Plex, Linux, File Systems, config and optimization

[Josiah92]

I already have a Plex Media Server (PMS) setup on a Windows 2012 R2 server.

With 2012 R2 end of life and security patches and the cost of Windows OS licensing (I cheap out "save as much money" as often as possible), Linux is looking like a great option as plex was in Linux, Linux can be smaller in required space and is still less commonly used (hopefully less commonly sought to exploit).

 

Looking through articles and forum posts, I'm thinking the best options for OS are Ubuntu Server, Fedora Server or maybe FreeNAS.

I have little experience with Ubuntu and no experience in the others or much of any Linux systems.

 

I'm thinking that ZFS raidz2 is my way to go and not sure which features are best with Plex and which OS offers better compatibility and ease of updates.

 

Thoughts, suggestions?

 

Link to forum post about all of my thoughts plans on creating a whole new Plex Media Server setup.

 

Link to forum post about ZFS zpool.

Link to forum post about Linux optimizations running just Plex.

 

[Donut417]

54 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

I already have a Plex Media Server (PMS) setup on a Windows 2012 R2 server.

With 2012 R2 end of life and security patches and the cost of Windows OS licensing (I cheap out "save as much money" as often as possible), Linux is looking like a great option as plex was in Linux, Linux can be smaller in required space and is still less commonly used (hopefully less commonly sought to exploit).

 

Looking through articles and forum posts, I'm thinking the best options for OS are Ubuntu Server, Fedora Server or maybe FreeNAS.

I have little experience with Ubuntu and no experience in the others or much of any Linux systems.

 

I'm thinking that ZFS raidz2 is my way to go and not sure which features are best with Plex and which OS offers better compatibility and ease of updates.

 

Thoughts, suggestions?

 

I use the desktop version of Ubuntu LTS. It works well. 

[RONOTHAN##]

59 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

I already have a Plex Media Server (PMS) setup on a Windows 2012 R2 server.

With 2012 R2 end of life and security patches and the cost of Windows OS licensing (I cheap out "save as much money" as often as possible), Linux is looking like a great option as plex was in Linux, Linux can be smaller in required space and is still less commonly used (hopefully less commonly sought to exploit).

 

Looking through articles and forum posts, I'm thinking the best options for OS are Ubuntu Server, Fedora Server or maybe FreeNAS.

I have little experience with Ubuntu and no experience in the others or much of any Linux systems.

 

I'm thinking that ZFS raidz2 is my way to go and not sure which features are best with Plex and which OS offers better compatibility and ease of updates.

 

Thoughts, suggestions?

 

The way I have my server setup is TrueNAS (the rebranded name of FreeNAS) to run my NAS and plex server with an Ubuntu Server VM running services that do not work on FreeBSD. It's very easy to setup and pretty darn stable. If you want to run ZFS (highly recommended, especially if you have a lot of drives), TrueNAS is the way that requires no command line input. You do lose the ability to run docker containers unless you run a VM dedicated to docker, but it's easy enough to do if you need that functionality. 

 

That being said, Ubuntu server is very stable and works very well, and if you're comfortable with the command line enough to setup RAID Z2, it will have better software support and functionality at the cost of ease of use. I have no experience with Fedora Server, so I cannot comment on how well that works. 

[Josiah92]

I'm planning to setup a Linux server for running Plex. Link to my forum post on what OS to choose.

 

I was thinking that a ZFS raidz2 setup on essentially 6x 4TB drives (4x 4TB and 2x 6TB drives that have been partitioned so that I can use the extra space elsewhere).

My full plan setup (so far) is to have a zpool of 6x 4TB (as explained above) another zpool of 2x 2TB (from the extra partitioned space) and a third zpool of 4x 3TB and an 8TB drive as a backup for the other zpools.

I don't know much about ZFS, zpools or Linux and the configuration plan of this is non-existent for me so far and that's where some extra guidance would help.

