Help with NAS build

[TheBeitemBeast]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm looking to build my first NAS system, but I would like some advice on parts etc. 

My use case will be mostly for Plex (to my LG oled  ), backup of some important data and bulk storage for all my photo's

Redundancy is important because I don't want to lose the photo's. 

I would like to keep the build small, quiet and power efficient. 

Here is what I came up with (case will be the Node 304). 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$99.99 @ Best Buy
Motherboard	ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$82.99 @ Newegg
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory	$69.98 @ Amazon
Storage	Kingston UV500 120 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$28.00 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 2 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$80.00 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 2 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$80.00 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 2 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$80.00 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 2 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$80.00 @ Amazon
Case	Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case	$106.44 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA GM 450 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply	$99.37 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$806.77
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-06 06:27 EDT-0400

 I would use Freenas as the OS With Raidz I would get 6TB of usable space, which should be plenty for me. 

 

What are your thoughts about: 

- CPU: too much for a NAS build of just fine?

- RAM: is ECC is my case worth it? Not much (consumer-grade) processors support it. 

- NVME drive just for the os

- OS?

 

Any other sugestions for me? 

[Biomecanoid]

16 minutes ago, TheBeitemBeast said:

Hi everyone,

 

I'm looking to build my first NAS system, but I would like some advice on parts etc. 

My use case will be mostly for Plex (to my LG oled  ), backup of some important data and bulk storage for all my photo's

Redundancy is important because I don't want to lose the photo's. 

I would like to keep the build small, quiet and power efficient. 

Here is what I came up with (case will be the Node 304). 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$99.99 @ Best Buy
Motherboard	ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$82.99 @ Newegg
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory	$69.98 @ Amazon
Storage	Kingston UV500 120 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$28.00 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 2 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$80.00 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 2 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$80.00 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 2 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$80.00 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 2 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$80.00 @ Amazon
Case	Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case	$106.44 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA GM 450 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply	$99.37 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$806.77
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-06 06:27 EDT-0400

 I would use Freenas as the OS With Raidz I would get 6TB of usable space, which should be plenty for me. 

 

What are your thoughts about: 

- CPU: too much for a NAS build of just fine?

- RAM: is ECC is my case worth it? Not much (consumer-grade) processors support it. 

- NVME drive just for the os

- OS?

 

Any other sugestions for me? 

 

I like FreeNAS but for some reason its specs have skyrocketed and it needs a good machine to run it.

In my mind i would prefer something low powered like an intel atom mini-itx board.

Also 5900rpm are slow with today's standards.

 

In my case i made my NAS with an intel atoms and Centos installing all the packages i need

 

 

- CPU: too much for a NAS build of just fine?   For FreeNAS its OK the OS is demanding. but you can use other Linux distros and use a low powered CPU

- RAM: is ECC is my case worth it? Not much (consumer-grade) processors support it.  ECC is good, the bios reports you if a stick is broken, very useful.

- NVME drive just for the os.   That's correct 

- OS? Best way to do it is start clean and install only what you need

[NelizMastr]

Looks like a nice setup for sure

 

The only thing this system might struggle with is handling some video content, as transcoding performance on AMD graphics can be hit and miss.

Generally H.264 content will do just fine. I have tested this on FreeNAS 11.3 a while ago on an HP Thin Client T620, which has Radeon 8000 series graphics in it. H265 and random AVI and WMV files were a no go. Maybe Vega does better, I can't test this sadly.

 

Plex generally suggest Intel CPUs with onboard graphics, as they primary aim for QuickSync and some Nvidia cards with proper NVENC support (I use a Quadro P600 myself).

 

OS wise, go with FreeNAS, ECC is not necessary and also make sure you have a drive to backup the NAS. A NAS with a RAID setup is not a backup solution as is. The NAS can catch fire and all will be lost

 

A regular USB disk will do. Those cheap Seagate Expansion Desks or WD MyBooks are good enough.

