Buy a NAS (which brand?) or make one myself?

[famulor 1]

Ok, if your LAN, WiFi and Internet are all up to the job, let's go for the big question...Budget. Do you have a number in mind or have a number and parts list you already have?

Any less than $450/402€/308£ without harddrives and i'll be happy. Is it even doable if it needs to be semi low on power consumption?

Edited February 5, 2016 by famulor

[famulor 1]

What if i just want to be able to transcode 1-2 1080P (again not the 1:1 versions) movies? (tbh its only going to be one but i dont want it to be maxed out in performance while doing the transcoding) but still want the ability to have a decent amount of harddrives. what sorta hardware would i need?

[famulor 1]

No one has any input about hardware if it only needs to be able to transcode like 1-2 (99% of the time its going to transcode its going to be to 1 chromecast) 1080p 8-10gb version/3D SBS?

[MSattler 387]

No one has any input about hardware if it only needs to be able to transcode like 1-2 (99% of the time its going to transcode its going to be to 1 chromecast) 1080p 8-10gb version/3D SBS?

i3 would most likely be able to pull it off but I would just do an i5.

 

 

build it once and forget about it.

[scharbag 15]

I use FreeNAS to host all of my files and run a number of Jails (5 right now), including VirtualBox (running 2 Windows 7 VMs right now).  This way, I do not need to worry about future needs cause as they come up, I can just spin up a new VM or Jail.

 

Here are my system specs:

 

FreeNAS 9.3

Tyan S5512WGM2NR (integral 9211-8i v20IT)
Supermicro AOC-USAS2-L8i (9211-8i v20IT)
Intel RES2SV240 SAS Expander (LSI LSISAS2x)
Intel Xeon E3 1230V2
32GB ECC DDR3
Norco 4220 with Corsair 750W Power Supply
21TB production pool (7 @ 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 and 5 @ 4TB Seagate ST4000DM000 in 2x6 RaidZ2)
16TB backup pool (6 @ 4TB Seagate ST4000DM000 in RaidZ1)
2 @ Intel 80GB SSD (system pool)
2 @ Crucial 480GB SSD (used for VBox)

 

It is a bit of a high horsepower system for Emby alone but FreeNAS is very scalable.  RaidZ2 offers great data availability.  I have had a slew of seagate 3TB drives need replacement and the system remained 100% useable at all times.  

 

This has been my primary system for close to 3 years.  Prior to that I used a Windows system and hardware RAID.  FreeNAS has been more stable than the windows system and offers far more flexibility.

 

QNAP offers a 24 drive (diskless) case but just their case cost is more than my FreeNAS system cost me to build with drives.

 

Food for thought

[famulor 1]

i3 would most likely be able to pull it off but I would just do an i5.

 

 

build it once and forget about it.

Yeah and the price difference isnt too big either. Would any i5 be good enough for the task? what about ram? 8 gb enough or should i go 16/32? 

I dont need a GPU other than the onboard i guess. 

 

I use FreeNAS to host all of my files and run a number of Jails (5 right now), including VirtualBox (running 2 Windows 7 VMs right now).  This way, I do not need to worry about future needs cause as they come up, I can just spin up a new VM or Jail.

 

Here are my system specs:

 

FreeNAS 9.3

Tyan S5512WGM2NR (integral 9211-8i v20IT)

Supermicro AOC-USAS2-L8i (9211-8i v20IT)

Intel RES2SV240 SAS Expander (LSI LSISAS2x)

Intel Xeon E3 1230V2

32GB ECC DDR3

Norco 4220 with Corsair 750W Power Supply

21TB production pool (7 @ 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 and 5 @ 4TB Seagate ST4000DM000 in 2x6 RaidZ2)

16TB backup pool (6 @ 4TB Seagate ST4000DM000 in RaidZ1)

2 @ Intel 80GB SSD (system pool)

2 @ Crucial 480GB SSD (used for VBox)

 

It is a bit of a high horsepower system for Emby alone but FreeNAS is very scalable.  RaidZ2 offers great data availability.  I have had a slew of seagate 3TB drives need replacement and the system remained 100% useable at all times.  

 

This has been my primary system for close to 3 years.  Prior to that I used a Windows system and hardware RAID.  FreeNAS has been more stable than the windows system and offers far more flexibility.

 

QNAP offers a 24 drive (diskless) case but just their case cost is more than my FreeNAS system cost me to build with drives.

 

Food for thought

That build seems like crazy overkill for what i would need it to do  

 

 

Btw. If i want to watch a movie with surround sound/dolby etc etc does that mean i need a special soundcard or is that all up to the playing device?

[ice pube 20]

Take a look here - http://blog.brianmoses.net/2016/02/diy-nas-2016-edition.html 

 

I would probably do unraid if I were building now. That way you have much more flexibility than freenas/zfs. You can add random disks, whereas Freenas I am pretty sure you need to replace all of the disks at once. 

