LIGISTX

22 minutes ago, dillisking said:

ok cool. Do i need a gpu at all too?

I forget, does the 3600x have a built in igpu? You only need a GPU to set up the OS… so if it has one, you’re good to go. If not, you need some way to get display out at least to instal the OS. 
 

What OS do you plan to use..?

2 hours ago, FlyingPotato_is_taken said:

$1 per month.

Wow, nothing is only 1 dollar a month these days, that’s incredible. 

56 minutes ago, dillisking said:

Hello,

 

I recently upgraded some of my gaming PC and I am left with a CPU and motherboard now just sitting around. I want to has a NAS for a plex server because right now I just host one on my current PC. My question is do you think it could be cheaper to use the CPU and MoBo i have (AMD 3600x and B550 Mobo) and buy the parts needed or just buy a prebuilt NAS. I am completely new the NAS and I am thinking from a parts price but also a power draw price in the long term too? 

That CPU is totally fine. I’d pick up some RAM, a case and good quality PSU and run it. 

33 minutes ago, Lumikor said:

The Setup:

I8700, 32GB DDR4 @ 3200Mhz, 4X8TB HDD+256GB SSD. 1Gb LAN connection.

TrueNAS SCALE Dragnofish 24.04

 

The Usage:

File server & Plex server.

 

The Issue:

I'de like to use the SSD, I know how to add VDAV to the pool but there are several options which fits, Log, Cache and Metadata. I'm not sure which one to use for the best performance. The files I care about are about 1-2GB in size.

 

Your advices will be very welcome.

Don't add the SSD, it won’t help anything.

Your system can already easily saturate a gigabit network link… 

Definitely do not add is as a metadata vdev. If your metadata vdev dies, all data is lost… so if you did want to add a metadata vdev it needs its own redundancy at at least the same

level as the pool. But, again, for a gigabit network doing standard NAS duty, the speed gains are just not relevant anyways. Keep things simple, simple is almost always better for 24/7/365 applications like a NAS. 

47 minutes ago, Russsell said:

ISP provided router is blocked from my access unless I pay them to use their wifi

Will you be able to have them put the router in bridge/DMZ mode if you get your own router behind it? You will need this unless you don’t mind being double NATed. 
 

I run pfsense as my edge router (don’t use pfsense as a switch, even if you buy a 4 port NIC, use one port for WAN and one for LAN…. Use switches as switches, pfsense is not a switch, it’s a firewall), and then I run UniFi switches and AP’s. Vlans all play perfectly nicely, and I run pfblockerNG on the firewall instead of pihole… so I can fully block garbage at the edge of my network. 
 

I believe the newer UniFi firewall/routers are decent options as well, I just personally don’t know much about them. 

38 minutes ago, xYorYx said:

Found that the port was my problem. The default 51820 did not work, but 51821 did so now I have connection and can access the OMV Dashbroard from my cellular network. Now trying to figure out how to see my files on the phone via the Material Files app (suggestions for a better app are always welcome, I have only downloaded it for this).

I have no idea how to file brows on a phone in a way that doesn’t suck… I never need to tho. I'd always use my laptop if I need to access SMB shares. I do have nextcloud running so I can access stuff via that is needed, but I rarely do. 

9 hours ago, ianm_ozzy said:

HI.

 I am thinking of looking for a a very very cheap vistual private server.

If it is behind a NAT, or ipv6 only, then that is fine.

512MB memory is about right.

KVM based - definitely.

Ubuntu 22.04 OS option.

The location - not too fussed.

No huge download limit needed.

 

Initial access to the machine  cli is needed initially - setup ssh securely.

Then install zeroteir, to allow access to it - connecting to the appropriate private network network.

Then pihole  & unbound with appropraite settings.

 

I will be using it for a DNS server for my phone & laptops when using public networks.

 

 

Suggestions?

