the fly, into a format that a "small screen" item can understand and play. (In Apples case; .mov, .mp4, .m4v )

If you're simply streaming a video file in it's native format, to a theater PC, the requirement is substantially lower. (As I write this, my wife is streaming a 720p "chick flick" in native format and my i3 CPU is bouncing between 0 and 1%. I could assume that 4K would be much less that 9%.)

The problem with fast / hot CPU's is, you're burning juice 24x7 whether they're in use or not. The faster the CPU, the more they tend to use even when idle. The same is true of oversized power supplies. The larger they are, the more they tend to have parasitic internal losses.
_______________________________________

On "Future proofing" - it's next to impossible to do that for a 10 year span. There's a difference between "time to failure" and the "technological end of life" for a device. Generally speaking computing devices are obsolete long before they fail.
For instance, could you use a 10 year old PC for OMV? Sure, but relative performance would be poor and it will spin the electric meter like a 150 watt light bulb 24x7. That's one of the problems with repurposing an old PC as a server. The money saved up front goes into the electric bill, and then some.

It might be best to try to get what you think you'll need, for the next 3 to 5 years. (And, really, 5 years is stretching it.) Also for headless NAS purposes, get a Motherboard with integrated graphics. Putting a hot video card in a NAS is a true waste of money. That's like installing a 100 to 200 watt light bulb in a closet, without a switch, and closing the door.

Alles anzeigen

I see what you mean, and I agree with you.
Actually I had a misunderstanding of the concept of transcoding, but Gderf explained it to me in another post. So basically, what I really need to know/decide is what kind of clients I'll have. If my clients are all capable of playing a wide variety of files, then I would only rarely need transcoding thus a lower CPU would do the trick. I guess this will require some googling.

I am also concerned about the un-needed power usage by having a higher CPU & PSU, but I guess this would be the price to pay if I decided I need a higher-end CPU. I have not looked much into it, but it seems to me there are some plugins to help overcome this problem? Plugins such as autoshutdown, wake on lan, etc?

For the motherboard, It does have an integrated graphic (it has an HDMI port, so I assume it does?). I will be using Gigabyte GA-AX370 ( https://www.newegg.com/Product…2E16813145009&ignorebbr=1 ) because it has many sata ports (which I'll need) and is compatible with the Ryzen CPU if I end up going for it. Again, this is a GAMING motherboard and I do feel there's a big waste going on here... But if stick to ryzen, I will have to stick to the motherboard.

So I guess my best bet would be to re-evaluate my clients and their capacity and see if basedo n that I could go for a lower-end processor.

By pure luck, would you happen to be familiar with rasplex? Is it a system that can play native files or does it require transcoding?

Zitat von flmaxey

If it has a video connector, it has integrated graphics. The HDMI connector, on the Mobo link you provided, is integrated graphics.

Regarding the Mobo, since you're buying new, give serious consideration to a Mobo that supports ECC RAM. It's not that much more than non-ECC RAM and, for a dedicated server, ECC makes good sense. Many ASUS and other brand Mobo's, support ECC RAM. (Even some gaming Mobo's.) ECC is not an absolute requirement but bit's do get "flipped" in RAM. (They say it's cosmic rays but the actual reasons are irrelevant.) Without ECC, some level of data corruption is inevitable.

Regrading your clients - they're designed for graphics:
Nearly all modern clients will have the CPU power needed to do video rendering. Further, supporting multiple video formats is just a matter of installing codec's so transcoding won't even enter the picture.
It's the smart phones and underpowered andriod devices that need transcoding. Even at that, with an application like Handbrake you could recode your entire collection to .MP4, with relative ease, and have cross platform compatibility.

You can check the net for hard drive power consumption (don't take my word for it), but you'd be looking at no more than 10 watts when they're working - even with the 7400+ rpm models. It would be less at idle.
Since HD current is higher when drives are starting up, a calculation of 20 watts per drive + your CPU's max consumption + 20% (extra margin), then I'd round up to the nearest 100 watts. Depending on the CPU, I think you'd find yourself somewhere in the 300 to 500 watt PSU range, even with 10 drives.
__________________________________________________

I don't know anything about Rasplex but I have streamed video from an R-PI before. (Native format of course - no transcoding.) An R-PI will do 1 1080p stream without issues and 2 each 720p streams at the same time. (Tested on my network hardware.)
Most SBC's out there are faster than the R-PI, but few have the same level of support. This is the first I've heard of Rasplex but it's not surprising. There are numerous R-PI adaptations.

However, if you're granting outside users access to your library, this could result in more than two or three concurrent streams. In that use case, an R-PI would not be the way to go.

Alles anzeigen

Thank you for the detailed reply! I will look into ECC and see what's the increase in cost. Again, I can only do this after I settle about the freaking CPU.

For some reason, I never looked at clients other than the rasplex, which is probably a bad idea. Seems like "Roku" sticks are a simple more powerful alternative. Using rpi was my best initial choice to get a feel of how this system works without spending much money. But the more I learn the more I feel like I can transition to a more powerful system.

