PCper Plex build

[Jailer]

I like reading the articles these guys put up and I watch TWICH almost every week. They are more geared towards consumer/gamer hardware but do post other stuff from time to time that I enjoy reading.

They recently did a big Plex/backup build and mentioned FreeNAS in the article. Unfortunately they went with Windblows for their OS and a single 16 drive hardware RAID 6 array for their storage. I'm curios to see how this holds up in the long run.

I admit my knowledge of hardware RAID is limited but a 16-8TB RAID6 array sounds like a failure waiting to happen. Am I wrong in my assumption since I'm conditioned to the FreeNAS/ZFS way of doing things?

 

[nightshade00013]

I have done a little hardware raid stuff and from my understanding there are just a ton of issues that can come up. One of the ones that really made me shy away was if the controller just ghosts there are times where it can basically kill everything. Pretty much if you buy a hardware raid controller you may as well buy two so you have a spare and make sure they both work with the array because when you need to get a second one because the first went bad you will either not be able to find one or it will be a different revision and incompatible. I even heard of some horror stories where updating software has taken out an array and flashing back was either not an option or it didn't work.

Is this 100% true, not sure but from the guy I was working with at the time and the articles I was reading I basically stayed away from raid. Once I found ZFS and how it can work I was hooked. Honestly I have thought about doing desktop builds where everything is virtualized on one machine and use FreeNAS as the store point. Hopefully by the time I get to that point Ryzen will be stable so I can grab a Threadripper and go with it. A bunch of older disks (10 to 15 bucks each from ebay) set into a pool with multiple vDev's for SSD speeds off of spinning rust sounds like a lot of fun for a gaming machine/ripper encoder. I would never dream of doing something of that nature with hardware raid though.

 

[tvsjr]

Even beyond the hardware RAID controller issues, can you imagine what the rebuild times would look like for a single 16-drive array?

 

[Jailer]

Even beyond the hardware RAID controller issues, can you imagine what the rebuild times would look like for a single 16-drive array?

Yeah I left a comment on their site addressing that very same issue. That's a really wide array for such large drives.

 

[LIGISTX]

Interesting. I watch enough of their stuff to know most of them are very sharp people. Wonder what their thought process was...

That being said, I watch and have watched Linus tech tips since WAY WAY before it was LTT, I’m talking Linus’s i7 920 video from NCIX helped me OC back in the day. And he (while usually being dumb and silly for the camera) isn’t a dumb dude and has good connections, and he isn’t using ZFS either to my knowledge but opted for unraid. Still not hardware raid which is good, but I do wonder why not a ZFS. Not like hardware expense is an issue, they get almost all of that type of gear for free... must have TB’s worth of Kingston RAM at this point in their studio lol.


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[nightshade00013]

I can imagine that Linus is smart but a lot of time dumb things tend to happen with him. I watched a few and at a certain point I hit my stupid stuff limit with him and was done.

I know at one point he DID have a couple FreeNAS setups and one was all flash for their workflow box. That was a while back and then I quit watching so who knows what was changed.

 

[danb35]

I watched a few and at a certain point I hit my stupid stuff limit with him and was done.

The set on building a pfSense box where he started hacksawing into the motherboard did it for me.

 

[LIGISTX]

Yea, I can understand your points about Linus. One of my tech friends had the same complaint. The thing with him is, it’s a video production company first, and a computer/tech info channel second. They do stupid stuff to be funny and keep people entertained, and honestly IMO, because why not, he can. Just have to remember that part. If you take him to seriously and treat their content in the reverse order (tech > subscriber growth) your just going to miss the point and have a bad time. They are in it for the fun, fun just happens to include computers. Sorta kinda. Lol


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[danb35]

The thing with him is, it’s a video production company first, and a computer/tech info channel second

...which makes him useless as a computer/tech info channel. I get that views = money, but if the content is bad, it doesn't matter how (arguably) funny he is. If the point is to do silly stuff involving computers, then perhaps naming the channel "Tech Tips" wasn't the best plan.

 

[Ericloewe]

I propose "Linus Bit Bucket". It's far more accurate and the transition between the two words sounds funny when said quickly.