 

A piece that I was hoping to add that I can't find much info on was a read-cache to the 6x 4TB zpool as it will be where all of my movies will be.

My thought was that the latency difference between the raidz and an ssd cache would be huge and allow for MUCH faster scrubbing around movies during streaming, does that sound correct?

 

Something else I saw was talk about compression of a zpool, specifically LZ4 compression.

If I am able to get a read-cache up and running is there any particular downside in my use case in using LZ$ compression?

 

Thoughts, suggestions?

 

Link to forum post about all of my thoughts plans on creating a whole new Plex Media Server setup.

 

[Josiah92]

I'm looking to redo my Plex Media Server (PMS) and am gathering thoughts and guidance from the community.

One question that I have is what settings others would recommend for encoding movies and shows.

I run the plex app on Android phones, Samsung TVs, Roku powered TVs, an Xbox One, Amazon Fire tablets and Windows 10 computers.

 

My thoughts currently were to convert all of my direct Bluray and DVD MKV rips using handbrake with the following settings:

    -MKV containered
    -no anamorphic resizing
    -only the default decomnb filtering
    -H. 264 NVEnc, lossless, same as source, variable framerate, slow preset, no encoder tune, main profile, level 4
    -three audio presets
        ~Auto passthru, 640 bitrate, no mixdown, auto samplerate
        ~AAC, 320 bitrate, dolby pro logic 2, auto samplerate
        ~ac3, 320 bitrate, stereo, auto samplerate
    -first english subtitles, add foreign audio scan, burn-in foreign audio scan

 

Thoughts, suggestions?

 

Link to forum post about all of my thoughts plans on creating a whole new Plex Media Server setup.

 

[AbydosOne]

10 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

My thought was that the latency difference between the raidz and an ssd cache would be huge and allow for MUCH faster scrubbing around movies during streaming, does that sound correct?

In my experience, not really. ZFS already caches in system memory, so SSD cache with ZFS is only for what gets evicted from RAM cache, and thusly can take a while to populate. Also, it's non-persistent, so when the server restarts, it's a blank slate. Furthermore, network latency overhead is probably going to be more of a restriction than the actual storage devices in the server.

 

11 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

(4x 4TB and 2x 6TB drives that have been partitioned so that I can use the extra space elsewhere)

I don't think ZFS will let you partition drives in an array like that. ZFS is the partition, and relies on direct device access. You'll have to write off that space as a waste, unfortunately.

 

12 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

Something else I saw was talk about compression of a zpool, specifically LZ4 compression.

I believe it's the default now in True/FreeNAS. It's essentially free, performance-wise, though it won't make a huge difference with already-compressed media files.

[Dedayog]

Forgive the ignorance but are you maybe overthinking things a little?

 

I download, then stream.  Done. Letting my TV upscale.  

 

I realize you're doing the work that others do before I download, but is there a real benefit for ripping and transcoding vs just playing and letting the TV do it?

 

Again, I may not be understanding the process all that well.

[AbydosOne]

13 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

Thoughts, suggestions?

3 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

but is there a real benefit for ripping and transcoding vs just playing and letting the TV do it?

Part of the point of Plex is that it does the transcoding on the fly for you, tailored to the client device. There might be something to be said about reencoding BD rips to reduce size, but even then, storage is cheap.

[Dedayog]

8 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

Part of the point of Plex is that it does the transcoding on the fly for you, tailored to the client device. There might be something to be said about reencoding BD rips to reduce size, but even then, storage is cheap.

Storage isn't the issue, it's the bandwidth and streaming at other locations other than home.

 

Some ISP's don't play nice with heavy streams (looking at your Windstream).  Was thinking that the smaller the stream, the easier the transmission.

 

That said, I am interested in what you come up with, I may tweak my setup.

[Josiah92]

I'm looking to redo my current Plex Media Server (PMS) and switch from Windows Server 2012 R2 to a Linux Server. Link to my forum post on what OS to choose.

