A struggle for hardware for a small NAS box

[Sciencescanned]

Hi all.

I have had FreeNAS setup for over 2 years now and love it! I want to upgrade some of the cost saving measures I used to just trial the NAS at the start.

My current specs are
I5-2400
16gb Non ECC
Some ECS board with Realtek Ethernet thumbs down!
Mellanox Connect-X2 10gbe card
And 2 3tb WD Blues (mirror) with a 120gb Samsung 840 SSD (standalone) for a jail/VM drive.

Have been running this setup for a while (used to run an i3-4130 and 8gb of ram but that went into pfSense router) but want to upgrade mainly for ECC since I'm adding more HDDs soon (WD Reds).

Currently running 1 Ubuntu Server VM for Plex and the transmission plugin. I don't plan to add any vm's soon but would like to be able to add more in the future mainly Linux VMs.

I am looking at i3's since they have ECC compatibility but am worried that 2 cores will not be enough for the Plex VM. (I currently have 2 of the 4 cores for the Plex VM.)

Do you think that an i3 will be fine for my application? And how important is ECC for a small setup like mine? 4 to 5 drives total.

I have looked at Xeon's but in Australia older ones so v5,v4 E3s are hard to find so the only way is to get a v6 E3 which uses DDR4. However DDR4 16gb ECC is a lot more pricey than DDR3 ECC so I was looking at older i3s for that reason.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks.

 

[tazinblack]

...
And how important is ECC for a small setup like mine? 4 to 5 drives total.

Using ECC is not a matter of how big your setup is. It is a matter of making sure that your data goes uncorrupted to the disks.
ECC is a mechanism to correct simple errors and recognize more complex errors used i.e. in memory modules.
Without ECC it is possible that one or some broken memory cell(s) corrupt you data before / while they are written to disk.
Without you could try to open files and find out that they aren't usable any more.

 

[Evertb1]

DDR4 16gb ECC is a lot more pricey than DDR3 ECC so I was looking at older i3s for that reason.

I don't know anything about prices in your part of the world but here in the Netherlands the price difference between DDR3 ECC and DDR4 ECC is very small and DDR4 can actualy cost a little less depending on brand, availability and size. Two 8 GB sticks DDR3 ECC (Crucial) for example would set me back eur. 185,80, two 8 GB sticks DDR4 ECC (Lingston ValueRam) would set me back eur. 179,80. Prices of today and at my favorite webshop. They can be found for less. Going with a platform with support for DDR4 memory opens up the possibility for the latest generation i3 CPU's. And they give a lot of bang for the buck. An i3-8100 for example has a passmark of 8098. Plex anyone?:) And the price is nice (eur. 115,00 today).

 

[Chris Moore]

I don't know anything about prices in your part of the world but here in the Netherlands the price difference between DDR3 ECC and DDR4 ECC is very small and DDR4 can actally cost a little less depending on brand, availability and size. Two 8 GB sticks DDR3 ECC (Crucial) for example would set me back eur. 185,80, two 8 GB sticks DDR4 ECC (Lingston ValueRam) would set me back eur. 179,80. Prices of today and at my favorite webshop. They can be found for less. Going with a platform with support for DDR4 memory opens up the possibility for the latest generation i3 CPU's. And they give a lot of bang for the buck. An i3-8100 for example has a passmark of 8098. Plex anyone?:) And the price is nice (eur. 115,00 today).

I didn't look up the conversion rate, but those prices sound very low. In the US, even buying used, the price difference between DDR3 and DDR4 is greater.
To keep the test fair, I used the same shop and same brand and same amount of memory. New, from NewEgg, 16GB of ECC DDR4 is $242 where the same 16GB of DDR3 is $176. Prices have been higher for DDR4 almost from the moment it was introduced, from my vantage point.

Reference:
DDR4: https://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item=9b-20-242-311
DDR3: https://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item=9b-20-014-111

Your mileage may vary.

