CPU For Multitask NAS

[thepecca]

Goodmorning everyone,
After many hours spent researching the right components i couldn't find info regarding the requirements needed to run at the same time:

-Plex
-OpenVPN
-Torrentbox
-Resilio Sync
-Backup
-Ubuntu/Homebridge

The main use for the server will be running plex media server, i download in many different formats so i need a cpu that can handle transcoding in 1080p. I'll never be streaming to more than 3 clients at a time.

I also intend on running a OpenVpn server in order to access my network from anywhere.

Regarding the Torrentbox I'll be using Transmission with an RSS feed to download the files and Sonarr or Sickrage to handle them for plex.

I'll be doing a backup of every machine i own (Windows, Osx, iPhone photos with resilio sync)

The need of ubuntu is needed to run homebridge and other scripts, a headless version works fine, I don't need the full GUI

Considering that I live in Italy i need a cpu available on www.amazon.it. The cost of cpu+mobo+ECC ram should stay under €700 but i'm willing to spend a bit more for a "leap" in performance.

As for the hard drives i'll be getting 4 WD Red 4tb

Thanks for the help

 

[melloa]

Hello and welcome.

My personal opinion is that if your data is important, you should consider raidz2. That gives two disks redundancy, so consider adding one or more disks to your build, even if smaller than 4TiB, as you can always increase the size by replacing all disks, one by one later. Look for @cyberjock post in this forum for more information: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

For the above need your cpu need to be at least an i3. You didn't mention memory, but that's an import component for your build, as you'll be running application on it and don't want to slow down your NAS performance due to swap. Check this: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

People runs FreeNAS in all kind of configuration, including old computers/servers. I do run mine on a desktop motherboard with 32 GRAM, 10 x 4TiB disks, HBA, SSD for boot, etc. The money I put on the build was almost the same if I had gotten a server motherboard and ECC memory, but it was before I started reading the forum ;)

 

[thepecca]

Thank you melloa,

I'll definitely consider adding another drive but as of right now i prefer investing more in the cpu/mobo rather than tb of space since i don't need it that much. If the budget allows it i'll probably end up buying 5x2tb or 5x3tb WD Reds.

I want to buy server class hardware but i'm not really sure on which cpu-mobo combo to go for.
I've been looking at xeon but i'm not sure weather a 6core is justified over a 4core or if i should buy something with hyper-threading or not.

I was thinking about 16gb of ecc ram to be upgraded to 32 in the future. Right now i don't think i can fit everything in €1000 considering nearly half going towards the disks. (the only thing i already own is a 550w 80plus bronze psu)

 

[melloa]

Carrissimo,

Each case is different, but I'd think a 6 core CPU wouldn't be needed.

To give you an idea (and in no shape or form this is the recommended hardware, but that was what I did before the great guide (c) @Ericloewe), I run my FreeNAS on a ASRock motherboard with an i5, 32GBRAM, 10 x 4TiB WD Red, Intel NIC, two M1015 flashed to IT, one SSD for boot. That was for 9.10 and I was planning to do Plex, Owncloud, Zoneminder. As 9.10 philosophy of plugins kept me behind applications releases (soon to change with FreeNAS 10 Dockers), I've moved all my applications to a VMWare. On that VMWare I had an i3 and was running all of that with 75% CPU utilization... So you should be fine with a 4 core CPU. Do look at people's build and you will find several ideas. I've based my next one on Erick's and @joeschmuck, specially because Joe run's his FreeNAS virtualized and that is the idea I'm going next to reduce number of running computers at home.

Right now i don't think i can fit everything in €1000 considering nearly half going towards the disks.

Yes, it is a little expensive considering the entire build. Plan your final destination and add as you go. You can start with 16GBRam, but plan to use as little slots as possible, so you can add more; plan for your volume with the number of disks you'd like to have as you can start small and add to increase volume, or build a second volume - do read @cyberjock post. I'd learned a lot from it.

Do avoid build something that will all go to the trashcan and cause you frustration :)

 

[thepecca]

Would the E3-1275 v5 do the job?
Which mobo do you recommend for this cpu? I'd like to have dual gigabit lan and/or kvm features.

