Build advice for a FreeNAS box including transcoding

[Jack Naisbett]

Hi there,

I posted a while back for recommendations on hardware to use, but having dabbled with FreeNAS on and old box someone donated to me, my needs have changed somewhat.

I'm now looking to run:

CIFS and NFS shares, for storage, and streaming to Kodi clients.
MySQL server for Kodi library
Transcoding to DLNA clients e.g. smart tvs (either emby or plex, I'm leaning towards emby)
SabNZBd and Transmission, with OpenVPN securing each

My concern is that the CPU I picked before might struggle now that I want to do transcoding. I also wasn't sure if there was a better choice of board, as I was advised of it some months ago now! Hopefully the RAM I've picked is ECC, it says it is on Pcpartpicker!

Please can someone let me know if there are any better choices for my build?

The build list I currently have is: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/RVbKHN

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£93.47 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i 57.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£31.98 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£72.85 @ More Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (£122.28 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (£122.28 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (£122.28 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (£122.28 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£76.98 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£80.99 @ Amazon UK)
Other: Supermicro MBD-X10SLH-F-O (£205.00)
Total: £1050.39

 

[Dice]

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i 57.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£31.98 @ Ebuyer)

I don't particularly agree with the choice of cooler. The L9i is rather geared to appliances where cooler height is limited.
The case should fit even the big boys, such as the 212 EVO for less cash and greater cooling capacity. Plus, a super quiet fan.
But - you'd probably be just fine with the stock cooler.

Have you compared prices with a X11 skylake system?
(Main benefits are: slightly less power hungry. Capacity of 64GB which will be considerably more future proof)

 

[Jack Naisbett]

Open to X11 suggestions, last time i posted x11 was rather experimental I was told. Is it more stable now? I'll probably go for the 212 evo as might be churning a lot while transcoding to 2 or 3 clients!

 

[Dice]

Since 9.10 there are less problems (some bugs have been discussed in threads, yet none that I can come to think about at this "dozed out moment".)
In general, I can speak from my own setup which has been really free from any problems related to Skylake.

I'd encourage checking prices for the following components (aka - my setup. It was picked to be the most cost efficient Skylake setup I could find)
X11SSL-F, i3-6100 and a single stick of 16GB DDR4 ECC UDIMM (off the QVL list of SM).

Cheers /

 

[Jack Naisbett]

That looks promising! I'll take a look into it

 

[Jack Naisbett]

Thoughts on this build? I Went for the LN4 as teaming may be a useful addition to me in the future!

PCPartPicker part list

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£97.26 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£26.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSH-LN4F Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£220.00)
Memory: Samsung 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£80.00)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (£122.28 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (£122.28 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (£122.28 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (£122.28 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£76.98 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£80.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1071.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-05-26 12:28 BST+0100

 

[Dice]

Thoughts:
I like the development. Seems like you find the right RAM (which I did not succeed in doing on the parts picker).
I disagree on the motherboard, if it is a penny more expensive than the X11SSL-F.

You are aware that Link aggregation won't give you 2x speed, on individual transfers, but only become relevant when there are multiple clients?

 

[Jack Naisbett]

Yeah, I'm planning on having at least 4-5 kodi clients minimum in the near future, if not more later on, so wanted to future proof as much as possible as far as the board goes!

 

[Ericloewe]

I Went for the LN4 as teaming may be a useful addition to me in the future!

I'll be you that it won't. Unfortunately, you don't magically approach N times the bandwidth until you're interacting with a lot of clients.

I disagree on the motherboard, if it is a penny more expensive than the X11SSL-F.

Two extra SATA ports on the X11SSM-F/X11SSH-F are definitely worth it. Two additional 1GbE NICs aren't.

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£26.99 @ Novatech)

Just stick with the stock cooler. It's plenty good.

Otherwise, everything looks good.

 

[Dice]

Two extra SATA ports on the X11SSM-F/X11SSH-F are definitely worth it.

Depends on the boot drive situation.
Having additional on board ports would only by 'worth' if an additional vdev could be sneaked in without messing with a HBA. Which - might be the case in this build, - OP?

Once again the pivotal tiny details comes down to - what are the future upgrade strategy for this build?

Cheers /

 

[Ericloewe]

Depends on the boot drive situation.
Having additional on board ports would only by 'worth' if an additional vdev could be sneaked in without messing with a HBA. Which - might be the case in this build, - OP?

Once again the pivotal tiny details comes down to - what are the future upgrade strategy for this build?

Cheers / Dice.

Don't underestimate the value of a free SATA port. Being able to resilver before removing a not-completely-dead disk is nice. Though four drives would leave two/four SATA ports free

I mean, if OP is okay with forking over cash for the X11SSH-LN4F, I'm not going to be the one telling him that he could save a few bucks by cutting SATA ports. :p There are much better things to cut, like large coolers.

Just to clarify: I'm not advocating overkill, some extras make more sense than others.

 

[Jack Naisbett]

Was planning on 2 usb sticks mirrored as boot drive, and adding more wd reds when i have the money. Future upgrade would be primarily storage as my collection grows, and possibly expanding to web streaming to clients on the go

 

[Jack Naisbett]

If the link aggregation isn't necessary then I'll go for the x11ssh-f for the additional ports. Wanted a large cooler to make sure thermal issues don't crop up!

 

[Dice]

some extras make more sense than others.

Definitely agreed.

Wanted a large cooler to make sure thermal issues don't crop up!

The i3-6100 are stupidly efficient on low loads. I run two of them. One of them completely passive. It features a chassis fan that sits close to the CPU, occasionally adding some fresh air to the case. 95% of the time, the machine is fanless. On this system I run the 'big brother' to the EVO212, a BeQuiet! Pure Rock. I'd agree with @Ericloewe that if cutting some extras, you'd really be fine with the stock cooler.
However, when chasing noise at all possible war fronts, you'd be really happy to have a solid cooler on board. At least in my experience.

In terms of upgrade-plans, a solid HBA is about ~ 120USD (off china e-bay shipped to EU) including cables for 8 drives. Might be worth keeping in mind.

 

[Jack Naisbett]

Update on this, now looking at upping the spend as more transcoding clients (5+ simultaneously), would i3 struggle? Would I be better off with a Xeon E3-1230V5?

 

[Stux]

E3-1230v5 is a great CPU. It's pretty much an i7 with ECC. It seems like a good idea to have >5+ logical cores for >5+ transcodes.

How are you planning on structuring your pool?

 

[Jack Naisbett]

How does it compare vs 1240 and 1245?

I'm now aiming for 6 4TB drives, in mirrored stripes of 3 x 2 drives. Assuming I've understood how it works!

 

[Stux]

How does it compare vs 1240 and 1245?

I'm now aiming for 6 4TB drives, in mirrored stripes of 3 x 2 drives. Assuming I've understood how it works!

1240 is 10% more expensive and 3% faster. 1245 is the same speed as 1240 but has a useless igpu and is even more expensive.

As primarily a media system, rather than an ESXi data store I'd suggest 6x4TB in raidz2 for 16TB vs 3x2x4TB for 12TB.

The difference is you can grow a mirrored system 2 drives at a time (so you might as well start with 2 or 4), where as you can't directly add drives to a raidz2 vdev, so it makes sense to go as sensibly wide as you can afford upfront (i.e. 6-8 drives)

 

[Jack Naisbett]

Cheers. Have I got my drive setup ambitions right? I'm thinking it'll leave me with 12TB storage all said and done?

 

[Stux]

See my edit above