Since I'm in-experienced (not necessarily new to) Linux and definitely new to running it as a server, I'm hoping for some optimization ideas.

The server will solely (at least that's the intention) run PMS and it will be the sole server for Plex with media storage, web access, and transcoding (though I'm planning to encode everything, Link to my forum post on what options I should use) all on the one machine.

 

The plan is to use ZFS and zpools for media storage. Link to my forum post on ZFS with Plex a read-cache and LZ4.

 

Thoughts, suggestions?

 

Link to forum post about all of my thoughts plans on creating a whole new Plex Media Server setup.

[Josiah92]

Hi All,

 

My intent is to confirm my understanding of ZFS for storing Plex Movies, TV Shows and Photos.
My desire is to build one(ish) storage area and have separate folders to neatly organize the items.
I want solid redundancy since I don't want to have to do all of this work again (at least not because of a failure ).
I'd like to have a read-cache on an ssd to help if i scrub around a video.
I have an OLD computer already running plex that I want to redo, so limiting the need for transcode is a must.
I watch on a roku TV, Xbox One, Samsung TV, Windows 10 devices and 2 android phones.

 

For full understanding I don't plan to expand this quickly, but also don't want to have to work on it every time I get more media.
I have all of the Blurays, DVDs for the movies and tv shows and will be uploading the photos from phones and old files.

 

I'm currently using Windows Server 2012 R2, running a storage pool in Parity mode with fixed provisioning with 14.6TB of total space on 21.8TB of HDDs.
With Win Serv 2012 R2 out of service I want to move to a more secure OS.
I have 4x 3TB 7200RPM Sectorsize 512B (SEAGATE ST330006) drives, 2x 6TB 7200RPM Sectorsize 4KB (TOSHIBA HDWE160) drives, and a 500GB ssd (ADATA SU650) drive.
I have no read cache and no real write-back cache.
All of the HDDs are connected via minisas to a LSI Adapter, SAS2 2008 Falcon where I have all of the drives passed through.
I have about 300 movies and 20 seasons of tv shows taking up about 8.5TB all directly riped from Bluray, DVD using MakeMKV.
I have plex pass lifetime membership.

 

My current thoughts on how I should set this up as a Plex server.

 

I plan to purchase 4x 4TB drives (4 separate companies and/or models) and an 8TB drive
I convert all of my movies and shows to the purchased 8TB drive using handbrake settings:
    -MKV containered
    -no anamorphic resizing
    -only the default decomnb filtering
    -H. 264 NVEnc, lossless, same as source, variable framerate, slow preset, no encoder tune, main profile, level 4
    -three audio presets
        ~Auto passthru, 640 bitrate, no mixdown, auto samplerate
        ~AAC, 320 bitrate, dolby pro logic 2, auto samplerate
        ~ac3, 320 bitrate, stereo, auto samplerate
    -first english subtitles, add foreign audio scan, burn-in foreign audio scan
wipe my 4x 3TB, 2x 6TB drives and ssd
Install Linux (Ubuntu Server?) with an admin account on a 100GB partition of the SSD
install plex media server with admin account
create user account for configuring plex
create a zpool with a 6 drive vdev in raidz2 using the 4x 4TB and a 4TB partition on each 6TB drive called "MoviesAndShows"
create another zpool with a 2 drive vdev in mirror using a 2TB partition on each 6TB drive called "Photos"
create another zpool with a 5 drive stripe using 4x 3TB and the 8TB drive called "Backup"
set lz4 compression on all three zpools
transfer all of the files from the 8TB drive to the "MoviesAndShows" zpool and wipe the 8TB drive
transfer all of the files from my phones and files to the "Photos" zpool
setup a backup of the "MoviesAndShows" and "Photos" to the "Backup" zpool

 

 

Questions (additional forum posts) :

 

Linux for Plex setup?

