Moving to Freenas and need to build new powerful but low power consumption NAS

ruffpl

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Dec 3, 2019
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Hi. I want to move from Xpenology to Freenas and want to upgrade intel core to energy efficient AMD A4 platform. I am thinking about buying some used parts and using some of I already have. Most important thing is that new NAS could easily transcode /stream to TV, smartphones etc. movies in 1080p/4k for couple users at the same time. Big plus would be that it could run ecc memory.
Which APU would be good for it? I am thinking about cheap 35W processors like Athlon 240GE, A12 9800E, Ryzen 2200GE and others (mainboard probably some Asrock or Asus). I could also run it with pcie sata/sas controller that I have spare and 16gb ddr4 ecc memory
 

rvassar

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Last time I checked, FreeNAS has no ability to utilize the GPU for transcoding. So an APU is wasted silicon. More importantly, the use of ECC memory is recommended, and a lot of the APU class CPU's have no ability to support it.
 

ruffpl

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So what do You suggest for it? Right now I have some old core i3 or i5 with ddr3 memory. I want to build something cheap bt more advanced with low TDP for 4k movies to work smoothly for next few years ( at the beginning I wanted to build dual xeon server but working 24h per day I will go bankrupt)
 

anmnz

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Do you have a specific power budget in mind, i.e. how much power are you prepared for this system to consume, at idle and under load?

Do be aware that TDP is absolutely not the same thing as overall power consumption. There is no guarantee whatsoever that a lower-TDP system will consume less power to carry out the same workload.
 

Chris Moore

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So what do You suggest for it? Right now I have some old core i3 or i5 with ddr3 memory. I want to build something cheap bt more advanced with low TDP for 4k movies to work smoothly for next few years ( at the beginning I wanted to build dual xeon server but working 24h per day I will go bankrupt)
If you want 4k, but you don't want to go bankrupt, you could save the files at multiple resolutions to skip the transcode. That way they will be direct play and use less CPU resources, just need more disk space.
 

Chris Moore

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Last time I checked, FreeNAS has no ability to utilize the GPU for transcoding. So an APU is wasted silicon. More importantly, the use of ECC memory is recommended, and a lot of the APU class CPU's have no ability to support it.
Still true as I understand it.
 

Chris Moore

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I have heard rumors that FreeNAS doesnt play nice with AMD?
Mainly it is about the hardware that is often used on the AMD compatible system boards. Supermicro makes some AMD server boards that are fully supported.
 

ruffpl

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I would like to buy it as cheap as it is possible / some used parts or outlet ( my wife could kill me if I started buying more expensive pc parts). Just dont want to build another combine-harvester working 24h per day which would be used just to play some movies at evening + some cartoons by kids in the same time.
Soon more 4k, 8k, 16k movies are going to show up and I think it is good time to upgrade for me, but should I go in intel direction instead?
Ps. As files at multiple resolutions it is not for me. I have to many videos and I dont want to have mess and lose space for them.
 

Chris Moore

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Before thinking about any of those resolutions, look at this article and really let the info sink in:

 

ruffpl

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Thanks.I am planing to get ust 4k projector for gaming and watching movies, so 1080p will will slowly fall into oblivion. What gear should be enough for it? Cheapest Asrock AMD A4 mobo supporting ecc can cost around 40usd. Should I look for some atom,celeron,pentium etc instead?
 

Herr_Merlin

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freeNAS and cheaping out does not go well together.
Go for used Intel server parts like single socket boards with ECC memory
 

ruffpl

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Dec 3, 2019
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Spend a lot of time and can not find anything that have all available options. For now the best for me would be 8th generation intel core i3 8100 with integrated graphic/intel quick sync/ecc + C246 chipset motherboard that support ddr4 ecc working in ecc mode
 

rvassar

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I've been running an i3-2120 on an X9SCL motherboard with ECC RAM for a while now. Most of the time it just gets the job done, even with 10GbE. But I don't transcode at all.

I did pick up an E3-1220v2, and tried to swap, but it panic'ed on boot, so I reverted. Not sure if it's the CPU, or a BIOS setting. I got distracted at that point because I had committed the cardinal sin of touching something that was working. Both my pools came up degraded, and it took a full scrub on each to get things back to stable. My RAIDz pool takes a lot of writes from a security camera and the drives are quite old, the one that dropped out is pushing 40k hours... I suspect it was the thermal cycle that tripped it up. But one of my 8Tb shucked Easystore drives threw a dozen read errors too, and it has less than 9k hours.

Cleared & scrubed each, and it just went away... Now I'm afraid to touch it. ;)
 

ruffpl

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Question : Xeons e3 v6 series: 1220v6, 1225v6, 1230v6. Are the going to be also good alternative for transcoding? I can get cheap 1230v6 and I think it should be ok for my needs - 4 cores/ 8 threads, HT, 3,5-3,9 GHz, ddr4 2400ecc, tdp 72W, intel speed step, virtualization... only minus is no gpu (?) But it wil be able to transcode without any hi end GPU (just need to connect some cheap card for monitor output)? Am i right? I am some 5 years behind nowadays technology :)
 
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rvassar

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Question : Xeons e3 v6 series: 1220v6, 1225v6, 1230v6. Are the going to be also good alternative for transcoding? I can get cheap 1230v6 and I think it should be ok for my needs - 4 cores/ 8 threads, HT, 3,5-3,9 GHz, ddr4 2400ecc, tdp 72W, intel speed step, virtualization... only minus is no gpu (?) But it wil be able to transcode without any hi end GPU (just need to connect some cheap card for monitor output)? Am i right? I am some 5 years behind nowadays technology :)

Since I don't do a lot of transcoding, I'll let someone else answer.

As for video, it depends on the motherboard. Some server boards will have an embedded Matrox VGA card for video, often slaved to their base board management controller. You can just connect to that and control the machine remotely over the network.
 
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