Zitat von Nibb31

Regarding Plex, you need to first determine what your requirements are:
- How many clients do you realistically need to serve simultaneously over the local network or with remote access.
- What type of media files.
- What kind of upload bandwidth do you have.
- Which clients will you be using.

You need to test the clients that you want to use with Plex installed on your current PC to determine if they require transcoding or not. Once you have determined how much simultaneous transcoding you need, then you can determine what kind of CPU you need.

Rasplex can play pretty much anything in 1080p without transcoding except X265/HEVC. However, there haven't been any updates in a year, so it seems to have been abandoned by its developers. Also, transcoding also depends on the client's download bandwidth and the server's upload bandwidth.

Alles anzeigen

Yes the lack of updates does worry me for rasplex. I got introduced to it in some forum and never bothered looking for other clients, which was probably a dumb idea.
I've been checking the Roku devices and they seem quite neat!

When you say I need to test locally if the player requires transcoding, how exactly do you do that? Does plex tell you if it's transcoding? I never saw such a message so far.. Is there some kind of log I should be checking to see if my movies are being transcoded before playing?

If it turns out that I really need minimal to no transcoding, then this would make things much easier for me by needing to spend much less now. As for "making the system future-proof", I think if I don't pay a fortune to build it now, I wouldn't really mind upgrading it in ~3-5yrs or so... I think this would be the way to go.

Zitat von flmaxey

Regarding the Mobo, since you're buying new, give serious consideration to a Mobo that supports ECC RAM. It's not that much more than non-ECC RAM and, for a dedicated server, ECC makes good sense. Many ASUS and other brand Mobo's, support ECC RAM. (Even some gaming Mobo's.) ECC is not an absolute requirement but bit's do get "flipped" in RAM. (They say it's cosmic rays but the actual reasons are irrelevant.) Without ECC, some level of data corruption is inevitable.

I was having a look at ECC RAM and seems like the concept is again that of parity, meaning you would need more than 8GB of RAM in order to be able to have ECC. Does that sound right to you?

Not so sure about ECC. If RAM data gets corrupted, basically it can be fixed with a restart, right? Although this is a server, but given it has limited users, I was planing to make it restart daily at like 4AM and make it "sleep" and wake up when triggered to by some user.

So I'm guessing ECC would be needed for servers that really cannot go down for a single second, not my case. Does this sound logical to you or am I misunderstanding the concept?

Thanks!

Zitat von Nibb31

You're misunderstanding. When your NAS reads or writes data, that data goes through RAM. The point of ECC is that your data doesn't get corrupted by faulty RAM.

ECC RAM uses parity, but that extra parity bit is already included on the memory module, which means that 8GB of ECC RAM has the same capacity as non-ECC RAM, only more secure.

Zitat von flmaxey

ECC RAM works just like parity in a RAID array. (Modulo 2 addition.) It actually corrects single bit data errors, on the fly. Any quantity of ECC RAM would still do the error correction job. The quantity of RAM needed for a server (ECC or non-ECC) depends only on the memory requirement. Way too much for the use case will hit you in the wallet. Too little and the server starts using the hard drive as a memory extension (a swap file or partition) and things s-l-o-w down. I'd go with 8GB minimum and if using ZFS or doing other file intensive operations, I'd go with 12 to 16GB. Currently, I'm running ZFS with 12GB.
You're right about RAM getting flushed on a restart but, during clean shutdowns, cached data is written to disk. If data is corrupted and written, the corruption survives the reboot. Over time it adds up and, depending on what is corrupted, it can become a critical matter. This applies to servers and workstations alike. In some of the errata I've read lately, it seems that even high end gamers are adopting ECC.

Thank you fro the explanation. Looks like I should be looking for ECC RAM after all.

That being said, I was looking on newegg for 4GB modules (planing to use 2 x 4GB) and NONE had ECC capacity.

The only way for me to find ECC-capable RAM is to pick the 8GB modules. Is it just a fact that RAM smaller than 8GB do not support ECC, or is it just a coincidence and I should be looking somewhere else or waiting for new inventory?

Also while we're on the topic, is there any added benefit of using 2x4GB modules rather than 1x8GB? For osme reason I was always told 2x8GB would be better than 1x4GB but I cannot recall why. Any opinion on that?

Thanks!

Zitat von subzero79

The motherboard you need to buy also needs support for ecc ram, consider that, not just the cpu

Zitat von flmaxey

There's another point to make in this regard - in addition to the Mobo, your CPU must be capable of supporting ECC. It's not a given that all CPU's will support ECC RAM. Xeon's will and some models of the "i" Intel series will support udimm's.
The good news for you is, it appears that Ryzen processors support ECC if the motherboard does. News clip here -> support.

And another item to note is there are two types of ECC RAM.

- Registered ECC (sometimes called "buffered ECC") The modules are called RDIMM's.
- Unregistered ECC (sometimes called "unbuffered ECC") The modules are called UDIMM's.