ZFS zpool for Plex setup with read-cache?

Plex optimized encoding setup?

Optimizations for Linux server running Plex and pitfalls to avoid?

 

 

A few sources that I had up as sources that I've looked through (not comprehensive to everything I've seen unfortunately):
ZFS: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Reference/ZFS

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/zfs-101-understanding-zfs-storage-and-performance/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/zfs-versus-raid-eight-ironwolf-disks-two-filesystems-one-winner/

2021 Linux Server distro "picks": https://www.techradar.com/best/best-linux-server-distro
https://linuxnetmag.com/best-linux-distro-for-plex/

Linux ZFS Plex Guide: https://adoredtv.com/building-a-plex-multimedia-nas-on-linux-with-zfs/

New Capability to add drive to ZFS zpool: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/add-drive-to-zfs-pool/167889

lz4 compression: https://www.servethehome.com/the-case-for-using-zfs-compression/

 

[Josiah92]

16 hours ago, Donut417 said:

I use the desktop version of Ubuntu LTS. It works well. 

Why did you choose the LTS desktop version?
Have you used any other versions and seen any benefits / compromises?

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

I'd like to have a read-cache on an ssd to help if i scrub around a video.

Won't really help in ZFS. The read cache is really only good at large data set random reads.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

I plan to purchase 4x 4TB drives (4 separate companies and/or models) and an 8TB drive

Thats a weird config. Id go fewer bigger drives, like 12 or 16tb drives, and get fewer of them.

 

10 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

create a zpool with a 6 drive vdev in raidz2 using the 4x 4TB and a 4TB partition on each 6TB drive called "MoviesAndShows"
create another zpool with a 2 drive vdev in mirror using a 2TB partition on each 6TB drive called "Photos"
create another zpool with a 5 drive stripe using 4x 3TB and the 8TB drive called "Backup"

Id make one big zpool for everything, and just use folders to seperate the data. And Id try to keep dri vesizes the same. This juse seems messy to me. Keep backups external too.

 

10 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

set lz4 compression on all three zpools

zstd is better in almost all ways

 

 

[Josiah92]

15 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The way I have my server setup is TrueNAS (the rebranded name of FreeNAS) to run my NAS and plex server with an Ubuntu Server VM running services that do not work on FreeBSD. It's very easy to setup and pretty darn stable. If you want to run ZFS (highly recommended, especially if you have a lot of drives), TrueNAS is the way that requires no command line input. You do lose the ability to run docker containers unless you run a VM dedicated to docker, but it's easy enough to do if you need that functionality. 

 

That being said, Ubuntu server is very stable and works very well, and if you're comfortable with the command line enough to setup RAID Z2, it will have better software support and functionality at the cost of ease of use. I have no experience with Fedora Server, so I cannot comment on how well that works. 

The server will solely (at least that's the intention) run PMS and it will be the sole server for Plex with media storage, web access, and transcoding (though I'm planning to encode everything, Link to my forum post on what options I should use) all on the one machine.

I don't even think the old hardware I have can effectively run more than one VM so I figured straight up install is fine. Maybe that's a bad idea?

 

You say TrueNAS is a rebrand of FreeNAS is there a benefit to TrueNAS over FreeNAS?

 

You mentioned your services are running on FreeBSD (I would LOVE to break everything out but due to space, time, money and other personal reasons I need to keep everything on one box), if it had to be one system which would you prefer TrueNAS, FreeNAS or FreeBSD?

 

I plan to have 3 zpools:
1) about 6x 4TB raidz2
2) about 2x 2TB mirror

3) about 20TB striped across 4x 3TB and an 8 TB drive

 

Link to forum post about ZFS zpool.

Link to forum post about Linux optimizations running just Plex.