Very very cheap is the most important thing.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why not just connect to your home for this? It isn’t the fastest, but for DNS it should be fine. I run a split tunnel for my devices when I am out and about, spaniels going to a full tunnel depending on where and what network, and it’s always a fine experience. 

1 hour ago, xYorYx said:

Because it was announced by the developer https://github.com/pivpn/pivpn/discussions/1829

 

I done some good progress by following @Jarsky's guide, but after I connect to the VPN and enter the Pi's IP address on my phone it doesn't load (ERR_NETWORK_CHANGED I think was the error it gives) so still trying to figure out what I did wrong.

You set up a dynamic DNS (their example shows duckDNS)? Opened the port in your router? 

4 hours ago, xYorYx said:

PiVPN which is now discontinued

Why do you think that? PiVPN is just a simple and easy way to instal either openvpn or wireguard... I have used it many times.

Once you instal wireguard, you need to open a port to allow the connection through your router/firewall, then once you are VPNed in, its as if you are at your home on your wifi. You access your NAS exactly as you would when you are home. 

HBA:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133485835643?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=OwHu05S9RzG&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=B1xTkXm_Qfe&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

It comes with SAS to SATA adapters, and it’ll do 8 drives out of the box. If you ever need more, you can just buy a SAS expander. How many drives are you planning on needing?

3 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

"Cache" SSDs don't make a big difference on ZFS in a home NAS application. 

 

This. I forgot to put that in my reply…

Don’t even consider using a “cache” device with ZFS… there is no need for this in a home NAS unless you know exactly why you need it and have a good understand of ZFS to explain why. If you don’t, you don’t need it and it will just make things 1) cost more 2) potentially more susceptible to data loss. 
 

I suggest doing more homework on the truenas forums, read all of their posts which explain all of this in detail, then ask questions. They have so much literature on these topics you can spend days reading and learning, then you will have a much better idea what your talking about (ZFS doesn’t really have “cache drives”, you’d either be referring to L2ARC or a SLOG, neither of which you need, trust me). 
 

For backing up iPhone, the sad but true reality is… just pay for iCloud. It’s the only solution that really works, besides back it up to a pc/mac and then backing up that machine. The only seamless way to backup an iPhone is via iCloud, which is one of the reasons Apple is getting sued right now by the US. 
 

As far as checksumming, yes. ZFS scrubs are what will check for and correct and big flips, and it’s easy to set up in truenas. I have mine run every 2 weeks, Wednesday night at like 1am. You should also schedule SMART checks, I think I do smart checks once or twice a week. 

19 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I understand, but whatever speed speedtest.net is giving, seems to actually be real. Even in task manager I can see the network I/O speed is 100 Mb/s.

I suggest you take a step back and actually try to understand what the community is trying to explain to you in all of their posts.

I understand you are young and just trying to learn, that is a really good thing! But you need to take a step back and internalize what folks are telling you... since they are all correct.

Speedtest is not "lying", the numbers it is giving you are correct; speedtest.net is, without a doubt, able to give you 100mbps results. But the question is why, and that question has been answered by 3 or 4 people...

There are really only 2 possible explinations, neither of which you will easily be able to determine, with a potential but unnlikely 3rd option.

Option 1: your ISP is seeing you are trying to hit a speedtest.net server, and they are artificually lifting the 50mbps limit on your connection to that server, and that server only. This is not difficult for them to do... but they will almost certainly never admit to doing it. They do this to try and make people beleive they are getting more then they pay for, but in reality, they are only lifiting limits to certain speed testing sites.

Option 2: your ISP hosts a speedtest.net server on its own infrastrucutre. Your ISP may be able to route your traffic within its own network at 100 mbps even if you are paying for a slower speed, but once you exit the ISP's network that is where it puts the brakes on and slows things down.