 

[nightshade00013]

I have a suggestion, instead of buying the latest and greatest and getting into DDR4 find a board that supports DDR3 and build around it. For the FreeNAS it should not be an issue in having slightly slower RAM compared to a desktop. So don't go for the latest and greatest cpu that needs DDR4. You will save cash because the parts are slightly older and may even be able to find a used Xeon that will fit the board for close to the same cost as the i# you are looking at and it's not too hard to buy something from the US and have it shipped so don't just limit yourself to where you are especially for just a CPU.

And your use of Plex in a VM is self defeating if you are worrying about resources. Run it in a jail and you don't have to dedicate just one or two cores to it. The only reason I would run Plex in a VM install is to either limit it's resource usage or if someone else was going to have control over what it is doing so I can limit their access to the rest of the system. Unless you are doing something else with the cpu you are literally wasting resources on having a VM spun up in the first place let alone having slower access to files and limiting the ability for Plex to do it's job.

The Passmark you will need for Plex will depend on what you want to do with it. In the home streaming with files that are compatible with your devices doesn't take a whole lot, a decent Celeron or Pentium can do it. The problem comes in when you want to transcode files on the fly, say watching a movie that was encoded at 1080p on your phone across town on a cruddy wifi connection that can barely support 480p. Otherwise you can set Plex to do it's heavy activities late at night for things like chapter markers scenes, etc. If you want something that can transcode then you need to know how many streams at any one time it will need to process and plan accordingly. To plan you can simply head here https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/ then head over to the Passmark site and find something that will do what you need it to. I would actually suggest adding 1000 to 1500 passmark over top of what you think is bare minimum for FreeNAS and all the other stuff happening but beyond that it should be good.

 

[Evertb1]

To keep the test fair, I used the same shop and same brand and same amount of memory.

That's part of the problem. A year ago I would have no problem to buy comparable DR3 and DDR4 memory from the same brand (and the same shop). But the offering of DDR3 memory is getting very sparse here. At this moment in time if I needed to buy new stuff, DDR3 would not come to my mind. Four months a go I bought some extra sticks of it but that is just because I wanted to expand my current build (that is still running great).

By the way: your Newegg links are giving no joy :)

 

[Chris Moore]

By the way: your Newegg links are giving no joy :)

They don't work?

 

[Evertb1]

They don't work?

No they don't. I end up on this page with both links.
https://www.neweggbusiness.com/?nm_...ium=affiliates&utm_source=afc-cjb2b-Skimlinks

By the way. I am puzzled with the prices you communicated. I have always been a bit jealous on you US guys because you seem to have (much) better prices for a lot of stuff. But now I am not so sure anymore.

 

[Sciencescanned]

I have a suggestion, instead of buying the latest and greatest and getting into DDR4 find a board that supports DDR3 and build around it. For the FreeNAS it should not be an issue in having slightly slower RAM compared to a desktop. So don't go for the latest and greatest cpu that needs DDR4. You will save cash because the parts are slightly older and may even be able to find a used Xeon that will fit the board for close to the same cost as the i# you are looking at and it's not too hard to buy something from the US and have it shipped so don't just limit yourself to where you are especially for just a CPU.

And your use of Plex in a VM is self defeating if you are worrying about resources. Run it in a jail and you don't have to dedicate just one or two cores to it. The only reason I would run Plex in a VM install is to either limit it's resource usage or if someone else was going to have control over what it is doing so I can limit their access to the rest of the system. Unless you are doing something else with the cpu you are literally wasting resources on having a VM spun up in the first place let alone having slower access to files and limiting the ability for Plex to do it's job.

The Passmark you will need for Plex will depend on what you want to do with it. In the home streaming with files that are compatible with your devices doesn't take a whole lot, a decent Celeron or Pentium can do it. The problem comes in when you want to transcode files on the fly, say watching a movie that was encoded at 1080p on your phone across town on a cruddy wifi connection that can barely support 480p. Otherwise you can set Plex to do it's heavy activities late at night for things like chapter markers scenes, etc. If you want something that can transcode then you need to know how many streams at any one time it will need to process and plan accordingly. To plan you can simply head here https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/ then head over to the Passmark site and find something that will do what you need it to. I would actually suggest adding 1000 to 1500 passmark over top of what you think is bare minimum for FreeNAS and all the other stuff happening but beyond that it should be good.

