Server upgrade

Kobi · 15 Mar 2021 at 11:27

Hey folks, slight conundrum. So I’m on my last couple of TB in my server and have no sata ports left, so I’ll be needing to upgrade in the next couple of months.

my current server is a wee dell optiplex with an i3 3220. As mentioned I have no more sata slots left, but I possibly have a pci slot free for maybe a expansion card?

my other option is I have a ryzen 1600, mobo, and 16gb ddr4 spare. Along with a cosmos 2 case(which really needs used as its massive and my other half is desperate to get it out the way haha)

or
Buy a whole new intel system? Or upgrade the mobo/psu in my current system ?

Server just gets used for movie/tv show storage, plex and stuff for downloading. Home streaming only with direct play all the time, 95% of the time it’ll just be one stream. I will be moving to 4K this year, hoping to direct play those too? I’m not sure if audio formats would be transcoded?

thanks for any help

Avalon · 15 Mar 2021 at 23:48

Breaking this down in reverse, you don't want to transcode 4K, always direct play, if you do have to transcode 4K, you don't want to do it other than in hardware via iGPU or NVEnc, audio is always transcoded in software and it's generally minimal. Ignore the Dell upgrade option, it's not really worth it. That brings you to the Cosmos/Ryzen/mobo/16GB which seems like a no brainer, more efficient, faster and seemingly only lacking a PSU/cooler/GPU. If you have a PlexPass, then it may make sense to consider a P400 or M2000 as they're about the best £/performance option at present, both can do 4K and H265 if needed and neither is of interest to miners or gamers so prices are still OK, if no PlexPass, then you may get away with booting w/out GPU on some boards (generally ASUS) or just shove anything in. When it comes to adding more drives use an HBA, flash it to IT mode and use SAS breakout cables to connect 4 SATA drives per SAS port, H200/310 are £20 for 2 x SAS ports or 8 drives, avoid putting SSD's on the as they lack TRIM support, also consider that something more modern card like 9206/9207 (and 9217) are based on the LSI2308 and will support 4Kn drives going forward for only a few quid more.

Kobi · 16 Mar 2021 at 10:41

Nice one, that’s all I needed to hear. Yeah I have plex pass, so I’ll deffo go down the route of getting either the p400 or m2000. My motherboard has 6 sata ports, so double what I have the now. I’ll add an ssd cache and probably a couple more 8tb drives.

I can see them getting filled pretty quickly as I’ll be ripping a load of 4K discs and will be starting to move my movies to their 4K equivalents. So I’ll keep an eye on these sas cards.

cheers!

Avalon · 16 Mar 2021 at 11:40

Depending on the speed of your connection, cloud storage may be worth considering. If not shucking externals is cheaper than buying decent drives.

For the extra £10, the 9206/7 is probably worth it for the 4Kn support, but flashing them is pretty simple with the right PC, if you go older, I prefer the H310 to the H200 as the port position is better, but be warned, they are designed for cases with air flow, if you haven’t got much, they will get hot enough to burn you, and that’s not ideal.

The P400 will do 2-3 4K transcodes and a bunch of 1080p’s if required, it’s ideal for a home server, but quality wise intel’s HD630 or better is in a different league, it’ll be interesting to see where intel’s new GPU’s end up and if they can get the drivers right. As the NVEnc hardware is separate to the GPU, it’s not like power comes into it as the GPU is largely idle, it’s just down to the amount of GPU RAM available.

Kobi · 16 Mar 2021 at 13:18

Avalon said:
Depending on the speed of your connection, cloud storage may be worth considering. If not shucking externals is cheaper than buying decent drives.

For the extra £10, the 9206/7 is probably worth it for the 4Kn support, but flashing them is pretty simple with the right PC, if you go older, I prefer the H310 to the H200 as the port position is better, but be warned, they are designed for cases with air flow, if you haven’t got much, they will get hot enough to burn you, and that’s not ideal.