[mahyar]

its a good setup for os i suggest tou install debian and install openmediavault on that

[TheBeitemBeast]

54 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

The only thing this system might struggle with is handling some video content, as transcoding performance on AMD graphics can be hit and miss.

Generally H.264 content will do just fine. I have tested this on FreeNAS 11.3 a while ago on an HP Thin Client T620, which has Radeon 8000 series graphics in it. H265 and random AVI and WMV files were a no go. Maybe Vega does better, I can't test this sadly.

 

Plex generally suggest Intel CPUs with onboard graphics, as they primary aim for QuickSync and some Nvidia cards with proper NVENC support (I use a Quadro P600 myself).

 

Most of the use will be for Plex. Some of the content is just normal 1080p quality but for some of the movies it is 4k HDR. I don't quite understand the transcoding part: when does a file need transcoding to play on the tv and when not?

[NelizMastr]

35 minutes ago, TheBeitemBeast said:

Most of the use will be for Plex. Some of the content is just normal 1080p quality but for some of the movies it is 4k HDR. I don't quite understand the transcoding part: when does a file need transcoding to play on the tv and when not?

When the TV doesn't directly support the codec or doesn't have enough power to play it back itself (this needs to happen in hardware, it's not a matter of just opening a file) it needs to be transcoded to a format that the TV can playback without issue. Plex does this on the CPU or on the GPU if a supported encoder is present. Full hardware transcoding on a GPU requires a Plex pass. Otherwise, the CPU will take the heat.

[Biomecanoid]

its always easier to get your movies in formats already supported by your devices instead of transcoding them on the fly, at least that's what i do

 

[TheBeitemBeast]

2 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

When the TV doesn't directly support the codec or doesn't have enough power to play it back itself (this needs to happen in hardware, it's not a matter of just opening a file) it needs to be transcoded to a format that the TV can playback without issue. Plex does this on the CPU or on the GPU if a supported encoder is present. Full hardware transcoding on a GPU requires a Plex pass. Otherwise, the CPU will take the heat.

I don't have a plex pass (and not willing to), so the CPU will do transcoding. Is the ryzen 3 3200g the best option (around that price point)? Or would it be better to wait for zen 3 and the new intel ones?

[NelizMastr]

On 8/6/2020 at 4:51 PM, TheBeitemBeast said:

I don't have a plex pass (and not willing to), so the CPU will do transcoding. Is the ryzen 3 3200g the best option (around that price point)? Or would it be better to wait for zen 3 and the new intel ones?

you'll need more power than that if you want 4K. See the link below for what Plex recommends.

You'll need a CPU with roughly 12000 points in passmark for non-HDR 4K purely transcoded on a CPU. The 3200G scores 7250 in passmark. 

 

12000 is around the Ryzen 5 1600 / Ryzen 3 3300X / Core i7 8700 mark.

 

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/

[paddy-stone]

Personally, I prefer to keep my hardware requirement for the NAS to a minimum. So I usually have most of my tv and movies that most devices will want to access be in 720/1080p x265 codec and mp4/mkv containers that all the devices can play. And then for the 4K capable TVs and devices, I have some of the movies in 4K mkv containers, with some of them capable of HDR/10 bit etc. I thionk there's only one device that can access my NAS that can't play x265, but that very rarely accesses it anyway.... so what I do is if that device wants to access/play a file that it can't, I recode another version in x264 codec for them. That is VERY rare though, so it's not worth it IMO to keep x264 copies of all my files. My main PC can recode the file in a few hours usually, or I can obtain another copy... it's not time sensitive for the most part.

I have now switched to using Emby instead of plex, and have to say that I get far fewer files that give me playback problems... in fact I can't remember my 4k TV having a problem with any files now I think on it. With plex I ran into problems with some 4k files, and at the time I just switched to watching them with KODI instead, as that would play everything with no transcoding required.

 

Anyway, what I'm saying is that rather than spending loads of extra $$ on a better CPU/GPU and plex/emby pass for transcoding. It might be better to have lower quality x264 file copies of your content as well. But obviously depends on the size of your library as to which would be better.

