LIGISTX

Wouldn't it have been easier to just ask the question to begin with?
 
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I'd get fewer bigger drives, like go 2x 12TB drives.
 
I'd get a cheaper case line the n2 here. I don't see the point of a expensive case with 8 bays when you dont meed much storage.
 
I'd drop that optane drive and get a bigger nand ssd for plex database,and a ssd for boot.

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?

Try to go for a newer platform, at least Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge. Nehalem on LGA1366 is an old, slow, power hog these days. Even buying new desktop parts would eventually pay for itself in power savings.
 
Does your chassis have a backplane? You should just need a SAS controller with enough ports to support all those drives.

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 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. 

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). 
 
 

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 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 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. 

For the iphones its probably easist to back it up to a PC/Mac, then back that up to the nas as there isn't a nas backup other than icloud.
 
I'd be darn tempted to run something like veeam here to have a way to centrally manage all the backups of the laptop. I'd generally aim for 2x or more nas storage for the backup than the internal drives in the systems to accont for previous versions. Probably more so you can have multiple full backups.
 
I'd still go fewer bigger drives. Like start with something like 2x16 TB drives, and add more lafter if needed.
 
I'd go with a standard ssd for boot, or a smaller optane drive likea  16gb one. Endurance or performance won't really matter here.
 
I don't see hotswap as a feature I'd pay much extra for. Your likely not change drives very often, and it doesn't take long. There are cheaper hot swap cases like the jonsbo n2 too.
 
I'd say that i5 is pretty overkill, a i3 or pentium should be fine here.
 
I have 2 of those Ugreen nas boxes, and there generally pretty good, and easy to put something like TrueNAS on.

People use 4th gen i3/i5 with 8gb of ram for their NASes and it still runs fine, your cpu and ram is more than enough.

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. 

iperf / iperf3

Which could very well be the ISP is being sneaky and has a higher limit for speed tests to make your connection look better than it is.  Or they do it specifically so the boost speed can be tested.
 
If the ISP package is 48Mbit then its rather irrelevant, as you're getting what is being paid for.

This highlights that you should find out from the person who pays.
 
ISPs are known to allow for higher-than-normal "burst" speeds when their network isn't congested. Furthermore, if your ISP has speed test servers that are part of speedtest.net, speeds can seem higher than what you're paying for. You might just be on a 48-50Mbps internet connection, that occasionally bursts to 100Mbps.
 
What are your speeds at fast.com, openspeedtest.com and waveform?
 
I'd have to disagree.
 
Different generations of WiFi are able to achieve different speeds. Most of us who used 802.11b/g hardware will know. Furthermore, most people's WiFi setups are sub-optimally set up.
 
I'm not arguing with that.
 
It was a simple question. You'd be surprised at how many people reveal their setups until the 10th reply in and that's where we discover something problematic.
 
Unfortunately, we're not mind readers here. A fast and easy solution doesn't fit everyone. If you're patient enough and can constructively participate in the conversation, someone will help you find a solution.

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. 

One thing you can check is something like HWinfo that shows Writes since boot and compare that with the diff in the reports writes on the SSD since you booted it. 
 
I'd generally not care about TBW on the drive, and just replace it when it dies and restore backups. 

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

Backblaze B2 is 6$/mo for 1TB of data.
 
Don't trust anyone who is "free" with your data.  

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.

Nothing I disagree with there, I'm aware my situation is somewhat unique as I'm trying to conserve disk space by not keeping preview thumbnails of my media files and just letting them generate in real-time.
 
But if its being built for a desktop now and will become a NAS later, its definitely not wasted.  The idle power consumption seems basically identical between the 12400 and the 14700K, so it just has the power there when it needs it.  It does seem to have made Plex indexing new files a lot faster.

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).

@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. 

This.
 
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.