Mini ITX case with i7 - is it enought for 4k video?

[marka01]

I work in IT for 10 years. You do not need a skillset to connect a ups (plug in a cable to a socket?) or shut down and array (click 'shut down' in windows?). Or am I missing something here then correct me? I am running raid 5 at my work place on a server and have not seen it fail for 5 years except some hdd going bad - then you replace it. Do raid controllers tend to fail on a 100$ desktop MB - not quite sure and that is what I am here to ask you.
Unfortunatelly I have already purchased an micro atx and would like to utilise those 3x HDDs I have. So your advice would be not to connect them into R5 since it will fail if the power outage happens?

 

[Baboonanza]

tbh it sounds like what you need is a 4K android streaming box + NAS + whatever you want to run VMs on. I've learnt from experience that trying to do it all in one box ends up compromising at least one function.

Plus that way you get more tech to play with

 

[Avalon]

I work in IT for 10 years. You do not need a skillset to connect a ups (plug in a cable to a socket?) or shut down and array (click 'shut down' in windows?). Or am I missing something here then correct me? I am running raid 5 at my work place on a server and have not seen it fail for 5 years except some hdd going bad - then you replace it. Do raid controllers tend to fail on a 100$ desktop MB - not quite sure and that is what I am here to ask you.
Unfortunatelly I have already purchased an micro atx and would like to utilise those 3x HDDs I have. So your advice would be not to connect them into R5 since it will fail if the power outage happens?

Unforunatelly? Did the three HD's come with a really cheap telly as well for $600?

Joking aside you seem to have missed something important, 'skill set to deal with recovery or have a UPS and the facility to shut down an array cleanly in the event of power failure, sooner or later that will end badly' - you see that little two letter word between recovery and have? It's kind of important, it signifies that the bits that came before it form one part of a point, the bits after it are different. Besides if you have any technical background, let alone 'I work in IT for 10 years' then surely you'd:

• Know CPU hardware encoding/decoding has been a thing for at least half of the time you've worked in IT and depending on the application, it's very effective allowing even humble atom derived hardware to decode and encode 4K.
• Have even a primitive grasp of RAID, its different options, strengths, weaknesses and suitability for an environment and/or use, so you'd understand why Optane isn't going to end up in an R5 array with a bunch of drives that are currently manufactured.
• Understand that a clean shut down doesn't just require you to plug in a cable to a socket and has nothing to do with clicking anything at the time the power goes off, that's the whole point.
• Know that running R5 in a commercial setting usually involves cold spares, because *when* it fails, you don't want a degraded array suffering another terminal drive failure while you jump on ebay to find a drive as you seem to be fond of, they're the kind of places that usually think R5 is a form of backup. You don't ever want to work in somewhere like that or pick up the pieces after someone who did until it all died.
• Already know that recovering data from a R5 array with multiple failures is horrifically slow and usually not going to end at all well.

I'm not sure what you do in 'IT' or even if your version of IT is anything like my idea of working in IT, but please, please tell me they don't ever let you near the procurement/hardware design/specification side of things.

If you genuinely want to do this (and I suspect you do), then look at Un-Raid, it'll allow you a much better VM/docker set-up, the ability via VT-d to pass hardware through for gaming etc. to specific VM's and give you 95% ish of the bare metal performance with a little planning (SSD's are your friend), you can also run a cache drive and multiple parity drives if you wish which for a home user is probably a better shout than where you seem to be headed. Just please don't tell anyone I sent you, they're a lovely bunch of people and have the patience of saint's, but even they have limits.

 

[marka01]

I have not built a desktop PC for a long time, obviously technology advanced, CPUs advanced and that's why I was here asking questions. Whether they are stupid or not - that is what this forum is for as I understand. In 2 days I have figured out all build and I am happy with it. I just needed a simple answer if raid 5 makes sense in my build or not. Probably you were looking at the ceiling while trying to read my replies because I did say that I have 3 HD's already. Also I did not ask you to tell your story on how cool you are or for how long you were building PC's. Neither I asked you to teach me honesty lessons. PC builds - lowest paid jobs in IT. So obviously I am not doing it, not sure about you. But anyway it took me 2 days to figure out all build and that's it. I do not need 10 or 20 years for that.