[TheBeitemBeast]

21 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

Personally, I prefer to keep my hardware requirement for the NAS to a minimum. So I usually have most of my tv and movies that most devices will want to access be in 720/1080p x265 codec and mp4/mkv containers that all the devices can play. And then for the 4K capable TVs and devices, I have some of the movies in 4K mkv containers, with some of them capable of HDR/10 bit etc. I thionk there's only one device that can access my NAS that can't play x265, but that very rarely accesses it anyway.... so what I do is if that device wants to access/play a file that it can't, I recode another version in x264 codec for them. That is VERY rare though, so it's not worth it IMO to keep x264 copies of all my files. My main PC can recode the file in a few hours usually, or I can obtain another copy... it's not time sensitive for the most part.

I have now switched to using Emby instead of plex, and have to say that I get far fewer files that give me playback problems... in fact I can't remember my 4k TV having a problem with any files now I think on it. With plex I ran into problems with some 4k files, and at the time I just switched to watching them with KODI instead, as that would play everything with no transcoding required.

 

Anyway, what I'm saying is that rather than spending loads of extra $$ on a better CPU/GPU and plex/emby pass for transcoding. It might be better to have lower quality x264 file copies of your content as well. But obviously depends on the size of your library as to which would be better.

I think the ryzen 3 3200g is the middle ground: not quite low end but also not high end. It will be possible to transcode with this thing but not ideal I think. Only playback device will be the LG OLED55C9. What is the beter option? Stay with the 3200g or choose a more budget frindely lower end CPU/APU?

 

NAS will be used mainly for plex and automatic photo upload from 2 smartphones and a bit of tinkering with all the freenas posibilities. 

[Biomecanoid]

I don't see the reason to have a good PC as NAS for transcoding. You can download different codec versions of your movies or get an android TV box. Nowadays Android TV boxes play everything, every codec there is.

 

My NAS is tiny the size of a modem with Intel atom, SSD for the OS and just 1GB of RAM. its been working for 4-5 years now serving movies to 2 android boxes connected to TVs in the living room and bedroom.

[paddy-stone]

I used to have a 200GE in my backup NAS, running freenas, and it was fine, but also I didn't have the need or want to transcode.... the transcoding part is the one that's the defining factor in the build, if you want to be able to do that you'll need a beefy CPU. If you only intend on using it on the display you have mentioned then there should be no problem as you don't transcode UP, instead it directly plays anything it can, and the TV handles upscaling. You MAY get transcoding on audio or subs though if that doesn't match what your TV/device can handle.

 

I think you'd be OK with the Athlon 3000g even personally, lower power and still has 2c/4t which would easily handle anything except transcoding much. But that's up to you the 3200g is a good CPU, and I definitely wouldn't bother with a non-g one where you need a dedicated GPU too, as you wouldn't benefit from a dedicated GPU unless you bought the premium for emby/plex as they only support hardware (GPU) transcoding with the premium.

 

 

[TheBeitemBeast]

3 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

I used to have a 200GE in my backup NAS, running freenas, and it was fine, but also I didn't have the need or want to transcode.... the transcoding part is the one that's the defining factor in the build, if you want to be able to do that you'll need a beefy CPU. If you only intend on using it on the display you have mentioned then there should be no problem as you don't transcode UP, instead it directly plays anything it can, and the TV handles upscaling. You MAY get transcoding on audio or subs though if that doesn't match what your TV/device can handle.

 

I think you'd be OK with the Athlon 3000g even personally, lower power and still has 2c/4t which would easily handle anything except transcoding much. But that's up to you the 3200g is a good CPU, and I definitely wouldn't bother with a non-g one where you need a dedicated GPU too, as you wouldn't benefit from a dedicated GPU unless you bought the premium for emby/plex as they only support hardware (GPU) transcoding with the premium.

I'll stick with the 3200G - plenty enough for Plex (no transcoding) en still headroom for other stuff to play around. Power consumption is not really an issue because I have solar panels and have an excess of electricity  I won't put a dedicated gpu in, because i don't really need it and the case (fractal design node 304) is not that big. 

