Plex Streaming Build

[Vakagar]

Hello everyone,

I'm building my first FreeNAS machine, which I will use mainly for Plex Streaming. I'm not really worried about data integrity since I can restore pretty much everything I have, but I'm thinking of setting up around 5 drives (scaling up to 10 in the future) as a RAID-Z array, just in case. The disks will be 4TB Seagates, which I didn't list because I already own them.

My main requirement is probably simultaneous transcoding, but with 3 to 5 concurrent connections, max.

After reading the hardware guide this is what I've came up with so far, and I could really appreciate some opinions:

CPU: Intel - Xeon E3-1240 V5 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Supermicro - MBD-X11SSH-LN4F Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: 2 x Samsung - 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory
Storage: Western Digital - Black PCIe 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive
Case: Fractal Design - Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair - CSM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
UPS: CyberPower - CP1350AVRLCD UPS

I have some experience on building computers, but mainly for gaming, so excuse me if something doesn't make sense.

 

[Jailer]

The SSD I assume is for the FreeNAS installation? If so it will work but is extreme overkill.

The biggest thing with plex is transcoding. If your clients support direct play then your CPU requirements are much lower. If your clients don't support direct play or are remotely connected then you'll need more CPU horsepower.

I wouldn't recommend RAIDZ with large drives but as long as you understand and accept the risk of data loss then it will work fine.

 

[tvsjr]

As Jailer suggested, RAIDZ2 would be more appropriate for the drive size. You could do a 5-disk RAIDZ2 vdev now, then add another 5-disk vdev later.

I would suspect you'll be OK with the CPU unless you're planning to transcode something ludicrous (like 5 4K streams).

Find you a cheap SSD (I bought a $25 lightly-used Intel 320 40GB off eBay - just check the SMART status) instead of the one you have. If you want to reinvest the money, I'd throw it at more RAM.

 

[melloa]

As Jailer suggested, RAIDZ2

If you want to reinvest the money, I'd throw it at more RAM.

Dito.

(scaling up to 10 in the future)

Plan accordingly as you can't add drive to an existing vdev. Read @cyberjock guide to better understand what you can and need to do: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

 

[danb35]

Plan accordingly as you can't add drive to an existing volume.

You can add drives to volumes all day long--it's vdevs that can't be changed.

 

[melloa]

You can add drives to volumes all day long--it's vdevs that can't be changed.

Correct and corrected above.

 

[Stux]

You want unregistered memory iirc.

 

[diedrichg]

Bah, RAIDZ-1 is just fine for a streaming machine if that's all it's doing. In that case I'd just build a RAID5 Linux or Windows box and have a much easier UI. As for the 1240v5, it gets a PassMark score of 10,333 which is fast enough for (5) simultaneous 1080p transcodes.

Edit: not to mention a 5-wide Z2 is a major waste of space where a 6-wide Z2 would net you 33.38% more space.

Z1 (5) 4TB = 11.46TiB usable
Z2 (5) 4TB = 8.59TiB usable
Z2 (6) 4TB = 11.46TiB usable

 

[pschatz100]

As for the 1240v5, it gets a PassMark score of 10,333 which is fast enough for (5) simultaneous 1080p transcodes.

There is a general notion that you need a Passmark score of 2000 per transcoded stream at 1080P. This is a very rough approximation, can can be influenced by a number of factors including the source material and compression that you use. You could probably expect to get three or four simultaneous 1080P transcodes in most cases (unless you use one of the new h.265 compression algorithms - in which case you would only get two.) DVD quality transcodes will not require as much CPU power, so you will be OK with those.