Best ZFS raid settings for Plex Media Server

[lolmc]

Hi, I've just bought a HP Proliant Micro Server which I want to set up as the NAS for my Plex media files. Plex/SABNZBD+ etc. will be on a separate system - I only want to get my drives set up to give best performance for serving the media to clients on my home network.

I'm thinking of using 4 x 2TB drives to provide the storage space but would appreciate a steer as to how to set the ZRAID up e.g which mode and why. I am maxing out the server RAM to 8GB as well.

I hope I've provided a coherent question but if not then let me know what details I have forgotten to provide.

 

[bollar]

It probably doesn't matter much for this application. How many clients do you have? and what bit rate are your media files?

Best possible performance comes from striped, mirrored arrays, but if you have only a couple of clients, RAIDz1 will probably be fast enough to send several blu-ray streams at once. You're limited to the NIC's speed of 1Gbps in any event, but processor, RAM and raid type all play a role in getting you there.

 

[jgreco]

The ProLiant MicroServer N36L/N40L maxxes out at 16GB RAM.

Code:

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) II Neo N36L Dual-Core Processor (1297.85-MHz K8-class CPU)
  Origin = "AuthenticAMD"  Id = 0x100f63  Family = 10  Model = 6  Stepping = 3
  Features=0x178bfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,HTT>
  Features2=0x802009<SSE3,MON,CX16,POPCNT>
  AMD Features=0xee500800<SYSCALL,NX,MMX+,FFXSR,Page1GB,RDTSCP,LM,3DNow!+,3DNow!>
  AMD Features2=0x8377f<LAHF,CMP,SVM,ExtAPIC,CR8,ABM,SSE4A,Prefetch,OSVW,IBS,SKINIT,WDT,NodeId>
  TSC: P-state invariant
real memory  = 17179869184 (16384 MB)
avail memory = 16415256576 (15654 MB)
ACPI APIC Table: <HP     ProLiant>

But they don't advertise it. That's a Kingston KVR1333D3E9SK2/16G in there, and is a common upgrade for these machines. Highly recommended because ZFS loves RAM.

 

[lolmc]

It probably doesn't matter much for this application. How many clients do you have? and what bit rate are your media files?

Best possible performance comes from striped, mirrored arrays, but if you have only a couple of clients, RAIDz1 will probably be fast enough to send several blu-ray streams at once. You're limited to the NIC's speed of 1Gbps in any event, but processor, RAM and raid type all play a role in getting you there.

I think there would be MAX 3 clients running at any one time and they range from smart LG TV's with Plex clients,XBOX 360,Sony PS3,Nexus 7 tablets,1080p Roku,Windows laptops and Android phones. Most delivery is over 1Gig LAN but there is wireless to the portable devices with reduced filerates - 2MB @480p is the setting I believe.

Current setup is an old HP Optiplex 720 desktop with 8 GB RAM and a 2TB HDD doing all the jobs (Plex,SABNZBD+,Couch Potato etc.) under Ubuntu 10.04 LTS which handles all clients that I currently have with no issues.

 

[lolmc]

Wow, thanks for the heads up on the RAM - i'll look into the cost of it and decide ( I just bought two 4GB sticks to fit so .....Doh! )

I just checked the prices and the 16GB is a bit spendy, especially after Xmas so I think I'll wait and see if the 8GB is good enough for now.

 

[jgreco]

People are doing more than you with less. I just happen to have a severe aversion to buying something that I may decide I ultimately need to replace.

 

[alexjj]

I have a HP microserver which I run zfs, plex sabnzbd, sickbeard etc. on! I have 8GB of RAM installed, 4x 2TB drives, the 250GB it came with and 1 SSD. I used custom BIOS to unlock the 5/6th SATA to full speed for SSD/250GB. 8GB of RAM is ample for me running 1 raidz. The only thing using RAM is PLEX - but that's a bug with the media scanner. Ignoring that bug I'm using ~1.2 GB RAM.