 

This cpu supports ECC right? There is not much price difference to normal RAM, but will it really matter? Or should I just stick with some 16gb DDR RAM?

[paddy-stone]

For RAM, you have to go by what the mobo supports first of all:-

 

 

Quote

 

- Dual Channel DDR4 Memory Technology
- 4 x DDR4 DIMM Slots
- AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Matisse) support DDR4 3200 / 2933 / 2667 / 2400 / 2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
- AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Pinnacle Ridge) support DDR4 3200+(OC) / 2933(OC) / 2667 / 2400 / 2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
- AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Picasso) support DDR4 2933 / 2667 / 2400 / 2133 non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
- AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Summit Ridge) support DDR4 3200+(OC) / 2933(OC) / 2667 / 2400 / 2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
- AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Raven Ridge) support DDR4 3200+(OC) / 2933 / 2667 / 2400 / 2133 non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
- Max. capacity of system memory: 64GB**
- Supports Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules
- 15μ Gold Contact in DIMM Slots
 

*For Ryzen Series CPUs (Picasso and Raven Ridge), ECC is only supported with PRO CPUs.
Please refer to below table for AMD non-XMP memory frequency support.

 

source https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/B450M Pro4/index.asp#Specification

 

Whether it's worth it or not, is debatable.. I don't have ECC in my home made NAS, but I do have it in my micros-server. Neither system has suffered from data loss or corruption, so I don't personally have experience of this. If there's little difference in price, then yes I would choose ECC RAM, refer to the memory support list in the above link to be sure you are compatible.

 

[edit] You CPU doesn't support ECC as it's piccasso

 

 

[TheBeitemBeast]

2 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

Whether it's worth it or not, is debatable.. I don't have ECC in my home made NAS, but I do have it in my micros-server. Neither system has suffered from data loss or corruption, so I don't personally have experience of this. If there's little difference in price, then yes I would choose ECC RAM, refer to the memory support list in the above link to be sure you are compatible.

 

[edit] You CPU doesn't support ECC as it's piccasso

Thanks for the info, I thought I checked well ... Normal RAM it is :) which speed won't really matter for this workload I guess? I found some corsair vengeance 16gb (2x8gb) 3600mhz for 65 euros. 

[paddy-stone]

Personally, I would go with a 2600 (non-x), and add a small GPU for graphics so it'll boot. The graphics will hardly use any energy, even my 1060 only uses around 7w idle and that's outputting to a screen as well, when yours will not.

Something like this

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	$138.94 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$85.99 @ B&H
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$46.00 @ Amazon
Storage	Kingston A400 240 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$34.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 3 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$99.87 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 3 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$99.87 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 3 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$99.87 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate IronWolf NAS 3 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive	$99.87 @ Amazon
Video Card	MSI GeForce GT 710 2 GB Low Profile Video Card	$49.99 @ Amazon
Case	Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case	$109.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA G3 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$104.94 @ ModMyMods
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$970.32
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-11 12:54 EDT-0400

 

The 2600 will give you 6c/12t compared to just 4c from the 3200G. The RAM is cheaper. Also, your drives were only 2TB, whereas 3TB are only around $10 more, so changed those too. And added the GPU which as I mentioned before will hardly be used and drawing any power... also it's small and silent. And lastly the PSU, I think the one above is better and the fan on it only comes on when uder 50% load/ 40C I believe, so shouldn't be on most of the time with the hardware you have.

 

Bear in mind that the node 804 doesn't have good fans IMO (i have one too), so might want to get some silent wings 2 or similar 120mm fans to swap those out, but your call. Hope that helps.

[paddy-stone]

I'd only get the 2600 if you plan on having a lot more stuff running on the NAS, if not I'd go the other way and get a 3000G Athlon instead, as that has 2 cores, but hyper-threading so it has 4 threads to use for tasks. Will save a fair bit of $$ and use much less energy. Also you can just use a USB drive for boot drive, you don't need an SSD unless you're gonna use that for a write cache or something?