Home Server - OS options

[Viberious]

My home server is currently running windows 11 pro, using network shares for the house to use.
My current configuration (running Plex)

• I5 12400, 16gb RAM, Z690 Gigabyte motherboard, 4x 18tb and 2x 12tb drives (connected by HBA card)

Each drive at the moment has its own specific media type (1x drive for TV, 1x for Films etc. I have looked into Unraid in the past but found it to be very slow on data upload, also read somethings about Truenas but that requires same sized drives to be used (which would lose 2x12tb drives possibly).

I'm looking at suggestions from someone more experienced in NAS style setup. My main requirement is for Plex nice and simple i Know but my storage has run away from me with no actual plan how to best manage it.

 

[Donnie Fisher]

TrueNas uses zfs, where data pools can be configured and built up of smaller vdevs in multiple different ways. Each vdev will be limited to the smallest capacity drive in them. If you paired an 18 and a 12, it would drop the 18's size down to 12) So as long as you dont mix the drive sizes, then you would get the most of them.

For example a data pool using 4x 18TB drives could be mde to have a single vdev (3xdata+1parity) =54TB , or 2 mirrored vdevs such as ((data+mirror)+(data+mirror)) = 36TB. You could then add another vdev of the 2x 12TB drives in another mirrored pair to the overall pool. 54+12 = 70TB or 36+12=48TB. So you wouldn't necessarily lose your 12TB drives.

Although there is less overall storage space with the mirrored pair setups, I like the argument for them. If you have a failure, then it only needs to rebuild from the other half of that mirror, and it only needs to rebuild the amount of data that individual mirror holds ( 18TB for example ). If a drive failed in a 3xdata+1xparity vdev, then to rebuild it needs all the drives running and has to rebuild all the data - 54TB in this example. The argument being that mirrored pairs reduces the time to rebuild, and thus potentially lowers the risk during rebuild.

As for slow upload ... not necessarily always unraid's fault. Over a typical network, if the file sizes are less than 100mb, then i've found that its the network protocols become the limiting factor. there is a lot that gets added to the process of requesting to send, and confirming the completion of a file transfer. This overhead takes time away from the actual transfer of the file contents. So if you're transferring lots of smaller files, it bogs down and slows the overall transfer speed. For example, for me to transfer a 4Gb file to/from the NAS, it'll sustain close to 112MB/s. For me to transfer 4GB worth of RAW photo files at 30Mb each, it'll drop to around 50 to 60MB/s if not less. The smaller the files become, the more it bogs down.

I've not tried TrueNas yet ... but I used to run a linux server with ZFS on it. I now run Unraid for simplicity, and I dont mind its performance at all. There is a ton of add-ons for unraid, and things like Plex will be a well tested function. Once you get the data onto Unraid, I've found it to be perfectly acceptable when reading it back. ZFS is coming to Unraid in the future ... which I am looking forward to.

 

[Viberious]

Thanks for the reply, might take a gander to see which works best.

 

[lsg1r]

As nice to have as it is you can actually manage plex quite nicely in windows imo. You could use storage spaces to make a redundant setup of your larger drives (you'd lose data though iirc) and then just run the windows version of plex server (which is arguably the best version of plex server due to hardware transcoding support).

I would say the bigger issue is probably more to do with how you're managing your media collection than the hardware it's on.... can you say how yours is actually managed with a bit more detail, is each tv series in it's own folder etc for example.

Personally, although I've not run either yet, I'd go with unraid (I will be soon and it now also getting zfs support) if you're any part worried about power draw, due to the way it works it would only spin up one drive when viewing a media file. It also seems to be the better option if you want to expand the pool with more drives. Uploads can be slow on all platforms in my experience and it's as much down to the hardware sending data as much as the hardware receiving it so I wouldn't see that as a defining factor.
Remember if you do go unraid/truenas you're going to lose all your data when they format the drives...assuming you keep the same hardware.

Arguably if you want the most simple option I'd maybe look at a nas that supports plex server... synology, qnap, asustor etc

 

[Viberious]

I have multiple drives

• 1x drive for current TV broken down into numerous folders per program, 1 drive for historic programs per folder.
• 1x drive for Films and 1x older films less important, but still watched.

the plan was to move to different OS rather than changing any of the hardware. one with potentially pooled drives sharing the storage over multiple topics and some form of parity. I can shift the data around to make for a few empty drives then copy the data back over but copying multiple TBs of data isnt a quick option hence why I was asking for options here.

 

[lsg1r]

I'd probably still look at unraid more than truenas then personally, even with it being a paid for item... do have a good read of the forums etc first though.

You set it up via usb stick and runs purely from ram so you gain a drive essentially (if your os is ssd, it could be used as a cache drive to help with transfers etc... lots of options, plenty to read/watch), plus it can make a pool from different sized drives, you just need to use the largest size drive for parity (or 2 if you go dual parity).
You can basically start with 1 drive plus your parity drive and then copy over via your current drives via a usb caddy, then add a drive to the pool as you go type affair..

If it was me I'd probably go 4x18tb in a 3+1 parity pool (you then add 18tb drives as needed, maybe another for dual parity) and then the 2x12tb in a mirrored pool for non media files, things like documents etc but you've got plenty of options really.

There are ways to configure where things go etc but even at a basic level if it's pooled storage you could just set it up in folders and be done with it.

Quick bit about transferring via usb.

Easily move, copy and sync files to unRAID, within unRAID and from unRAID using Krusader

** Update 23 May 2018. The container in this video has been depreciated and we have a new one from Binhex . Setup is similar but will make a new video soon**...

www.youtube.com

Which ever way you go you want a 'second' backup somewhere anyway, even with the dual mirrored approach from Donnie you still have the potential to lose data if it fails in the wrong way

 

[Donnie Fisher]

Yup agreed. That’s what concerns me at the moment is a lack of a second backup as I use my nas as the archive which I feel I need to address somehow. But that’s a whole different topic.