 

[Josiah92]

1 hour ago, AbydosOne said:

In my experience, not really. ZFS already caches in system memory, so SSD cache with ZFS is only for what gets evicted from RAM cache, and thusly can take a while to populate. Also, it's non-persistent, so when the server restarts, it's a blank slate. Furthermore, network latency overhead is probably going to be more of a restriction than the actual storage devices in the server.

The cache in memory is only part of the movie though.

I'm running 16GB of DDR3 memory and loading up 20-30GB files.

I figured if the disks pushed to SSD then jumping from 10mins to an hour and 40mins in might load faster.

With raid and striping I know that reads can multiple, but figured that latency is still an issue (and one that can be amplified using raid and striping).

Theories and half remembering things all floating through my head that's why I'm asking for additional conformation

 

1 hour ago, AbydosOne said:

I don't think ZFS will let you partition drives in an array like that. ZFS is the partition, and relies on direct device access. You'll have to write off that space as a waste, unfortunately.

It looks like some OSs prefer (maybe require) the whole disk because they like to partition it themselves to apply some best practices automatically, Link.

The reason I'd like to partition them myself is due to sizing differences. 4x 4TB and 2x 6TB together leaves 4TB of unusable space (at least that's what I've read).

I saw this Link and thought that would allow me more storage for some dedicated photo storage.

 

1 hour ago, AbydosOne said:

I believe it's the default now in True/FreeNAS. It's essentially free, performance-wise, though it won't make a huge difference with already-compressed media files.

Yeah I've seen some graphs that the compression works well and the speed difference is miniscule, but want to check if there are issues.

[AbydosOne]

34 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

I figured if the disks pushed to SSD then jumping from 10mins to an hour and 40mins in might load faster.

Unless you've already made that jump several times, ZFS won't have picked it up and cached it. ZFS is caching on a block level, not a whole file level, so it won't necessarily grab the entire file, no matter if you have a L2ARC (that's ZFS-ese for "SSD cache") or not. It is somewhat smart (will read a few block ahead when it sees a pattern and cache them), but from a general usage case, caching every multi-gig file every time you wanted to look at one part of it (e.g. a record in a database file) would be extremely wasteful (evicting what could have been smaller useful data) and would put a lot of wear on the drives in the array (loading information that might not end up being used at all).

 

I guess I gotta ask: how often are you jumping around in 4K movies like this that a few extra hundred milliseconds would matter all that much? Honestly, the UI/encoding lag in Plex is more of the issue than the underlying array speed.

 

From a practical standpoint, I have Plex running in TrueNAS on a 40TB (raw)/20TB (RAIDZ2) array (with only RAM caching), and I can play pretty much anything without issues (including straight BD-R rips). I had an L2ARC for a short while, and it made exactly zero difference on anything I did (so now I have a VM hosted on that SSD).

[Josiah92]

2 hours ago, Dedayog said:

Forgive the ignorance but are you maybe overthinking things a little?

 

I download, then stream.  Done. Letting my TV upscale.  

 

I realize you're doing the work that others do before I download, but is there a real benefit for ripping and transcoding vs just playing and letting the TV do it?

 

Again, I may not be understanding the process all that well.

I think it's a little bit of my personality. I like optimized computers and computing, plus I love learning "computers" (as my friends put it) [Network, Hardware, Software, Languages, Circuitry, Audio, Video, Power, etc...].

 

Don't know specifically what you mean by "download, then stream", but I'm trying to do everything a legally as I can be aware of.

I know and have good discs for all movies and shows I have on my server. Not saying you're pirating, just that a lot of people do.

With a rip, I current just use the raw MKV from makeMKV, but some devices do not play the raw using DirectPlay or DirectStream.

I'm using an OLD machine and due to space, time, money and other personal reasons I need to keep using just this machine.

With this OLD machine 4k transcode is not a viable option and even 1080p can be rough.

 

1 hour ago, AbydosOne said:

Part of the point of Plex is that it does the transcoding on the fly for you, tailored to the client device. There might be something to be said about reencoding BD rips to reduce size, but even then, storage is cheap.