Potential option 3, but not very likely - the burst idea. In certain bursts, if the network isn't overloaded, they may provide a little more than you are paying for. I pay for 500/25, and I almost always get 600/25. They don't guarantee 600, but I typically do get 600-625 ish. I am sure if I try and download something when everyone else is trying to download something (I have cable, so it is impacted by how everyone else in your local area is hitting the network) it will likley struggle to keep me at 500, but itll certainly try to (and usually does, I rarely see anything under 500).

These are really your only options. And if you are paying for 48... you have no leg to stand on, and have almost 0 chance of making any other connection exceed 50mbps, its being limited by your ISP... they own the pipes, and they get to put speed limits on them based on what tier of service you pay for. 

I run my homelab on a pair of 980 (non pro’s) and it has been fine. Looking up benchmarks helped me prove to myself this was a fine plan prior to purchase as I had the same questions. 

Without reading this thread, I’ll just say, SSD’s last an obscenely long time. I wouldn’t even worry about this at all. 
 

I have never had an SSD die from old age, and I still have some SSD’s from 2014…. I really wouldn’t worry about this too much. Windows enables TRIM by default on SSD’s, that plus internal wear leveling will keep the drive healthy for a very long time. Your PC will be obsolete before your SSD dies in any normal use case. 

Backblaze B2 user here - highly recomend. And its built into truenas so it works seemlessly.

21 minutes ago, mr cheese said:

Nothing crazy: game host, pfsense, zfs filestore/freenas, nginx webhost, general purpose linux host(s), and from there likely just whatever I can think of as the need arises. Game host is where I expect most of the horsepower to kick in, and while i'm planning 10G (or at least 2.5G) for pfsense you can do that with a laptop cpu so i don't imagine it having a hard time 

I know game servers typically like a lot of GHz, but it also really depends on the game.

FWIW, I run a e5 2660 v4 and it idles at about 2% usage... I have VM''s consisting of:

pfsense

truenas

multiple ubuntu server

home assistant

windows

over a dozen docker contaienrs

unfi controller

probably a few things I am missing, and even when doing some plex transcoding I never see it over 10%. I actually recently turned some of the cores off in a likely vein attmept to save a few watts of power and heat, but I just don't need all these threads... I only went Xeon on socket 2011 for the RAM and PCIe, that was the main reason I upgraded from my i3 6100 I previously had for my homelab. 

I can't speak to the game servers though, those may hit the server harder, but I still don't imagine you need all of that power for a home server.

10 minutes ago, mr cheese said:

Just bought a Precision T7810 to build out as a budget hypervisor. I'm deciding between the E5-2679v4 and the E5-2679Av4, the difference being that the former has a base clock of 2.3GHz while offering 2 more cores than the A models' 2.6GHz 16core specifications. I don't necessarily need the extra cores, but figured if both can boost to 3.6GHz it wouldn't be an issue and I could just snag the extra two cores for an extra $8 per CPU. However, I'm second guessing if the lower base clock of the 2697v4 will hurt me in the long run if other vms are forced to dip below 2.6GHz while others are pushing higher boost with their allotted cores, like when running single core heavy processes in another vm.

 

Am I overthinking it or is it, on paper, genuinely worth the trade off of two cores for the 300MHz higher base clock? Especially if I may never hit the full core allotment with my vms? Will the non-A model drop consistently to the base clock?

 

 

Thanks a bunch! Also, bonus points if you can tell me if there's that much of a benefit between 2400MHz DIMMs over 2133MHz DIMMs that makes it worth an extra $5 per stick!

What are you intending to actually do on the machine..? What will the VM's be doing?

3 minutes ago, Syskko said:

@LIGISTX Thank you for your recommendations. I really appreciate it. Most of the devices at the home are 4K except for two which are 1080. I will probably go with a low powered i5 or i7 so I can run my linux virtualization and build a separate gaming machine. Thank you for your advice. 

If you need to transcode down from 4k to 1080p, the best option is a GPU. But... I bet a current gen i3 would be sufficient to transcode 4k to 1080p. I can do it on 6 threads of my Xeon which is way, way, WAY slower than a current gen intel chip (I only give my plex VM 6 cores of the 28 my server actually has, but those 28 are very slow compared to what modern chips can do).

