New nas build which software.?

[kvnwds43]

OK i want to build a new nas, i want to put my collection of mainly blu ray and dvd and about 20 or so 4k films on there, i plan to use the nas in conjunction with my vero 4k player in a dedicated home cinema room but also with plex to stream them as round the house to various tvs and outside the house for example when I'm away.!
I've been contemplating.....
Freenas
Openmediavault
Ubuntu.
Amahi
Now a lot of people seem to think freenas is the one to go with but it seems like hardware wise it's a bit finicky which puts me off.
For my system I'm thinking of.....
I7 9700k cpu
Z390 motherboard
Ddr4 16gb ram
Psu 500 watt
Fractal design r6 case.
Freenas seems to need ecc memory and compatible cpu to Also support ecc which puts me off as limits selection of hardware..
I'm thinking of going with openmediavault as seems less picky with hardware.
Thoughts please.?

 

[kvnwds43]

I might add also that I'm planning to put 4 x 8tb nas drives in a raid 5 . And useing a ssd to boot from

 

[kvnwds43]

Ubuntu (ideally server edition) would be perfectly fine and do everything you need with relatively little headache. Effectively you want a file sharing server with Plex.
You haven't mentioned how you will RAID whether it will be OS software or hardware but Ubuntu will do either and isn't precious about hardware requirements.

If you want "point and click" then UnRaid is worth considering as well.

I personally use both, Ubuntu-Server for all my "normal" servers and then UnRaid for the backups, both do just as good a job but Ubuntu is free where I paid £50(or near there) for UnRaid to do very little in the background.

For the requirements, you'd be just as well treating yourself to the new system and using your current rig as the NAS.

Hi, yes i plan to stream around the house and outside of the house with plex, but will use vero 4k+ box for the cinema room, all media will be transcoded to mkv lossless as i need a exact copy.
I am new to nas software operating systems but competent at building a pc..... I want to use the 4x 8tb in a raid 5 and a ssd in for the operating system.
I will operate and set up everything from my Windows 10 pc.
As far as useing my own system for the nas..... Yes I'd do that but when I looked up the cpu passmark score it was way below 17000 score which is apparently needed to transcode a 4k film so thsts why i decided to build a new system.!

 

[kvnwds43]

You shouldn't transcode 4K. Plex cannot do it (well documented on their site). If you want 4K you should direct play it and then have a lower res copy (1080p) to transcode when not in the house.

Passmark for 1080p transcode is around 2000 I believe but before even that people on here were using N54L's and transcoding.

Ah right OK, thanks for that..... Looks like I'd be better off putting 2 copy's on there then...... 4k for cinema room and 1080p for outside when away

 

[kvnwds43]

Wr

That's the recommended way of operating at the moment.

RAID5 - You didn't mention if you will be using a RAID card PCIe device or whether you were planning on using software RAID (motherboard or OS)? Software is quite flexible now, an OS such as UnRaid is as it sounds, not RAID but operates very much like it. Irrelevant though you shouldn't consider RAID a solid solution, always make sure you have a separate backup if the data is precious to you.

Well i did think of getting a amd ryzen 5 3600x but seems they don't support raid 5, so thought I'd have to use a i7 9700k instead..... I'd still like to use the amd chip if possible, i thought to be honest the motherboard would have to support raid 5 before i could install a os such as Ubuntu and set up raid 5, so your saying that's not a so and i can still set up raid 5 without the motherboard and cpu supporting it.?
Forgive me i am a newbie to nas lol.
I would be useing the motherboard as raid 5 but may think different if i can use os instead

 

[kvnwds43]

I can't recommend UnRAID enough to be honest - it's been seamless for me since I swapped from my Synology NAS and it does pretty much everything as far as I can see!

Doesn't unraid boot only of a USB pen drive...? I wanted to boot off a ssd.!

 

[kvnwds43]

If you use a RAID card, the card does the RAID and presents a "single" drive to the OS.
If you use the motherboard then it is similar to the RAID card however sometimes you need specific drivers to do this (and motherboard RAID can be a bit shonky).
If you use the OS such as Ubuntu, it handles RAID perfectly fine through mdadm BUT takes up CPU process power as it needs to split and create parity for everything you write to it. This is irrelevant to the motherboard "supporting" RAID 5 as the motherboard only needs to present HDD's to the OS, the OS does the hard work.

With Ryzen you need to add a small discrete GPU to it as they don't have internal iGPU like most Intel chips do. As it is a server you most likely won't be overclocking either so you can save a "bit" by not buying a K series Intel chip as well.

There would be no reason not to use a 3600 in this use case as the price difference even plus a small GPU would likely come in less than an i7 & Z390. I'd personally be tempted to check performance of a 2700 against the 3600 as the extra cores may help in some cases such as transcoding.

If I'm not going to transcode 4k and only maybe 1080 to maybe 720 to mobile devices then shouldn't a i5 be enough.?