Thanks I'm currently looking at this Supermicro board https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16813182821

It supports i3's,DDR3, Xeon's and ECC. Also had an LSI SAS controller onboard so no need to buy another card!

Might get it shipped from the states to Australia if I can get all the other parts for it.

 

[Evertb1]

Thanks I'm currently looking at this Supermicro board https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16813182821

It supports i3's,DDR3, Xeon's and ECC. Also had an LSI SAS controller onboard so no need to buy another card!

Might get it shipped from the states to Australia if I can get all the other parts for it.

Fine motherboard. I am happy with it. Though you will need to flash the LSI controller to IT mode.

 

[nightshade00013]

No they don't. I end up on this page with both links.
https://www.neweggbusiness.com/?nm_...ium=affiliates&utm_source=afc-cjb2b-Skimlinks

Could be the forum or something else. Half the links I end up seeing are monetized for instance the link posted for the motherboard on newegg above is actually http://track.flexlinkspro.com/a.ash...https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16813182821

Not sure it it's something the users who are posting them are using something that causes it or if it's the forum but most of the time I have to sanitize the link before it will work as I filter the monetization at the router level.

 

[danb35]

it's the forum

It's the forum.

 

[nightshade00013]

It's the forum.

Kinda figured as much.

 

[CraigD]

Thanks I'm currently looking at this Supermicro board https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16813182821

It supports i3's,DDR3, Xeon's and ECC. Also had an LSI SAS controller onboard so no need to buy another card!

Might get it shipped from the states to Australia if I can get all the other parts for it.

The X10SL-7 is a great board. It does have a couple of limitations: It is limited to 32GB RAM and it only has two PCIe slots (I've populated all slots)

RAM prices have doubled in the last two years, if you have the ECC UDIMMs why not use them.

More CPU is nice to have, but may not be needed, a G3258 is all I use for PLEX, PlexPy, Sonarr, and Transmission

Have Fun

 

[Evertb1]

It is limited to 32GB RAM and it only has two PCIe slots (I've populated all slots)

True, but then again, everything of that generation with an 1150 socket is limited to 32 GB as far as I know.

 

[Stux]

Key is that the next gen (1151 socket?), supports 64GB.

Ram prices are obscene at the moment, and when you do find a good price, the order invariably gets cancelled after a few weeks too. In Australia at least.

 

[Chris Moore]

Key is that the next gen (1151 socket?), supports 64GB.

Ram prices are obscene at the moment, and when you do find a good price, the order invariably gets cancelled after a few weeks too. In Australia at least.

The RAM shortage is crazy. Right now, if you want to make a system with more than 32GB of memory, your best value is to build with a X9 generation (in Supermicro terms) socket 2011 Xeon E5, so you can use DDR3 registered ECC (RDIMM or LRDIMM) because you can get that kind of memory second hand for almost half the price of DDR3 or DDR4 UDIMM memory.

 

[Evertb1]

second hand for almost half the price of DDR3 or DDR4 UDIMM memory

Yeah you live you learn. When I bought my motherboard and memory (2 x 8 GB samsung non reg DDR3 ECC) in 2016, I payed 90 euro's for the memory (both, not each). I recall that I thought about buying another pair but said to myself nah I don't really need it so it can wait. That resulted in paying more then twice as much for a pair around 5 months ago. And I could not even get the same brand. Stupid Stupid.

 

[Chris Moore]

Yeah you live you learn. When I bought my motherboard and memory (2 x 8 GB samsung non reg DDR3 ECC) in 2016, I payed 90 euro's for the memory (both, not each). I recall that I thought about buying another pair but said to myself nah I don't really need it so it can wait. That resulted in paying more then twice as much for a pair around 5 months ago. And I could not even get the same brand. Stupid Stupid.

I don't understand it. It appears to me, the price of memory has gone crazy just within the past 12 months and I don't understand what changed to make this happen.