Help with upgrade to a NAS/Gaming server.

[greencode]

Currently in the process of planning to changing my current unraid server that I use for plex and for a modded Minecraft server. Looking to add other games like rust or ark in the future if my friends end up getting back into them. I have a general idea of how I want to build it but would love some feed back. I am not particularly server savvy. For plex I currently have about 12 users and a good amount of 4k content, generally about 5 people stream at once and I think 7 was the peak. I added photo of my current unraid set up. I still have several stacks of 4k and UHD content to add.

 

CPU:

For the CPU I was thinking a 5950x as it as the passmark score to handle several transcodes at once especially if they are doing several 4k transcodes at once. Or would it be worth it to stay with intel either the current generation or wait for the new alder lake that is rumored to surpass the 5950x. Since intel has onboard graphic that I understand supports HW transcoding (I have plex pass). Something like the I9-11900k even though it has a lower passmark rating at 25k vs 46k it makes up for it with the onboard graphics that can do some transcoding. For the cooler I was just gonna keep my current hyper 212 as it seems to be doing just fine.

 

Motherboard:

Here I am undecided I was looking at like a server style board like the X570D4U it comes with 8 SATA ports and I can put in two or more SAS cards to expand storage further. But that would take up all the expansion slots, would it be better to go with a more standard board with more PCIE slots for SAS cards and a graphic card for transcoding? Something like the ASROCK B550 or ASUS ROG x570 that has 8 SATA ports and 3 PCI so I can have two SAS cards and a graphics card. Currently I have a motherboard with 10 SATA ports but I can not seem to find anything similar or higher in number, I think 8 was the max I found. Even when I looked at intel boards. 

 

Memory 

I have 64 gigs of ECC ddr4 memory I would likely just reuse. Though my current board does not support ECC. Nor do most of the motherboards I was looking at. Intel seems to only support ECC if you go Xeon, but Ryzen does support it.

 

Storage and Case:

For my case I am looking at getting the Lian Li 343 and then installing 6 5x3.5" Hot-Swap Cage I currently have two install in my tower case. I have look for sever/rack mount cases but all that I could find came with hardware that didn't seem up to what I wanted to do (i.e very low pasmark score) and I could not find any cheapish empty cases that have better then SAS1 (limited to 2tb). If anyone has advice on how to find used cases with lots of 3.5" drives please let me know, like used 45 drive cases but little to no insides so I can put what I need or hardware that can support multiple transcodes and Minecraft worlds. I have found things like this ProLiant but it only has 12 3.5" and review say it sounds like a plane in take off. Also I don't mind top loading or internal drives, I don't plan to really ever move the drive except to replace dying or dead ones I just don't see a lot of internal addition options. Was thinking of maybe adding something like this over the top of where the power supply goes but I think the 30 drives in front will be plenty for now. As it stand I plan to used SAS cards in IT mode to expand my drive capacity. I have one already and was gonna add at least one more. When looking at SAS cards it seems that having 2 ports is the standard (eBay search) or are there cards that have or support more? Ideally I would like to connect more then 8 HDD per card. Something like this but in IT mode. For storage I would move over my current 12 drives and then get more this holiday sale season. I figure if I need more then 30 drives I should start looking at rack systems but for this amount for now a large desk top case should work.

 

In terms of power I have a HX1000 I can use but I think my current RM850 should still work. 

 

Summarized Questions:

Should I stick with team blue for the integrated graphics or go with red for the ECC and higher passmark score?

Does the integrated graphics make up for lower passmark scores?

If I stay with blue would it be worth waiting for the new CPU to either get the better performance or for it to cause a drop in the current generations prices?

Should I stick with a more "traditional" desktop motherboard or go more server style?

Are there good HBA cards that are IT and support lots of hard drives, and any recommended sellers?

Any issue with my current case and storage plan? Case seems large enough to support proper air flow.

Will my Current PSU be fine to power all 30 Hard drives?

With unraid the system remember drives by S/N right so when I plug them into the new case it will automatically detect them without an issue right?