 

[kvnwds43]

CPU seems an odd choice for stated usage (pointless overkill unless you forgot to tell us something significant), RAID5 is a horrible idea - please don’t, UnRAID (while not free) is a very easy to live with solution. As has been pointed out, don’t transcode 4K, separate libraries and use Tautulli scripting to prevent transcoding of 4K.

maybe a i5 will be enough then if i don't transcode 4k and just transcode 1080…?
I liked raid 5 as it'd still give me 2tb of hard drive space if i use raid one I'll only have 16tb.....

I've heard that rebuild times are long with raid 5 but is it really that bad an idea.?

 

[kvnwds43]

CPU seems an odd choice for stated usage (pointless overkill unless you forgot to tell us something significant), RAID5 is a horrible idea - please don’t, UnRAID (while not free) is a very easy to live with solution. As has been pointed out, don’t transcode 4K, separate libraries and use Tautulli scripting to prevent transcoding of 4K.

 

[kvnwds43]

Sorry i meant 24tb hard drive space

 

[kvnwds43]

Wow... how many replies? Why do you want to boot from SSD? I suspect you haven’t grasped why it’s largely irrelevant in UnRAID. Incidentally with UnRAID you choose how many parity drives you want, so you’d still have 24TB on a 4x8TB and could easily expand based on the best £/TB when required. With R5 it’s not just the rebuild time that’s an issue.

Plex wise i’d suggest having a look at the accepted metrics for transcoding, 2K of CPU Mark per 1080 transcode, so how many concurrent transcodes are you planning on? Remember if you transcode to 1080/8 for example and have 80/20 FTTC you’re only going to be able to support two remote streams anyway, again, don’t transcode 4K, it’s just a bad idea in software. Are you going to use a PlexPass? If so then iGPU HW transcoding is a thing.

 

[kvnwds43]

I just thought it'd be better and maybe more reliable booting from a old ssd than a USB stick, yes i do plan to use plex pass..... So I'd be better off using a graphics card too.?
I probably wouldn't be transcoding to more than 1 device at a time.!
I won't be transcoding 4k now after all the advice on here I'll make 2 streams if necessary

 

[kvnwds43]

Well so far there's big shouts for Ubuntu and unraid.... Problem is there's too many to choose from.... Im still keen on a raid 5 even though there maybe a big rebuild time! I want to maximise space on the drives while giving me some way to recover a broken drive and building the replacement drive.
I won't be transcoding 4k now I'll either just steam in the house or put 2 films of the same on there for mobile devices when away.
What would you guys say was the way to go.....?
An i5 or ryzen 5 3600.?
Thanks for the info

 

[kvnwds43]

Advice is all well and good, but it’s not a substitute for you taking the time to go and read up on what people are suggesting and understand why and how it relates to your needs. Start by ignoring any preconceptions you have about anything, so far they haven’t done you any favours (spec, 4K/transcoding in general, RAID type, iGPU and how it relates to PlexPass, SSD vs. USB relative to UnRAID etc).

USB is ideal for UnRAID etc. as they literally boot the OS from it, it’s the same with esxi etc. and not like booting a conventional OS in that it benefits from fast IO. 2 concurrent 1080 transcodes is 4K of CPU Mark if you need to do it in software, if you have PlexPass then you can use the iGPU (if available) to do the transcoding in hardware, but even then your CPU requirements are going to be very low. Have you checked any of the CPU’s you keep mentioning to see what the CPU mark for each is? You can also likely get away with 4GB of RAM, 8GB will give you a comfortable margin, 32 is largely pointless. Please, please go and at least try and work out why R5 is a horrible choice, it’s not the rebuild time that’s the problem. Hardware RAID is not easily expandable, if the controller fails, expect to have to replace the controller, ideally with an identical one, running the same firmware (and in some cases the same hardware revision), drive sizes being discussed mean you are almost guaranteed to get a flawed restore and the chance of successive failures while rebuilding are significantly higher, so can you tell us why you are fixated on R5? Have you even looked at what unRAID does and how it works? For a predominantly WORO based usage scenario such as yours, it’s the obvious choice.

Hi yes i have looked at the cpu passmark scores i also read a article on hardware requirements for transcoding 4k and 1080 and 720...... They suggested a i7 with a score of 17000 for transcoding 4k,and a score of 12000 i believe and a i5 for 1080.... All single transcodes, i came across the ryzen 5 3600 x on cpu passmark and noticed it had a good score of 19000 if i remember correctly and is also a good price compared to the i7 9700k which is £160 more i think.
As far as raid 5 goes i haven't used it before but thought it would give me a good margin of error if a hard drive packed in...... I had no idea it was so problematic...... Looks like i may have to look at raid 1 after all or raid 0 even.
I will look closer at unraid since you rate it so highly.!
Also the igpu in plex i haven't looked at either so I'll take a look at that too..
Which processor would you pick if you were picking may i ask...... Knowing what the nas will be used for.....?. Many thanks by the way

 

[kvnwds43]

A few things are changing in the world of Plex, (new transcode back end with tone mapping support is literally out this month which makes transcoding HDR possible, but inefficient in software terms, it’s in early testing and hasn’t made it to the beta releases yet), but you are still best off working on the basis that you absolutely do not want to transcode 4K in software (CPU) and you don’t want to transcode HDR in anything. Plex themselves publish the 2K of CPU mark metric, your local clients shouldn’t really need to transcode, so you want a CPU that has at least 4K of CPU Mark *IF* you do it in software rather than in hardware (a modern intel iGPU is ideal for hardware transcoding). Based on what you have stated (2 concurrent streams, Plex pass, no other significant CPU requirement), i’d be looking at an i3, it’s cheap, low power, has the same iGPU and enough grunt to do what you need in software if required and has enough overhead for the job.