The P400 will do 2-3 4K transcodes and a bunch of 1080p’s if required, it’s ideal for a home server, but quality wise intel’s HD630 or better is in a different league, it’ll be interesting to see where intel’s new GPU’s end up and if they can get the drivers right. As the NVEnc hardware is separate to the GPU, it’s not like power comes into it as the GPU is largely idle, it’s just down to the amount of GPU RAM available.

I have thought about doing the cloud route before. But my net is so bad I have to rely on 4g. Which is decent now and again, but I can’t totally rely on it. Besides I’m actually apart of elysium which I mainly use as a back up if I’m ever in need of something I don’t have.

I have a p400 coming along with a psu and ssd. I’ll get that put together hopefully at the weekend and I assume unraid will need to check everything is fine. Then I’ll shuck in a couple extra drives within the next month.

Avalon · 17 Mar 2021 at 11:40

Cloud was a curve ball, it's not for everyone. UnRAID is pretty forgiving, i've moved 48+ drives round before (30 in storage pool/parity, the rest either cache or unassigned devices spread over 4 disk shelves and a 8 bay chassis) with a full board/architecture swap and changed the HBA, still boots fine, due to the way UnRAID uses the serial reference its fine as long as drives are still connected. Be warned the Nvidia drivers are now installed slightly differently to previous versions and due to the way that was done/announced, the long standing developer of the CA plugin pulled it, so the documentation relating to CA is out of date.

Kobi · 17 Mar 2021 at 21:16

Avalon said:
Cloud was a curve ball, it's not for everyone. UnRAID is pretty forgiving, i've moved 48+ drives round before (30 in storage pool/parity, the rest either cache or unassigned devices spread over 4 disk shelves and a 8 bay chassis) with a full board/architecture swap and changed the HBA, still boots fine, due to the way UnRAID uses the serial reference its fine as long as drives are still connected. Be warned the Nvidia drivers are now installed slightly differently to previous versions and due to the way that was done/announced, the long standing developer of the CA plugin pulled it, so the documentation relating to CA is out of date.

I'll be honest, i assumed it was going to be a plug and play thing. Didn't really think about needing to install drivers, I'll have a read on the best way to go about that - thanks for the heads up as that would have been annoying to figure out.

Quartz · 17 Mar 2021 at 23:14

Something else to consider: how old are your HDDs? If they're old and budget permits then you might consider replacing them with higher capacity drives.

Kobi · 18 Mar 2021 at 15:24

Quartz said:
Something else to consider: how old are your HDDs? If they're old and budget permits then you might consider replacing them with higher capacity drives.

only two or at most three years old. I’ll start replacing them once 14tb drives come down in price.

Avalon · 18 Mar 2021 at 22:17

Kobi said:
I'll be honest, i assumed it was going to be a plug and play thing. Didn't really think about needing to install drivers, I'll have a read on the best way to go about that - thanks for the heads up as that would have been annoying to figure out.

It’s a simple 1-2 click install from memory, just don’t get thrown if you read something that refers to the old way of doing things and you can’t find it.

Kobi · 18 Mar 2021 at 23:24

Avalon said:
It’s a simple 1-2 click install from memory, just don’t get thrown if you read something that refers to the old way of doing things and you can’t find it.

would you say this is the old way?

https://youtu.be/GOhHiFAXwOE

Avalon · 19 Mar 2021 at 21:16

The video is 2 years old and the changes happened as part of the 6.9 beta in the last few months, so yes.

https://unraid.net/blog/unraid-6-9-beta35

Kobi · 20 Mar 2021 at 14:18

Avalon said:
The video is 2 years old and the changes happened as part of the 6.9 beta in the last few months, so yes.

https://unraid.net/blog/unraid-6-9-beta35

Thanks. I did think that, do i searched for videos within the past couple of months. Got this video

(239) Unraid - Vlog installation of Nvidia Driver Plugin and Plex GPU - YouTube

It had the link to the forum post about it. I got the server all built up and running last night and got the gpu drivers all installed this morning. All went fine by the looks of it, HW transcoding works, not sure when i'll need it, but its there either way. Thanks again!

Avalon · 20 Mar 2021 at 18:45

Glad it all worked out