[famulor 1]

Take a look here - http://blog.brianmoses.net/2016/02/diy-nas-2016-edition.html 

 

I would probably do unraid if I were building now. That way you have much more flexibility than freenas/zfs. You can add random disks, whereas Freenas I am pretty sure you need to replace all of the disks at once. 

That seems like a really expensive build (almost $2000) in order to just transcode 1 1080p movie? About the software i was sorta planning on using unRAID

[MSattler 387]

That seems like a really expensive build (almost $2000) in order to just transcode 1 1080p movie? About the software i was sorta planning on using unRAID

unRaid and FreeNas can both have virtualized apps <docker> or vm's running inside of it.  All I would say is I'd rather spend the money once, instead of constantly rebuilding a system, to add more memory, swap cpu's, etc.

 

Memory is cheap... find a board that can take 32GB of memory, and just buy the memory for $120 or so, check slickdeals.  

[famulor 1]

unRaid and FreeNas can both have virtualized apps <docker> or vm's running inside of it.  All I would say is I'd rather spend the money once, instead of constantly rebuilding a system, to add more memory, swap cpu's, etc.

 

Memory is cheap... find a board that can take 32GB of memory, and just buy the memory for $120 or so, check slickdeals.  

To be honest i'd rather like to upgrade hardware once in a while (like i already do on my PC) so if i can avoid using 2 grand on it to begin with i'll be happy ($450 max really too low of a number? of course without harddrives)

Yeah memory is cheap so thats a part that i shouldnt be a cheapskate about

Edited February 7, 2016 by famulor

[ice pube 20]

That seems like a really expensive build (almost $2000) in order to just transcode 1 1080p movie? About the software i was sorta planning on using unRAID

Get yourself a node or something http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/node-series/node-804

And just build it out, bet you could build for under $500. Or just trawl craigslist for cheap parts and do it that way. 

 

Personally, I run a fractal r5 with repurposed i2500k chip and it has been working fine for me for years. I might go to a Norco 4224, but that would be a chunk of change. 

[famulor 1]

Okay guys bear with me here. 

 

Would this build be good enough or am i all wrong here:

Asrock H97 Pro4

Intel pentium processor g3220

16gb of whatever ram? 

Some sort of power supply.

 

Or should i go for an I3/AMD? Like i said i would 99% of the time not need to transcode but once in a blue moon need to transcode 1 1080p movie to my chromecast.

Edited February 7, 2016 by famulor

[famulor 1]

Get yourself a node or something http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/node-series/node-804

And just build it out, bet you could build for under $500. Or just trawl craigslist for cheap parts and do it that way. 

 

Personally, I run a fractal r5 with repurposed i2500k chip and it has been working fine for me for years. I might go to a Norco 4224, but that would be a chunk of change. 

Yeah it was exactly that case i was looking at but my "problem" is i really dont have a clue what hardware to go for. 

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Yeah and the price difference isnt too big either. Would any i5 be good enough for the task? what about ram? 8 gb enough or should i go 16/32? 

I dont need a GPU other than the onboard i guess. 

 

I am using the i5 6500. This saved me $80 dollars over the 6600K when I purchased it. You don't need the K if you're not going to overclock it.  It only has 8 GB of RAM which is fine for 2-3 transcodes. I don't have a separate GPU in mine either. Just the onboard chip GPU.

 

Don't even have a monitor, keyboard or mouse attached to it. I use Remote Desktop to connect to it from my main computer.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Okay guys bear with me here. 

 

Would this build be good enough or am i all wrong here:

Asrock H97 Pro4

Intel pentium processor g3220

16gb of whatever ram? 

Some sort of power supply.

 

Or should i go for an I3/AMD? Like i said i would 99% of the time not need to transcode but once in a blue moon need to transcode 1 1080p movie to my chromecast.

 

It should fit your needs. 

[famulor 1]

It should fit your needs. 

Sounds good. Its hella cheap aswell. Is quicksync worth spending extra money on getting in my case?

[scharbag 15]

Yeah and the price difference isnt too big either. Would any i5 be good enough for the task? what about ram? 8 gb enough or should i go 16/32? 

I dont need a GPU other than the onboard i guess. 

 

That build seems like crazy overkill for what i would need it to do

 

 

Btw. If i want to watch a movie with surround sound/dolby etc etc does that mean i need a special soundcard or is that all up to the playing device?

 

I kinda like killing ants with a flamethrower...

 

It is overkill but future proofed!!  And in all seriousness, I use it for much more than just Emby.

 

[Raducanu 3]

Currently run a Skylake Pentium G4400T. Works fine for one stream transcoding. Also 4GB RAM is fine

If you like to send more than one transcoded stream, i would take o faster CPU. RAM is not that important.

[JeremyFr79 228]

Yeah and the price difference isnt too big either. Would any i5 be good enough for the task? what about ram? 8 gb enough or should i go 16/32?

I dont need a GPU other than the onboard i guess.