Storage wise UnRAID will give you vastly more redundancy if you want than R5, you can also increase or decrease the redundancy as you see fit as well as adding mixed drive sizes based on £/TB. R0 gives you no redundancy and 1 is completely out of place for home media storage when you have physical media still. If you don’t believe me about R5 just search this very forum, it’s a bad idea and makes little sense in a home environment. 20 years ago it was a good idea, with today’s drive sizes and what else is available it’s what people have heard of and therefore think sounds like a good idea, but except in very specific usage cases, it isn’t.

Sounds like a i3 is good enough for the job then and 8gb ram.... Like i said before i shan't transcode 4k now but may with 1080 to mobile devices if necessary when I'm away.!
I've also looked at getting a graphics card seen one or 2 articles on about that and how people are useing the graphics card doing the transcoding instead..... Although some say the quality wasn't as good but was quicker.!
UnRAID seems very good with what you say about its own version of R5 being able to increase or decrease the redundancy.
If i don't use its own version of R5 what do you suggest to use instead knowing what this nas will be used for.?
Thanks for your help by the way.

 

[kvnwds43]

I’m not sure if i’m being in some way unclear, but you will be using the intel iGPU, you absolutely do not need a dedicated GPU for two 1080 transcodes with an i3, you can do them in software (no PlexPass), you can do them in HW (iGPU). AMD GPU’s have historically not been good for HW transcoding, Nvidia has, but consumer GPU’s are artificially limited to two concurrent transcodes, though this can be worked around, some Quadro’s can run ‘unlimited’ streams, but realistically they perform identically to the unlocked consumer chips.

UnRAID does not do RAID 5, the clue is very much in the name, it creates a storage pool of drives of any size and uses the largest one for a parity pool, you can increase the storage pool with drives of any size and increase the redundancy by using multiple parity drives, you can also add a cache drive/pool for things like VM’s and socket use or pass drives through directly. If the worst happens and more drives fail than you have parity, then at worse you can still mount the individual drives and read all data on them. If the motherboard fails, you can literally plug the drives into another board and be up and running again in minutes.

I've got a couple of things to also ask you......
Are there disadvantages of useing a home built nas useing it 24 x7 days a week against a prebuilt nas from say synology...... I've watched a few videos and they say a home built pc ain't sposed to run all the time unlike a prebuilt nas!
I've contemplated useing home built nas because of the expense of a prebuilt nas.... But looking at them both there's pros and cons on both sides.!
They're just so expensive prebuilt nas unlike building your own. What do you think of prebuilt nas.?
If i do decide to build my own i think it'll be unraid with a i3 and 8 gb ram i may even chuck in a graphics card too..

 

[kvnwds43]

You keep referencing ‘a few videos’ and citing very strange ‘facts’, what on earth are you watching as clearly if that is in fact what they are saying, they really shouldn’t be producing videos. You then tend to ignore information and go off on a tangent. Why do you want a GPU for Plex when you’ll be using a maximum
of two streams and already have an iGPU? If you have some sort of other usage scenario that you’ve not mentioned yet, then tell us and the suggested spec can be revised, but as it stands, it sounds like you want to replace a iGPU with a GPU that may we’ll be artificially limited to two streams, suck power and generate heat/noise for no reason.

I’ve run consumer grade and enterprise grade hardware 24/7 since the 80’s, zero issues other than the odd drive/memory failure, in over 3 decades that’s about normal. A prebuilt NAS is usually low end hardware sold at an obscene price because it comes with software support for a fixed period. The underlying hardware is no different to a PC. If you can’t build a PC, need an abnormal level of hand holding, and really like the idea of being utterly screwed if/when it breaks, then consumer grade NAS products are probably for you. If not then you likely understand that even 10 y/o PC’s will obliterate a consumer grade NAS in most scenario’s and are often for next to nothing.



I must be delusional and have been since 2016? when I first started using hardware transcoding in UnRAID.

OK i just thought on the gfx card side may give more oomph for transcoding but obviously not from what you said....... I'll just stick with the i3 processor.!
Yes the prebuilt nas from synology and qnap prices are extortionate compared to building your own.... I'm not frightened at all about building another pc for a nas.... I'm new to nas software but I'm sure i can pick it up.!
There's plenty of help out there ! The info I've seen are mainly from a popular video site concerning gfx cards used for transcoding and pros and cons on pre built nas and home built... I'm just after as much info before i take the plunge.