"Know CPU hardware encoding/decoding has been a thing for at least half of the time you've worked in IT and depending on the application, it's very effective allowing even humble atom derived hardware to decode and encode 4K."
Not sure what question did it answer that I asked
"Have even a primitive grasp of RAID, its different options, strengths, weaknesses and suitability for an environment and/or use, so you'd understand why Optane isn't going to end up in an R5 array with a bunch of drives that are currently manufactured."
I have configured Raid-5 and did go through the failures too. I can en-light you about Raid 5. It's 1 disk failover, 2x speed that you gain, which I already told previously in my replies. Intel Optaine can end up in R5 array, if OS is installed on R5 array. Go and read on Intels website.
"Understand that a clean shut down doesn't just require you to plug in a cable to a socket and has nothing to do with clicking anything at the time the power goes off, that's the whole point."
If you were reading carefully again I was saying to connect a UPS to a socket does not require much of a knowledge. And I do have APC Back-UPS 700.

Thanks for info on Un-Raid, I will certainly have a look at this for the sake of interest. But I am not planning to use VM's much - only when I do some study stuff. This was only a side question.

 

[Avalon]

Probably you were looking at the ceiling while trying to read my replies because I did say that I have 3 HD's already. Also I did not ask you to tell your story on how cool you are or for how long you were building PC's. Neither I asked you to teach me honesty lessons. PC builds - lowest paid jobs in IT. So obviously I am not doing it, not sure about you. But anyway it took me 2 days to figure out all build and that's it. I do not need 10 or 20 years for that.

The irony of you suggesting i've not read your posts is something i'll get to later. As to your 2 days, it should have taken less than 20 minutes once you had a clear idea of what you wanted it to do (which you still seemingly don't). I'm genuinely touched about your concern for those who aren't well paid within the industry, i'm not in the industry as of a few weeks ago - I suppose you could say i've retired, but at 36 that's an odd idea, uncomfortable idea for me, so i'm going with I don't need to work and have no plans to do so for the foreseeable future.

"Know CPU hardware encoding/decoding has been a thing for at least half of the time you've worked in IT and depending on the application, it's very effective allowing even humble atom derived hardware to decode and encode 4K."

Not sure what question did it answer that I asked

You asked if a CPU was suitable for a task, if you're going to play the 'I work in IT' card then you will be expected to have a basic grasp of hardware capabilities, unless you're a phone/code monkey, though in fairness most of them are expected to know the basics.

"Have even a primitive grasp of RAID, its different options, strengths, weaknesses and suitability for an environment and/or use, so you'd understand why Optane isn't going to end up in an R5 array with a bunch of drives that are currently manufactured."

I have configured Raid-5 and did go through the failures too. I can en-light you about Raid 5. It's 1 disk failover, 2x speed that you gain, which I already told previously in my replies. Intel Optaine can end up in R5 array, if OS is installed on R5 array. Go and read on Intels website.

Your own post from earlier clearly states Optane can't accelerate RAID. It can reside in the same system, but Optane will only boost a specific drive, not a drive in the RAID array. You remember when you suggested I didn't read your posts? Have you read them?

thanks. well I was looking at optaine FAQ and found out that you cannot accelerate RAID with optaine unless Optaine is "inside" the raid volume where the OS resides:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...nd-storage/intel-optane-memory/000024018.html :
I want to set RAID up on my system. Can I accelerate these RAID volumes with Intel Optane memory?
Intel Optane memory cannot accelerate a RAID volume. An Intel Optane memory volume can reside in the same system as a RAID volume. The operating system must be on the SATA drive accelerated by Intel Optane memory.
Note In a system with this configuration, we recommend using the Intel RST application to manage your RAID volume and Intel Optane memory volume.

I can see from this article that NVMe SSD is probably even better than Optaine hybrid: https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/04/intel-3d-xpoint-optane-memory-review/

For the networking I don't use high end switch or router yet. Just default Virgin Media router at home (which I doubt even has 1 Gb/s ports). And then motherboard I went for also is limited to 1GbE LAN port: https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/PRIME-Z270M-PLUS/specifications/