 

That build seems like crazy overkill for what i would need it to do

 

 

Btw. If i want to watch a movie with surround sound/dolby etc etc does that mean i need a special soundcard or is that all up to the playing device?

Think that's overkill, my Emby server is a dedicated Dell R810 with 4 Xeon octacore Procs totaling 32 cores and 64 threads, 128gb of RAM, Media storage is handled by a SAN of 40 disks between 3 chassis yielding near 80TB of usable storage from nearly 100TB of disks

[famulor 1]

Think that's overkill, my Emby server is a dedicated Dell R810 with 4 Xeon octacore Procs totaling 32 cores and 64 threads, 128gb of RAM, Media storage is handled by a SAN of 40 disks between 3 chassis yielding near 80TB of usable storage from nearly 100TB of disks

Oh god what a setup  

 

 

I think i have a setup in mind. What do you guys think of it?

Case: fractal design node 304

Motherboard: Asrock H97 Pro4

CPU: G3220 (or would an i3-4150 be a better pick? not much of a price difference)

RAM: Im not too sure on which ram to go with yet. Is it important that its ECC ram? 

Powersupply: Again no clue what to go for here but thats the least of my concerns.

 

If you think i should switch some parts out please let me know 

[dcrdev 251]

Oh god what a setup

 

 

I think i have a setup in mind. What do you guys think of it?

Case: fractal design node 304

Motherboard: Asrock H97 Pro4

CPU: G3220 (or would an i3-4150 be a better pick? not much of a price difference)

RAM: Im not too sure on which ram to go with yet. Is it important that its ECC ram? 

Powersupply: Again no clue what to go for here but thats the least of my concerns.

 

If you think i should switch some parts out please let me know 

 

Just to weigh in here for no reason...

 

If you're going with one of those CPUs, going with an ATX board kind of seems like a waste of space. You'd be better off building with an M-ITX board and pairing that with something like a PicoPSU - which offer 95% efficiency.

 

In regards to RAM - you'll want ECC if you're going with FreeNAS due to the way ZFS works; but bear in mind that only i3/Xeon chips support ECC memory. If you're going with UnRAID you don't really need ECC memory, given the small scale of your build.

[MSattler 387]

Currently run a Skylake Pentium G4400T. Works fine for one stream transcoding. Also 4GB RAM is fine

If you like to send more than one transcoded stream, i would take o faster CPU. RAM is not that important.

 

I will disagree on RAM not being important.  It depends on Library size.  Right now my Emby Service is running at 900MB to 1200MB of memory.  That does not include the memory required for every ffmpeg stream which can vary as well between 200-500MB.  So..... if you want a minimum of 1GB for the OS, and then enough only for 2 streams, then 4GB may be enough, but it's a bare minimum.  Keep in mind that chapter images, thumbnail, and other jobs will be using ffmpeg and using memory as well.  I would suggest 4GB as a bare minimum, realistically if you are going to have a decently sized library 8GB of memory.

 

Figure about a max of 600MB of memory per stream.  So if you want 4 concurrent streams that's 2400MB, max I've seen the Emby service go is 1200MB, plus always 1024MB for your OS.  

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Personally, I wouldn't recommend less than 8 GB these days. If you're using DDR3, it is very inexpensive for 8 GB. Less than $40 (USD) for 8 GB of DDR3 1600.  However, that is just my personal preference. Plus if you're using a 64-bit OS, you might want to take advantage of Virtual Machines and 32-bit sandboxing. The more memory you have the easier that is.

[famulor 1]

Just to weigh in here for no reason...

 

If you're going with one of those CPUs, going with an ATX board kind of seems like a waste of space. You'd be better off building with an M-ITX board and pairing that with something like a PicoPSU - which offer 95% efficiency.

 

In regards to RAM - you'll want ECC if you're going with FreeNAS due to the way ZFS works; but bear in mind that only i3/Xeon chips support ECC memory. If you're going with UnRAID you don't really need ECC memory, given the small scale of your build.

Ah okay. I guess i just need to find a M-itx board that can handle the cpu and x number of satas and im good to go? 

I'm 99% sure i'll be going unRAID. Seems like the better option but i havent looked too much into this. Is it insanely hard to figure out for a windows pleb?

 

Personally, I wouldn't recommend less than 8 GB these days. If you're using DDR3, it is very inexpensive for 8 GB. Less than $40 (USD) for 8 GB of DDR3 1600.  However, that is just my personal preference. Plus if you're using a 64-bit OS, you might want to take advantage of Virtual Machines and 32-bit sandboxing. The more memory you have the easier that is.

Ram is cheap yeah so i could be going for 8/16GB. 

[ice pube 20]

I am thinking of going to unraid, and from what I have tested its pretty dead simple. Watch the videos on the unraid site. I would personally test it out with the demo before you go full production mode on it, but that is just me. Just be aware of the pricing model. There is a pretty decent subreddit you can check out too:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/unRAID