The two are NOT compatible. Usually RDIMM's are used in true server Mobo's like Supermicro.

In your case, on the pro-sumer end of it, you'd be using UDIMM's.

Alles anzeigen

It seems like this is an issue that works but not fully backed up by AMD themselves, which is kind of annoying. On newegg, if you go to the motherboards section and select ECC capable you'll get a few. But then if you select the socket to be AM4 then all disappear I guess this is because that is not officially backed up.

The safest option seems to be to switch to an intel i3 maybe. The i3 with a suitable motherboard and PSU will be ~10$ less than my current Ryzen/MoBo/PSU setup. But it does seem like intel processor (or the MoBo) requires a higher wattage (according to newegg, they have a PSU helper page).

But the good news is that the MoBo I had in mind (Ga-AX370) does seem to support EEC. From their support page (https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Mo…-AX370-Gaming-3-rev-1x#sp) they say "

• Support for ECC Un-buffered DIMM 1Rx8/2Rx8 memory modules (operate in non-ECC mode)

Can anyone explain what this means? Supports ECC but operates in non-ECC? What does that mean??

Would you think it is safe to assume that this MoBo would run ECC nicely?

I am planing to get 2 of those 4GB RAM: https://www.newegg.com/Product….aspx?Item=9SIA2F84XJ1331

Does anyone see any red flag or compatibility issue here, or am I proceeding correctly?

Thank you for the help!

Zitat von flmaxey

I have an i3 with ECC, but it's proprietary Mobo - a Lenovo TS140. The passmark for the i3 is 4897. (2 transcoded streams, I suppose.) I've had zero problems with it, it's pretty power efficient and quiet, but I don't do anything that's really CPU intensive. (No transcoding at all because, in my opinion, it's kind of pointless to watch high res 1080p on 3"x6" screen.) I stream native format to a PC hooked up to a big screen.
________________________________________________________________

On your questions above:

- "Support for ECC Un-buffered DIMM 1Rx8/2Rx8 memory modules (operate in non-ECC mode)"
I looked at the spec's on the link: The above means you can use ECC UDIMMS if you wanted to, but the ECC function won't be on. That's pointless. I wouldn't buy that Mobo for ECC use.

- The RAM link you provided is for ECC "REGISTERED" not "UNBUFFERED". The two are NOT compatible. See the previous note with info on this topic.

________________________________________________________________

Is there a reason why your supplier must be Newegg?

In any case, take a look at the following:
https://www.newegg.com/Product…spx?Item=N82E16813132733R
It's an open box but it can be had new. It accepts i3's or Xeon's and has 8 sata ports.

Note that the above is not an endorsement or a recommendation. It's an example of what can be found by searching. Take your time and look around. There's a lot out there. Try to get the right hardware for the right price.
__________________________________________________________

On AMD's half hearted support for ECC - if you search the net you might be able to find feedback from AMD users on the AMD Ryzen/ECC issue. (Still, that's a pretty hot processor for 24x7 use.)

Alles anzeigen

I really appreciate your detailed response.

Thank you fro the link, but this is a rather expensive board (165$ for open-box).

I have been re-considering this whole setup. If I want to go for a big setup then it would be a strong processor with high passmark along with an ECC-capable board etc... But this is adding up quite rapidly.

I'm really against doing half-measures like getting a great CPU but then disregarding the ECC issue or cheaping out on the HDD, because it will eventually be harmful at some point. If I'm building a solid chain, then I don't want any weak parts in it.

I think deep down I'm kind of wanting a gaming PC, which is why I'm getting the fancy hardware but in the wrong context. If I want a gaming PC then I should get a gaming PC, not a fancy over-kill server

I see that many people on the forum use rather low-end CPU for their server, which probably isn't wrong and even wise.

So I really need to decide WHO I will give access to my server and what DEVICES they'll be using. If it turns out I don't need a powerful CPU then why waste the money there? Maybe save it for a gaming PC or maybe use it to invest in an ECC-capable MoBo. So yeah, once I figure this one out I think it will be an easier decision either I want to go high-end or jut "good enough".

One final thought... Some people I may give access to live in other states of the country so they'll be accessing the server via internet. I understand this WILL require some processing power right? The server would want to compress the file before sharing it?

Also, I live in an apartment an internet is pre-provided and it's not great. So let's say a user is streaming a movie which is ~4GB in size. It would take my connection ~3hrs to download such a file. Assuming I upload at the same speed (I know it's faster, but let's just assume), and assuming the user has very fast download speed, would you say my internet speed will end up becoming a bottleneck which I had so far ignored? I imagine this will get worse if 2 users are accessing the server via internet. Do you have any experience/opinion in that? Because if it turns out I'm unable to grant internet access due to internet speed limitation, then I should probably forget it all together and jut stick to a modest server for use on wifi only. This was a big bottleneck I somehow never htought about.

Thank you!