The R5 'performance' argument went out the window when SSD's became a thing for a home environment, other options such as ZFS (again it's not an easy fit for a home environment), and pooled options are probably better. To illustrate why your 'ebay special' drives are not a good idea in R5 lets consider the options, network R/W is limited to a theoretical 125MB/s, you've made no mention of anything more exotic other than media playback, although the good ship 'Requirements' has made some extreme maneuvers to justify/fit your ebay bargains, media playback will have near zero tangible benefit on R5 vs a normal drive. An encoded stream is still going to play back exactly the same if it's on an SSD or an HDD once it starts playing. That leaves availability as a consideration as R5 is not a backup. You've not specified what you need resilient availability for and the only thing you have mentioned is media and VM's which you later back track on. So what exactly are you trying to achieve with R5 in a 3 disc pool? If it's performance then it's only of benefit locally and an SSD would be better. If it's resilience then think for a moment about the outcome if two drives fail in R5? You loose everything. In a pool based system you loose at worst half your data and your recovery cost is potentially lower due to not being striped. An unraid volume can have disc's added as/when you choose, less so ZFS, R5... forget it, also if your VM router isn't gigabit you're looking at 12.5MB/s and that's going to suck for any non local I/O.

"Understand that a clean shut down doesn't just require you to plug in a cable to a socket and has nothing to do with clicking anything at the time the power goes off, that's the whole point."
If you were reading carefully again I was saying to connect a UPS to a socket does not require much of a knowledge. And I do have APC Back-UPS 700.

You still aren't grasping this are you? It's not the plugging in a UPS that requires any skill, I could probably train my dog to do that though he may need the plug to be lined up first, it's having a system in place that will deal with a clean shut down on your behalf with zero user intervention.

Thanks for info on Un-Raid, I will certainly have a look at this for the sake of interest. But I am not planning to use VM's much - only when I do some study stuff. This was only a side question.

Again that significantly contradicts your earlier post(s) about your requirements.

 

[marka01]

The irony of you suggesting i've not read your posts is something i'll get to later. As to your 2 days, it should have taken less than 20 minutes once you had a clear idea of what you wanted it to do (which you still seemingly don't). I'm genuinely touched about your concern for those who aren't well paid within the industry, i'm not in the industry as of a few weeks ago - I suppose you could say i've retired, but at 36 that's an odd idea, uncomfortable idea for me, so i'm going with I don't need to work and have no plans to do so for the foreseeable future.

I like your sarcasm I will not lie. But c'mon.. 20 minutes is not enough if you are behind new tech?? How do you expect someone to read and choose over the web all the parts,boxes and all set-up in 20 minutes (forgot to mention PC assemble over these 2 days too)? Unless you are a super human. But if you were a super human, again, would you go to this forum? well congrats to you that you no longer need to work. what are you doing here in the forum then? Maybe go ahead a fly to some tropical country to lay on the beach?

You asked if a CPU was suitable for a task, if you're going to play the 'I work in IT' card then you will be expected to have a basic grasp of hardware capabilities, unless you're a phone/code monkey, though in fairness most of them are expected to know the basics.

As you probably understood I asked if CPU was enough for 4k/VM capabilities. So I am sorry but I still don't understand what you were trying to explain to me here. I obviously do understand what is the purpose of CPU.

I did like your reply about R5 which now looks relevant to me and what I was looking for to hear from the beginning. Before we started analyzing my IT abilities and discussing IT jobs I am not looking to utilize much of a LAN in R5 instance. Was just interested on how relevant this would be to use let's say locally in the PC along with SSD drive. Copying between, moving, deleting files, installing something on R5 in case if SSD is getting full. But I guess you convinced me not to go for R5 and stick to stand alone 3x HDD. Not sure about ZFS or Un-Raid, hence have never heard about it, so will have to read more. Cheers.

 

[Avalon]

I like your sarcasm I will not lie. But c'mon.. 20 minutes is not enough if you are behind new tech?? How do you expect someone to read and choose over the web all the parts,boxes and all set-up in 20 minutes (forgot to mention PC assemble over these 2 days too)? Unless you are a super human. But if you were a super human, again, would you go to this forum? well congrats to you that you no longer need to work. what are you doing here in the forum then? Maybe go ahead a fly to some tropical country to lay on the beach?

OK 20 mins to spec it up, give it about the same to physically build, it's a single CPU system with a handful of drives, not a 48 drive monster with backplanes and HBA's to mark up. I take your point on the beach, but it's much more fun moving 40TB of data around so you can do a file system migration and re-build on a server that you've been putting off for about the last 5 years and plan a little renovation work, the forum provides a welcome distraction and no sand anywhere!