 

[nightshade00013]

That CPU should more than fit your needs even if you are transcoding multiple streams at the same time. I would however recommend making sure your media is in a format/container that your clients can run natively, it will save you a lot of heat/electricity this way as the only time you will really need to transcode is if you are adding external subtitles or at a remote point where you can't stream full quality. For instance my devices all prefer MP4 with AAC audio, MKV's all get transcoded so I generally make sure I encode in MP4. But basically for transcoding a 1080p/10Mbps file you need a cpu with a Passmark around 2000 minimum, I would suggest closer to 3000 for a single stream on FreeNAS. Each jail will also take some resources but a cpu with a passmark around 8500 will handle 3 streams in plex, and a few other jails with no issues.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201774043-What-kind-of-CPU-do-I-need-for-my-Server-
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E3-1275+v5+@+3.60GHz

A lot of people look to the Supermicro boards for their builds. They are stable and have a long track record. Find one that fits your needs and go with it.

As far as dual lan most server boards made now have that, however you can't just throw both lan ports onto a network and think you are going to double your throughput. Without a special switch that can handle it the best you can do is failover unless you do a lot of extra steps and then you can just have two clients fetch data at max lan port speed minus overhead at best.

For KVM what you are really wanting is IPMI, it's nice to have especially if you put the FreeNAS in a closet or other area you don't want to head down to. You can power it on or check the board information from a remote location using a browser or app. Can even watch the remote screen boot up or make changes at the CLI from a remote client.

 

[pschatz100]

For the tasks you have listed, a 4 cpu Xeon would be sufficient. To me, the big question would be memory requirement. I don't think most of those apps are big memory hogs, so you could probably start with 16gb RAM with a plan to upgrade to 32Gb in the future. If you really are running all those apps at the very same time, your network is likely to be the bottleneck.

I would recommend a Supermicro motherboard because they are reliable and well supported here in the forums. However, you don't need the latest generation. Any Xeon compatible with Ivy Bridge or newer would be OK (I would not suggest going older than Ivy Bridge because they lack certain firmware extensions that are helpful with Plex.) A Supermicro X10 class board would be a great choice.

 

[nightshade00013]

That is very interesting! What features specifically, can you point to some more details?

Agreed, I have Nehalem series and plex runs like a champ. Other than the power savings there should not be any issues.

 

[pschatz100]

That is very interesting! What features specifically, can you point to some more details?

Agreed, I have Nehalem series and plex runs like a champ. Other than the power savings there should not be any issues.

I never said older processors were not capable of running Plex. But in response to a request for comments about processors, I suggested Ivy Bridge or newer if Plex was a priority.

Beginning with Sandy Bridge, Intel began to incorporate video and media subsystems in the processors which greatly increased performance on tasks like video editing, transcoding and playback. Folks who do a lot of video editing are well aware of this. When Ivy Bridge was released, it offered significant enhancements and improvements over Sandy Bridge. Simply put, Ivy Bridge is more efficient when it comes to video processing. In the case of Plex, this would translate into more efficient transcoding when necessary - support for more streams and higher resolutions while using less power.

Nowadays, Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors are about the same price, so given a choice I would purchase Ivy Bridge.

You can check a source like wikipedia if you want to see a list of the features with a detailed description of what they do.

 

[Ericloewe]

Beginning with Sandy Bridge, Intel began to incorporate video and media subsystems in the processors which greatly increased performance on tasks like video editing, transcoding and playback. Folks who do a lot of video editing are well aware of this. When Ivy Bridge was released, it offered significant enhancements and improvements over Sandy Bridge. Simply put, Ivy Bridge is more efficient when it comes to video processing. In the case of Plex, this would translate into more efficient transcoding when necessary - support for more streams and higher resolutions while using less power.

And none of that helps at all under FreeBSD. Plex is purely software-only on FreeBSD.

 

[pschatz100]

I understand that Plex does not currently use hardware encoding and decoding engines, but I would have expected it to use the low level math extensions that became supported under FreeBSD 9.1. They would improve the efficiency of software transcoding. But if I'm wrong, then I stand corrected.

 

[Ericloewe]

I understand that Plex does not currently use hardware encoding and decoding engines, but I would have expected it to use the low level math extensions that became supported under FreeBSD 9.1. They would improve the efficiency of software transcoding. But if I'm wrong, then I stand corrected.

Off the top of my head, transcoding most codecs will gain little from AVX. Most of the gains would come from the various SSE extensions.