In part and for some, yes. For me I'm hitting issues transcoding 4k and even 1080p to some devices.

If I could upgrade the hardware significantly then yes, but again space, time, money and other personal reasons.

Have this files encoded in a more universally playable format means less issues for me.

The size difference is nice, but I'm aiming for almost lossless, just strip out the extra languages and audio for what I want at the settings that should allow DirectPlay on MOST devices (especially the ones I have  ).

 

1 hour ago, Dedayog said:

Storage isn't the issue, it's the bandwidth and streaming at other locations other than home.

 

Some ISP's don't play nice with heavy streams (looking at your Windstream).  Was thinking that the smaller the stream, the easier the transmission.

 

That said, I am interested in what you come up with, I may tweak my setup.

Yes'ish, for me storage isn't an issue, I know it is for some.

Even streaming locally on the border of a WiFi connection can be an issue if there aren't any lower res versions and the server sucks at transcoding.

Plex is also GREAT about this that if you do encode (which plex can do for you, but I like my control  ) it will save the files (if labeled or associated correctly) as different versions and then autoplay the best version on each device.

Not going to encode for each device though (unless I absolutely have to, which I don't think I do).

 

I hope this helps and we can get some thoughts on encoding options for best quality, playable on most devices and smaller size as an extra benefit.

 

[Josiah92]

I didn't know that the level 2 would cache only at the block level (or that it is called L2ARC), Thank you!

I was hoping that there was a method of configuration at ZFS or Plex level to say hey if the file being played is in level 2 play from there and if not based on space and usage maybe load it there first.

 

A fair bit of the time I have to jump back 10-30 mins as my wife will look over to me and admit see fell asleep at "some point" and then we scrub around to a good point. That usually involves a few jumps.

 

Maybe its the delay with old machine, old memory and over WiFi to the bedroom.

One of the saddest things to me is that it isn't hardwired and doesn't have the strongest signal.

Not looking to go powerline and can't go booster.

 

So, if the partitioning works and I can go 3 zpools. Then read-cache sounds like a skip, LZ4 sounds like a yes.

Any other tips, tricks or recommendations?

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, Josiah92 said:

Why did you choose the LTS desktop version?
Have you used any other versions and seen any benefits / compromises?

LTS because of long term support. Desktop only because I’m not skilled enough on the Linux command line as the server version doesn’t have a GUI by default. 

[Josiah92]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Won't really help in ZFS. The read cache is really only good at large data set random reads.

Yeah, AbydosOne over on this post let me know that read-cache was on a block level not file level so I guess it's pretty pointless for me.

 

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Thats a weird config. Id go fewer bigger drives, like 12 or 16tb drives, and get fewer of them.

 

Id make one big zpool for everything, and just use folders to seperate the data. And Id try to keep dri vesizes the same. This juse seems messy to me. Keep backups external too.

I already have the 4x 3TB and 2x 6TB drives and keeping the costs low (while still getting to expand  ) I was going to get 4x 4TB as they are cheap $/TB and also in general $. Then I needed the 8TB to transfer everything off of my current 3 & 6 TB drives.

It' messier to keep using what I have and limit costs. 6x 10TB at $209/drive is $1254 to upgrade, while 4x 4TB at $69/drive (Nice) + 8TB at $190 is $466 to still upgrade.

 

I've been reading and thinking about keeping the vdev to 6 drive in raidz2.

If I go less drive in a vdev I'm not getting a good redundancy to usage ratio and the more I add the more drives that need to be upgraded later to actually increase that vdev storage space.

 

The Photo zpool was just as a nicety since it looks possible by partitioning and splitting my 6TB drives to 2TB and 4TB partitions to be in separate zpools.

From what I've read vdev can't be removed without recreating the zpool.