 

[LIGISTX]

It isn’t a useless tech channel, just a lot of it is on the funny side. A lot of what they do is valid and completely accurate, but plenty of it is for the lolz, views, clicks, shares and just general fun. If I was in his position I likely would be doing the same stuff. Get paid a lot to work with cool tech which is something I personally quite enjoy, but also be in the position where I can screw around doing so and just have a general fun time.

If I didn’t live in America and was Canadian, I would have for sure applied to work there by now. It’s just hard to leave California... it’s to nice here. Lol.


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[Ericloewe]

A lot of what they do is valid and completely accurate

I must disagree.

Ultimately, even if they get a few things right, you need to know a priori what they're trying to teach. A clueless noob will have a hard time figuring out that striping four RAID5 arrays together is a horrible idea, for instance.
That makes the concept dangerous.

 

[danb35]

Ultimately, even if they get a few things right, you need to know a priori what they're trying to teach.

...and if you already know it, you don't need them to teach it.

 

[nightshade00013]

I propose "Linus Bit Bucket". It's far more accurate and the transition between the two words sounds funny when said quickly.

I would suggest, "Uh oh, Linus broke it again." since it seems that seems to be the big underlying theme of every episode. Something inevitably is done wrong or gets busted.

 

[Ericloewe]

I would suggest, "Uh oh, Linus broke it again." since it seems that seems to be the big underlying theme of every episode. Something inevitably is done wrong or gets busted.

Hmm, the transition from the oh syllable to the Li syllable is one of those hard ones.

 

[LIGISTX]

You guys are just haters lol. And I say that with the nicest of intentions.

After all, through all of their traveling to events and shows, they still have very solid production value and never miss an upload. With ~20 employees and now their own streaming service, they are doing something right. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea and I get that, but can’t knock their success.

And I still stand by the fact they don’t break everything, if they did all their storage servers would constantly be down and no videos would go up. They also have one of the only redonculous 20 or whatever drive nvme systems out in the wild beyond some custom in house rolled OS like Facebook or the like. So, there is that.


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[nightshade00013]

And I still stand by the fact they don’t break everything, if they did all their storage servers would constantly be down and no videos would go up.

Sure they would, do they publish a schedule to the public? I know they carry backups and I can guarantee things have went down and been recovered. But I know for a fact that they run behind due to hardware issues. When their multiple raid card server went down for over a week they had to wait on that for footage. I also watched a video where there were network issues due to Linus doing something that was not correct and knocking everyone offline. They even showed everyone sitting around playing tiddly winks waiting for the problems to be fixed while he tried to hobble stuff together. I am willing to put cash down that they have missed their own deadlines due to hardware problems and if you watch enough of the youtube video's you will find the proof.

Sponsors and videos makes not a good tech person. And after some of the stuff I saw the laughter factor was no longer enough to keep me watching.

 

[LIGISTX]

Sure they would, do they publish a schedule to the public? I know they carry backups and I can guarantee things have went down and been recovered. But I know for a fact that they run behind due to hardware issues. When their multiple raid card server went down for over a week they had to wait on that for footage. I also watched a video where there were network issues due to Linus doing something that was not correct and knocking everyone offline. They even showed everyone sitting around playing tiddly winks waiting for the problems to be fixed while he tried to hobble stuff together. I am willing to put cash down that they have missed their own deadlines due to hardware problems and if you watch enough of the youtube video's you will find the proof.

Sponsors and videos makes not a good tech person. And after some of the stuff I saw the laughter factor was no longer enough to keep me watching.

Fair enough, to each their own. I have watched every video uploaded to the channel minus some of the CES coverage. I know the issues which you speak of, most notably the server RAID issue that tanked a lot of stuff. But since then its been pretty clean. Yea they had a network issue once since, but meh, that aint bad at all considering their constant state of flux, and their CEO who really has better things to do is their day to day sysadmin.... All things considered, I think they are pretty rock solid. Remember, the only real dude who is actually a classically trained "comp sci" guy is slick, but he doesn't do that stuff much. Linus just learned it as he goes and is clearly better at business then being a sysadmin at his own admission.

But the bit about sponsors makes no sense lol. Yea, they like making money, so does everyone. Why not get sponsors on your channel to help pay for your overhead costs and fund your projects. Thats just good business.

But hey, to each their own. This is why I am glad youtube is a platform. The public can easily sway what is on the platform simply by watching what they like.