As you probably understood I asked if CPU was enough for 4k/VM capabilities. So I am sorry but I still don't understand what you were trying to explain to me here. I obviously do understand what is the purpose of CPU.

I did like your reply about R5 which now looks relevant to me and what I was looking for to hear from the beginning. Before we started analyzing my IT abilities and discussing IT jobs I am not looking to utilize much of a LAN in R5 instance. Was just interested on how relevant this would be to use let's say locally in the PC along with SSD drive. Copying between, moving, deleting files, installing something on R5 in case if SSD is getting full. But I guess you convinced me not to go for R5 and stick to stand alone 3x HDD. Not sure about ZFS or Un-Raid, hence have never heard about it, so will have to read more. Cheers.

This was the whole problem with your 'spec' thread. You didn't outline what you wanted to do clearly in the OP. You then seemingly purchased items via ebay that were 'cheap' and when it was pointed out that what you stated you wanted to do didn't require anything near what you thought, you added and then removed other requirements to justify the purchases. Feel free to tell me i'm wrong (I can take it, you won't hurt my feelings).

Either way at least look at the options before you go R5, pooling for a home user is where i'd have thought you should look, but you're not exactly giving us much to work with in terms of IO loads etc.

 

[marka01]

OK 20 mins to spec it up, give it about the same to physically build, it's a single CPU system with a handful of drives, not a 48 drive monster with backplanes and HBA's to mark up. I take your point on the beach, but it's much more fun moving 40TB of data around so you can do a file system migration and re-build on a server that you've been putting off for about the last 5 years and plan a little renovation work, the forum provides a welcome distraction and no sand anywhere!

This was the whole problem with your 'spec' thread. You didn't outline what you wanted to do clearly in the OP. You then seemingly purchased items via ebay that were 'cheap' and when it was pointed out that what you stated you wanted to do didn't require anything near what you thought, you added and then removed other requirements to justify the purchases. Feel free to tell me i'm wrong (I can take it, you won't hurt my feelings).

Either way at least look at the options before you go R5, pooling for a home user is where i'd have thought you should look, but you're not exactly giving us much to work with in terms of IO loads etc.

When I first asked a question about 4k streaming, this was my main reason and goal, since currently connected laptop with i5-4200U and intel HD was lagging on 4k hdr content and in general was a bit annoying and slow. I wanted something stationary and more powerful to be in place as a media PC. I was offered a NUC for that purpose which is fair enough. I was just started looking at parts and builds, reading about 7th gen intel, nvme, etc.. And then I thought why not to utilize it as a general PC as well for other things, that's when my additional questions came into play since I realized that NUC is very limited. About me buying all the parts I just made a decision on the go when I saw a cheap bid for i5 7500 + corsair h45 and I thought I have to go for it and not to miss out. All the parts followed then too. All built was cheap with a room to upgrade if I want to. That's the story.
Oh yeah, the HDD thing which seemed to have caught your attention a lot I did have those laying around for about 1 year new unpacked, which also sort of changed my mind not to go for NUC. I could also probably buy some NAS 4bay, but then again extra spending on 1 more HDD and NAS itself was not that tempting option, since I already have 1x LAN HDD. VMware for a few 2012 servers runs easily on my laptop too so this was not a necessary question I just wanted to see peoples opinions.

 

[Andre]

Check out the updated "Vorke V1 Plus" which has the Apollolake J3455 CPU.

It has a HDMI 2.0 output and boasts 4K @ 60fps.

It's a full system with 4GB SODIMM RAM Stick, 64GB MSATA SSD which can both be upgraded, comes with Windows 10 and has room for an extra 2.5" hard drive for mass-media.

There's gigabit ethernet and AC wifi as well and you can grab one for around £155.

I thought what a good toy to play around with, so ordered one - got it sent via TNT

Now, of course TNT have no computer systems, all they can do is apologise, so it's stuck in Customs! (Aren't I lucky)

 

[Nikumba]

Isnt there some DRM that Netflix is pushing out that you need the latest Intel chip for 4K or something?

 

[wonkytrout]

Didn't realise Fractal did a case like that, something for me to look at (nice to browse and see everyones configs)

 

[CyberScy]

I'd say so yeah