If vdev can't be removed without destroying zpool then I figured have just one vdev per zpool with the main zpool having 6 drives in raidz2 in a vdev, a "bonus" zpool from the 6TB partitioning in mirror in a vdev and a backup zpool of my 3TBs and 8TB in strip to not worry about the size differences.

 

I do think it is a backup. Sure its not a separate device or a separate location, but if the raidz2 goes down or the machine goes down, I still have all of the work. Plus, I thought the stripped drives are able to be placed into a different machine and still work. Is this wrong?

I still technically have hard backups in the form of the discs, but this is so my ripping and encoding work is less likely to need to be redone.

 

So, by creating 3 zpools in this manner I get the most storage, good redundancy, a backup and later expansion is cheaper.

 

Please correct or give thoughts on all of it, as I'm looking for the info on how these things should work, do work and can be optimized.

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

already have the 4x 3TB and 2x 6TB drives and keeping the costs low (while still getting to expand  ) I was going to get 4x 4TB as they are cheap $/TB and also in general $. Then I needed the 8TB to transfer everything off of my current 3 & 6 TB drives.

It' messier to keep using what I have and limit costs. 6x 10TB at $209/drive is $1254 to upgrade, while 4x 4TB at $69/drive (Nice) + 8TB at $190 is $466 to still upgrade.

Id get big drives when you need more.

 

Id stil make it one big pool. THen if you do mirrors its easy to upgrade by replaceing a pair.

 

You can also get shucked drives to save money.

 

5 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

I've been reading and thinking about keeping the vdev to 6 drive in raidz2.

If I go less drive in a vdev I'm not getting a good redundancy to usage ratio and the more I add the more drives that need to be upgraded later to actually increase that vdev storage space.

Id just do mirrors. THen you can fully use the mixed drive sizes you have already.

 

6 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

So, by creating 3 zpools in this manner I get the most storage, good redundancy, a backup and later expansion is cheaper.

 

Don't keep your backup on the same system, really hurts a lot of the backup benfits, like if you make a error, the system gets stolen/destroyed/burnt.

 

 

 

Id just make one big zpool with mirrors here(then you can easily mix drive sizes)

 

You can also do one raid z1 and one mirror in the pool. Then store the other drives externally and use them as external hdds for the backup.

 

8 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

Plus, I thought the stripped drives are able to be placed into a different machine and still work. Is this wrong?

Yea you can put the drives in anouther PC if needed and use them

 

 

[Dedayog]

56 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

I think it's a little bit of my personality. I like optimized computers and computing, plus I love learning "computers" (as my friends put it) [Network, Hardware, Software, Languages, Circuitry, Audio, Video, Power, etc...].

 

Don't know specifically what you mean by "download, then stream", but I'm trying to do everything a legally as I can be aware of.

I know and have good discs for all movies and shows I have on my server. Not saying you're pirating, just that a lot of people do.

With a rip, I current just use the raw MKV from makeMKV, but some devices do not play the raw using DirectPlay or DirectStream.

I'm using an OLD machine and due to space, time, money and other personal reasons I need to keep using just this machine.

With this OLD machine 4k transcode is not a viable option and even 1080p can be rough.

 

In part and for some, yes. For me I'm hitting issues transcoding 4k and even 1080p to some devices.

If I could upgrade the hardware significantly then yes, but again space, time, money and other personal reasons.

Have this files encoded in a more universally playable format means less issues for me.

The size difference is nice, but I'm aiming for almost lossless, just strip out the extra languages and audio for what I want at the settings that should allow DirectPlay on MOST devices (especially the ones I have  ).

 

Yes'ish, for me storage isn't an issue, I know it is for some.

Even streaming locally on the border of a WiFi connection can be an issue if there aren't any lower res versions and the server sucks at transcoding.

Plex is also GREAT about this that if you do encode (which plex can do for you, but I like my control  ) it will save the files (if labeled or associated correctly) as different versions and then autoplay the best version on each device.

Not going to encode for each device though (unless I absolutely have to, which I don't think I do).

