First dedicated NAS build hardware check

[d3zmodos]

Hi everyone

I've used FreeNAS for several years running on an old desktop but that's starting to give up and so I figured it was time to construct a purpose-built machine to function as my home server.
For context: So far I've used FreeNAS primarily as a file server for storage and backup, with a few jails for syncthing, transmission and the like. With this new build, I'm considering adding some media streaming to that (via Plex or similar, probably out to Kodi or similar) but it wouldn't ever be more than a single concurrent stream and very unlikely to be anything over 1080p any time soon.

I'm looking at the following specs: (I couldn't find the Motherboard or PSU on Amazon)
CPU: Intel Pentium G5420
Motherboard: Supermicro X11SSM
Memory: Crucial 16GB DDR4-2666 ECC Unbuffered
PSU: Be Quiet! 300W Pure Power 11
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB x2 (the existing drives)
Boot: Kingston A400 120GB SSD x2

Apart from the general "does this look like it will work" query, I have some specific questions:

1. The motherboard is only listed as supporting up to DDR-2400 but I'm struggling to find DDR-2400 UDIMMs in the UK (where I am), although DDR4-2666 is fairly easy to find. Will the higher-clock-rate memory step down to the 2400MHz supported by the board or will it not function entirely (IE do I specifically need DDR4-2400)?
2. Do you think this is sufficient power? I expect I'll add another pair of WD Red's in future (maybe 6TB if I'm feeling gluttonous) but probably not much else. PC PartPicker seems to think so, would you agree? I see a lot of other builds with significantly higher wattage PSUs listed here.
3. Do you expect this CPU to be sufficient for what I'm planning to do? Which amounts to "what are Plex's CPU requirements" because most of the rest of my usage is pretty low on CPU-usage. Plex's help page suggests it might struggle if I'm understanding that and the capabilities of the G5420 correctly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! :)

 

[anmnz]

Will the higher-clock-rate memory step down to the 2400MHz supported by the board

Yes.

Do you think this is sufficient power?

Check out @jgreco's "Power Supply Sizing Guidance" in the Resources section of the forums for a start.

Proper Power Supply Sizing Guidance

I've seen about 1,000 threads like this one where people decide that they can power a dozen hard drives off a 360 watt supply. DO NOT DO THIS. I've seen another 1,000 threads where people decide to buy the cheapest power supply that they can...

www.ixsystems.com

Plex: the page you linked is the right place to look to answer the question. Your CPU has a PassMark of 3900, transcoding one 1080p stream requires about 2000, you should be fine. If your source material is higher quality or you want more streams you will struggle. (Note if you can avoid transcoding then the CPU requirements are extremely light.)

 

[Yorick]

1) Yes
2) Not sure, there are power calculators online - plug into that?
3) As long as you stream your 1080p directly to wherever its playing, I expect you’ll be fine. You won’t be doing any transcoding.

What do you intend to boot from? Please say SSD.

An option instead of the x11ssm is the x11ssh, and Boot from an NVMe/pcie m.2 ssd, these are around 40 bucks, to keep all sata ports for drives. Very very optional idea.

 

[jgreco]

2) Not sure, there are power calculators online - plug into that?

OH DEAR GOD NO PLEASE DO NOT EVER SUGGEST THAT FOLKS DO THAT FOR A NAS.

The online "power calculators" all seem to be amateur-hour - most definitely including "PC PartPicker" - because for a NAS application, you have this unusual load characteristic that they don't account for -- spinup current. All of the online power calculators I've seen seem to allot about 5 to 10 watts for each HDD. This is okay-ish for a small number of drives (like, maybe, two).

So the OP with two drives is probably OK at 300W. 360W for four drives, but that is getting close-ish to the limit there.

 

[d3zmodos]

Thanks everyone for the informative replies.

Plex: the page you linked is the right place to look to answer the question.

Ah, so it is indeed. I should have seen that myself, sorry. Good to know though!

What do you intend to boot from? Please say SSD.

SSD indeed, I included 2x120GB SSDs in the original spec to serve as mirrored devices :)

So the OP with two drives is probably OK at 300W. 360W for four drives, but that is getting close-ish to the limit there.

Awesome. Having also consulted your guide as linked by @anmnz, I think I'll bump to a Be Quiet! Pure Power 11 400W

 

[d3zmodos]

Update!
After ordering and receiving all the parts I connected everything up, only to find that the system wouldn't power on (IE no fan spinup, no beeps, it wouldn't try to POST). IPMI still worked and all the components I tested individually worked. Some research later revealed that the CPU I'd ordered is a Coffee Lake/8th Gen Pentium CPU and the motherboard supports only 6th & 7th Gen CPUs.
I have instead (at the recommendation of the motherboard vendor) ordered a Pentium G4560 but that will take a few weeks to arrive so for now I thought I'd at least let everyone know that this CPU/motherboard pair isn't compatible, in case anybody else finds and can avoid making the same mistake.

Also I certainly don't mean this as a complaint that nobody else here caught this. I specifically thought about CPU compatibility and checked the spec sheet which says "Intel® 7th/6th Generation Core i3 series, Intel® Celeron®, Intel® Pentium®, Intel® Xeon® processor E3-1200 v6/v5." so in my head the conclusion I drew was "oh it supports whatever Pentium processors" (which should have set some alarm bells ringing because I wouldn't expect a modern motherboard to support a 1993 CPU)! Now I know for next time though :)

 

[d3zmodos]

One last update: My Pentium G4560 finally arrived and it works like a charm! :)