 

[lsg1r]

Yup agreed. That’s what concerns me at the moment is a lack of a second backup as I use my nas as the archive which I feel I need to address somehow. But that’s a whole different topic.

To be fair, I'm in the same boat, looking at consolidating all my media to a single server but still trying to figure out the best option for a 'second' backup which doesn't cost the earth (both to run and 'build')... I'd consider online backup but I'm not sure I want to upload TB's of data on 20mbps....

Funny how this topic has come about on 'world backup day'... most be refreshing people's memories lol

If you or the OP is ok with a yearly fee and have a decent upload you could look at online storage for a backup... it's financially viable for home users these days with the likes of backblaze/carbonite (carbonite has an offer on today) etc offering unlimited storage for a fixed fee, whether or not it's internet viable is another matter.

 

[Donnie Fisher]

I know I shouldn’t but I have a fundamental lack of faith with relying on something like that…it’s outwith my control I feel.

I’ll get my Tin foil hat

 

[lsg1r]

I know I shouldn’t but I have a fundamental lack of faith with relying on something like that…it’s outwith my control I feel.

I’ll get my Tin foil hat

I wouldn't say it's tin foil hat, it's one of those things where you hope it does what it says on the tin but at the same time you're also hoping you don't get screwed over when you need it (bit like insurance lol)....and it's not like you can really test it until that one important moment when you actually need it.

So it's back to paper with lots of ones and zero on it is for us then

 

[decto]

As nice to have as it is you can actually manage plex quite nicely in windows imo. You could use storage spaces to make a redundant setup of your larger drives (you'd lose data though iirc) and then just run the windows version of plex server (which is arguably the best version of plex server due to hardware transcoding support).

Unraid uses docker to host plex. Hardware transcoding works perfectly both encode and decode with a Nvida GPU (Quadro, GTX) as long as you have plex pass to enable it. Intel iGPU also works very well, though not sure if intel iGPU allows both encode and decode as I've been running a dGPU for the last few years as my CPU doesn't have an iGPU and I'm not in the market for a replacement server yet.

The PC harware you have would easily run unraid, actually it's overkill.
You can also set your shares (folders) e.g. Movies only go onto specific drives if needed though usually people let the OS fill up.
Easy to add additional drives to increase storage and the files are written to individual drives so if all else fails you can pull the drive and copy the data in linux.

As Donnie said above, I can usually max a 1GB network connection with large files, though you are limited to the write speed of the drive you are writing to + a little overhead. That overhead is pretty small with modern CPU's. If you really want speed, throw in a 1TB+ SSD cache drive so you can max the connection, then the OS will copy to the array overnight.

If you have your apps, Radarr, Sonarr etc. all running on the server, it's usually self managed so does all the downloading iteself. I let these write straight to the array so the cache doesn't get hit with too much traffic.

 

[lsg1r]

Unraid uses docker to host plex. Hardware transcoding works perfectly both encode and decode with a Nvida GPU (Quadro, GTX) as long as you have plex pass to enable it. Intel iGPU also works very well, though not sure if intel iGPU allows both encode and decode as I've been running a dGPU for the last few years as my CPU doesn't have an iGPU and I'm not in the market for a replacement server yet.

I know that it has support for some hardware, the hardware options are still not as well supported as on windows though imo. AMD igpu for example isn't supported on unraid last I checked.

Not that I agree with the 'forced' requirement of plex pass to get access to all the features of my pc in the first place, and we'll just ignore the controversy over privacy a while back..... I'd be looking at jellyfin or emby personally if I want an app, although to be fair I currently use serviio (has free transcoding, not that I use it) which works fine with the built in player on my tv.

 

[qbhatti]

Plain old windows..

Or if you fancy then proxmox + bunch of virtual machines

 

[Devrij]

I use TrueNAS Scale (I find Scale a lot easier to work with than Core, which is all FreeBSD based) and it's quite good. Performance is solid, lots of features, and lots of docker apps on truecharts to download and install.

The drive capacity thing is a bit of a pain though.

Prepare for regularly buying drives in sets if three when you want to upgrade capacity if you want to use raid Z1 (mirrored drives are cool, but cost per TB was a factor for me).

Worth bearing in mind the consequences of losing 2 drives in a z1 vdev that is on a pool with multiple vdevs. That said, if I were you I would just get an extra 12TB drive and have two pools with one vdev each and have one for media and the other for SMB shares, PC backups, cloud storage etc. That gives you 36TB on one and 24TB on the other. Or put both vdevs into one pool and risk losing the whole lot if you lost 2 disks in one of the vdevs

 

[CaNsA]

Not sure if it's been mention yet, but OpenMediaVault is a decent bit of kit with active devs and plenty of bolt-ons.

 

[Trig]

I run Windows 10 on my home 'server' these days and then just add the Hyper-V role to run Plex and a few other things in their own VM's.
I've got an NVME and 4 spinners all tied together using Stablebit Drivepool and their Drive Scanner software to manage and monitor stuff.
Drivepool gives you the advantage of being able to use any drive type or size and add it to the pool, you can add cache drives and worse case, if things go really bad the pool exists on NTFS drives so you can simply put a drive into another machine and access the data on that drive as files arent striped across the pool they exist as a complete file on a drive.
You can also set folder/pool duplication so it gives you the ability to duplicate important stuff to more that one drive in the pool.
Obviously not a replacement for a proper backup, but does help