 

I hope this helps and we can get some thoughts on encoding options for best quality, playable on most devices and smaller size as an extra benefit.

 

I had no idea Plex can encode other versions for you.

 

With the Plex server in my sig, would that be smart for me to try to do?  

 

I'll head over to your other post and read up as well.

[Electronics Wizardy]

38 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

, LZ4 sounds like a yes.

Don't do lz4, zstd is better in basically all ways

 

38 minutes ago, Josiah92 said:

Maybe its the delay with old machine, old memory and over WiFi to the bedroom.

 

Wifi is gonna suck for a nas. Id just connect the drives to your desktop directly. Do you need multiple users? You can make a file share on your desktop if needed.

 

I think the network speed is probably your scrubbing issue, not the lack of a ssd cache. Get it hard wired in and it will work better.

[RONOTHAN##]

2 hours ago, Josiah92 said:

You say TrueNAS is a rebrand of FreeNAS is there a benefit to TrueNAS over FreeNAS?

I don't believe FreeNAS is getting updates anymore, so if you try to install FreeNAS you will just get redirected to TrueNAS's website anyway. TrueNAS used to be the Enterprise version of FreeNAS, but iXsystems (the developers of TrueNAS) got tired of maintaining two separate code bases and thus merged them into one. TrueNAS is just the continuation of FreeNAS, not technically a rebrand as I said above. It's very similar with the exception of a better UI and some added features thanks to sharing the codebase with the enterprise edition of TrueNAS.

2 hours ago, Josiah92 said:

The server will solely (at least that's the intention) run PMS and it will be the sole server for Plex with media storage, web access, and transcoding (though I'm planning to encode everything, Link to my forum post on what options I should use) all on the one machine.

Everything but the transcoding would work very well on TrueNAS. To my knowledge there isn't a way to setup GPU transcoding if you need it (I personally don't, my server has plenty of CPU horsepower to do transcodes). That being said, if you plan to encode everything, you probably don't need transcoding ability anyway, so you should be fine with just running it in a plugin. 

2 hours ago, Josiah92 said:

You mentioned your services are running on FreeBSD (I would LOVE to break everything out but due to space, time, money and other personal reasons I need to keep everything on one box), if it had to be one system which would you prefer TrueNAS, FreeNAS or FreeBSD?

I mentioned FreeBSD because that is the base system TrueNAS/FreeNAS is based on, the same way how Ubuntu is based on Debian and Manjaro is based on Arch. It's a Unix-like Operating system focused on stability, but because it's not Linux-based there are some utilities that do not run (i.e. Docker and RedHat KVM). Based on what you're saying you'll be doing with the system, everything should have FreeBSD compatible software and run just fine in TrueNAS. While you could run a vanilla install of FreeBSD, I wouldn't recommend it over Ubuntu Server because of the somewhat weaker software support (for home users at least) and how you would still have to do everything over the command line. Just install TrueNAS so you can get a web-based GUI interface for configuring everything. 

 

[Josiah92]

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Don't do lz4, zstd is better in basically all ways

Sorry you mentioned zstd instead of lz4 in another post and I forgot to ask about it.

I read here that the testing shows at level 1 lz4 has faster read speeds than anything else.

What compression levels are you recommending?

 

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Wifi is gonna suck for a nas. Id just connect the drives to your desktop directly. Do you need multiple users? You can make a file share on your desktop if needed.

I have the server tucked away and it's everything including storage and all PMS services.

I'm hoping to keep the same ideal and run a Linux OS (sounds like TrueNAS from this post) on the system without VMs.

I'll have two system users (only me accessing it though) one for admin and one for services. Multiple plex users though.

 

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I think the network speed is probably your scrubbing issue, not the lack of a ssd cache. Get it hard wired in and it will work better.

Yeah I had thought that but was hoping there was magic solution in speeding up the seek, limiting the CPU working too hard and wishing really hard.