2 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Depends, a lot of people expect a NAS to do double duty with VMs/containers.  Having more cores can be extremely useful there.  I upgraded my "server" from a 12400 to a 14700K for the extra cores (14700 was barely any cheaper).

 

Although I will say I added 128GB of RAM first, that made a huge difference as I do a lot of real-time pulling in large directory structures which get cached in RAM and all swapping gets done in RAM rather than hitting the swap partition/file.

I mean.... sure. But I ran my homelab on an i3 6100 for years without any issues at all. Granted, my homelab doesn't "do all that much", but I have a truenas VM, multiple ubuntu VM's, a dozen docker containers, windows VM, some LXC's for stuff like unifi controller, home assistant etc. 

The only reason I upgraded was for more RAM as well. That i3 machine could only do up to 32 GB of ECC, and I just needed more, but the 4 threads (2 core + HT) was honestly enver an issue... and I would imagine I do more than the vast majority of people building random unraid boxes (I run proxmox, but, same idea). There are plenty of folks who certainly need the pretty crazy homelab builds, but most probabaly don't and can get away with much less than they think they need. 

1 minute ago, Needfuldoer said:

That's one hell of an overkill processor for a NAS.

 

You really, really don't want to virtualize a gaming machine. For one thing, some anti-cheat systems will flag you if they detect they're running in a VM. Keep your gaming machine separate from your NAS.

This.

4 minutes ago, Syskko said:

Good afternoon to all.

I am planning on upgrading my current Unraid server with a new Asus LGA 1700 motherboard with an Intel 14900K CPU. My question is: What is the best way to cool the CPU? The Unraid server will be running 24/7. How hot will the CPU run streaming 4K video to one or two devices at a time? This will not be every day but on occasion. Normally, the server will see more use on the weekends than on weekdays. In my current set up, I am running several VM's and would like to be able to run a virtualized Windows 11 as my gaming machine. This will be later in the near future since I need to get a decent GPU first for gaming. I am debating between https://a.co/d/4jAC1Gi and https://a.co/d/g9Nqw3T to keep the CPU as cool as possible. Please advice on what my best option for cooling the Intel 14900K would be taking into consideration that it will be running 24/7 as an Unraid server, several virtualization machines but not running all the time, and ultimately a virtualized Windows 11 gaming machine. Thank you for your advice in advance.

Don't do this. Build a low power unraid box, and then build a gaming PC.

Are you streaming 4k content to 4k capable devices..? If so, it takes 0 CPU power, its just moving data from a harddrive over a network connection to a client device, at a relatively low speed when condiering a normal network is gigabit and has been the standard for about 20 years. A full bluray 4k HDR movie is about 80mbps, thats is not even 1/10th the speed of gigabit which is 1000 mbps... and if the client device is playing the content in 4k, you dont need to transcode anything, so the plex server is not doing anything except simply serving data up over a network connection. 

Don't virutalize a gaming PC, it will just cause endless headaches. Build 2 machines. 

29 minutes ago, rh535 said:

I am looking to build a new computer for the first time since 2017. I plan to move these components to become my unRAID server once I need something new (4 years away or so). This is why I've selected the motherboard (10Gb and Thunderbolt built-in). I also have 15 drives currently in my server, and that is another reason for the higher-watt PSU.

What do you all think about this build? I hope to save money where I can, but I am willing to spend more if the price/performance is worth it in the long run - considering I will be making this my unRAID server in the future and using the parts for 6+ years.