I use ubuntu server 12.10, zfsonlinux. Incredibly simple to setup as everything is in repositories or well documented (sab/sickbeard/couchpotato).

My advice is get all your hard drives included in the pool when you make it. You can't add drives later to one pool but you can increase their size. I should buy one more as I've got just enough space elsewhere to backup and recreate the pool...

If you don't need plex then FreeNAS is probably a good choice given the zfs webUI for snapshots and using some of the other features. You don't need to worry about that now as you can always use FreeNAS in the future and import your pool.

EDIT: I mis-read your first post but I'm not going to edit my text. Basically you can run everything off the HP microserver and not need another

 

[lolmc]

I have a HP microserver which I run zfs, plex sabnzbd, sickbeard etc. on! I have 8GB of RAM installed, 4x 2TB drives, the 250GB it came with and 1 SSD. I used custom BIOS to unlock the 5/6th SATA to full speed for SSD/250GB. 8GB of RAM is ample for me running 1 raidz. The only thing using RAM is PLEX - but that's a bug with the media scanner. Ignoring that bug I'm using ~1.2 GB RAM.

I use ubuntu server 12.10, zfsonlinux. Incredibly simple to setup as everything is in repositories or well documented (sab/sickbeard/couchpotato).

My advice is get all your hard drives included in the pool when you make it. You can't add drives later to one pool but you can increase their size. I should buy one more as I've got just enough space elsewhere to backup and recreate the pool...

If you don't need plex then FreeNAS is probably a good choice given the zfs webUI for snapshots and using some of the other features. You don't need to worry about that now as you can always use FreeNAS in the future and import your pool.

EDIT: I mis-read your first post but I'm not going to edit my text. Basically you can run everything off the HP microserver and not need another

Thanks for the info it was helpful but I have a few questions if you don't mind:

Which HDD did you use for this? Seagate/WD etc.
Am I right in thinking you are not using FreeNAS but using ZFS as the filesystem format for the 8TB HDDs?
Does this mean you are running the Ubuntu O/S on the 250G HDD using a more usual FS like EXT4?
What are you using the SSD for?
Have you set up all the folders for media storage on the ZFS drives?
Are you using a ZFS RAID system or JBOD and no back up for the 8TB?

I would appreciate a reply and a link to the custom BIOS if you have it.

Thanks

 

[alexjj]

Thanks for the info it was helpful but I have a few questions if you don't mind:

Which HDD did you use for this? Seagate/WD etc.
Am I right in thinking you are not using FreeNAS but using ZFS as the filesystem format for the 8TB HDDs?
Does this mean you are running the Ubuntu O/S on the 250G HDD using a more usual FS like EXT4?
What are you using the SSD for?
Have you set up all the folders for media storage on the ZFS drives?
Are you using a ZFS RAID system or JBOD and no back up for the 8TB?

I would appreciate a reply and a link to the custom BIOS if you have it.

Thanks

This is what I'm using:
128 GB Crucial M4 SSD ext 4 for ubuntu 12.10 as the OS -> Running ubuntu server with zfsforlinux installed. Plus sab/sb/cp/etc. In fact testing out running a windows 7 VM using kvm...it's working but sloooow!
I have 3x 2TB WD Reds and 1x 2TB seagate green as a raidz1 pool. Zfs is completely managing them.
All my media and data are stored on this one zfs pool, no separation or anything fancy. I occasionally make a snapshot manually but could automate it with cron jobs.

The stock 250GB is just hanging about...currently ext4 but no real use.

Custom BIOS...I remember it being easy but found details in a few places...maybe things have been consolidated since, have a look at these two sites:
one
two

zfsforlinux is pretty good. It's being "paid for" by a research department so updates happen. There' no GUI and it's all cli, which to setup is easy but more advanced stuff requires effort to read :P Hence I've not bothered.

I have imported the pool into FreeNAS just to have a look at it and everything was fine.

 

[lolmc]

Thanks again for your help - it's making my choice of hardware etc. much easier