USA Based

CPU: Intel Core i7-14700K 3.4 GHz 20-Core Processor ($399.99 @ Amazon)
Thermal Compound: Noctua NT-H2 3.5 g Thermal Paste ($12.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus ProArt Z790-CREATOR WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($439.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-7200 CL34 Memory ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial T500 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($138.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PNY VERTO OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB Video Card (Purchased For $671.99)
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $0.00)
Power Supply: MSI MEG Ai1000P PCIE5 1000 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($251.00 @ B&H)
Case Fan: Noctua A14 PWM 82.5 CFM 140 mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: Noctua A14 PWM 82.5 CFM 140 mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00)

Current monitor - LG-C2 42'

Total: $2044.90

It is extreme overkill for a NAS... but as a desktop, yea thats a solid build. I would consider a cheaper mobo if the only reason you got that was for potential later expansion. You can get 10 gig PCIe NIC's for relatively cheap and can add them in later. If you don't want to deal with that, sure, this is a fine solution.

3 hours ago, St3althPatchn said:

A lot of the videos that I looked at highlighted I would need a m.2 ssd in addition to my hdd in my pc. But I don’t have one readily available. 

You don't need an M.2, you just need a boot device. Any random SSD or harddrive you have laying around will work fine. Or technically so would a flash drive, but its not really recomended.

But if you don't have those, and you really are only using 1 drive anyways, mayeb truenas isn't really for you - its more intended for large arrays of disks.

9 hours ago, ianm_ozzy said:

Cache an nvme SSD with optane?

When did I say I wish to to that?

I am thinking of using an inexpensive, but good quality  sata SSD cached with a  super cheap 16GB optane.

 

For the Q1T1 random 4k reads, seems to make a lot of sense.

 

So by going by  a standard crystaldiskmark result  for reads comparing them:

 

Q32T1 - about 2 x the number, but almost pointless in a windows OS drive.

Q8T8 & Q32T1 - about the same.

Q1T1 - about 4x the speed from about 40Mb/s to 160MB/s (faster than most NAND SSDs)

It seems about 2/3 of windows I/O is random 4k, so makes sense to me.

 

A windows OS, only, where I use windows only for gaming , where games are all on another drive, also makes sense to me.

 

The cache hit rate will be  the most important value, but primocache is exceptionally good at maximizing that.

 

 

 

 

Sorry, read the post wrong, didn’t notice the SATA SSD would be for boot and what you are caching. 
 

I still doubt it’s worth it for the same reasons I identified. But you can give it a try I suppose. 

1 hour ago, Indian pc builder said:

I was just going to connect it to a tplink omada business router for internet access and call it a day, considering that all the devices on the Lan are kept up to date and well and malware free. 

(do eol tploink wifi extenders and decos count as secure)?

Thats perfectly fine. I am just describing how you go about actually setting up a managed network and segregating things for the least chance of getting pwned. For a simple home NAS, what you plan to do is totally fine. 
 

1 hour ago, Indian pc builder said:

as for the torrents, if i'm running truenas scale and I stick the torrents and stuff into a dicker container on that, theoretically, if I do get a virus all it would do is to kill my media library and force me to torrent everything again right?

No, that’s what I was trying to explain in my post. It isn’t the torrent client that you are worried about, it’s the devices that could become infected which could then start to ransomware you. The devices with the highest likelihood of this is honestly your windows PC, or IoT devices 

You could end up downloading a torrent with an executable, and if a windows machine does end up running that, who knows what affect it will have. But that’s the same as if you go to a bad website, get a malicious ad, or just open a malicious pdf on an email. From that point on, what the malicious software does is anyone’s guess, but it would affect much more than just your torrented files.

You need to understand what devices actually can get infected via running malicious code. The torrent downloaded is not running code, it is low risk. Same with truenas (truenas is also Linux, so any windows virus wouldn’t hurt it anyways) (docker containers are usually Linux based as well, so same goes for a dockerized torrent client). The largest threat surface is computers people are using, or IoT devices.

Hopefully this makes sense… it’s a big topic that takes some actual energy to learn. Network and cyber security have a lot to them, takes a while to really grasp it all. But for a home setup, you don’t need to worry about this much.