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

12 minutes ago, greencode said:

have 64 gigs of ECC ddr4 memory I would likely just reuse. Though my current board does not support ECC. Nor do most of the motherboards I was looking at. Intel seems to only support ECC if you go Xeon, but Ryzen does support it.

what type of ecc, this board is unbuffered only

 

13 minutes ago, greencode said:

ere I am undecided I was looking at like a server style board like the X570D4U it c

great board, I have the x470 version.

 

13 minutes ago, greencode said:

t with the onboard graphics that can do some transcoding. For the cooler I was just gonna keep my current hyper 212 as it seems to be doing just fine.

 

How much trans coding are you doing, the 5950x should be able to do more than enough with a 5950x

 

15 minutes ago, greencode said:

Storage and Case:

For my case I am looking at getting the Lian Li 343 and then installing 6 5x3.5" Hot-Swap Cage I currently have two install in my tower case. I have look for sever/rack mount cases but all that I could find came with hardware that didn't seem up to what I wanted to do (i.e very low pasmark score) and I could not find any cheapish empty cases that have better then SAS1 (limited to 2tb). If anyone has advice on how to find used cases with lots of 3.5" drives please let me know, like used 45 drive cases but little to no insides so I can put what I need or hardware that can support multiple transcodes and Minecraft worlds. I have found things like this ProLiant but it only has 12 3.5" and review say it sounds like a plane in take off. Also I don't mind top loading or internal drives, I don't plan to really ever move the drive except to replace dying or dead ones I just don't see a lot of internal addition options. Was thinking of maybe adding something like this over the top of where the power supply goes but I think the 30 drives in front will be plenty for now. As it stand I plan to used SAS cards in IT mode to expand my drive capacity. I have one already and was gonna add at least one more. When looking at SAS cards it seems that having 2 ports is the standard (eBay search) or are there cards that have or support more? Ideally I would like to connect more then 8 HDD per card. Something like this but in IT mode. For storage I would move over my current 12 drives and then get more this holiday sale season. I figure if I need more then 30 drives I should start looking at rack systems but for this amount for now a large desk top case should work.

 

what hdds are you using, Id get fewer bigger hdds here.

 

Id personally get a 24 bay 4u case, and pay the extra. There nice to work with.

 

You can get sas expanders, to turn a 8 port sas card into running hundreds of drives.

 

19 minutes ago, greencode said:

Will my Current PSU be fine to power all 30 Hard drives?

 

should be fine, spin up isn't that much, but 30 might be pushing it.

 

20 minutes ago, greencode said:

Should I stick with team blue for the integrated graphics or go with red for the ECC and higher passmark score?

 

How much transcodes do you need? Both of those should be more than plenty.

 

I like the server boards, so thats what id

[greencode]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much trans coding are you doing, the 5950x should be able to do more than enough with a 5950x

 

I will be doing a fair amount if transcoding, I only want to have one version of a movies and shows so each time the 4k UHD content is streamed it will need to be transcoded as most of my users don't have systems supporting direct play. And most of the new movie I buy and add will be 4k UHD so I see 2-3 simultaneous 4k to 1080 transcodes.

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

what hdds are you using, Id get fewer bigger hdds here.

 

Right now I have 4x12s 4x8s and 4x3s. I am looking to replace the 3s with larger drives but it just has been easier to add new drives and I am not sure of the process in unraid. Looking forward 12tb will be the lowest capacity I buy. 

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 

Id personally get a 24 bay 4u case, and pay the extra. There nice to work with.

 

You can get sas expanders, to turn a 8 port sas card into running hundreds of drives.

 

Do you have any case recommendations, would it be better to get like multiple less bay cases and connect them into a single like pool? Like I said I don't mind a bay style but can I sill set it on the ground or desk or do I have to buy a rack mount system with it? I know eventually at the rate I store and use data I will need a rack system.

 

Should I get like a server with limited drive and attach something like this External hard drive enclose and then just connect it to the unraid server so all the data is there?.

 

Any card recommendations I see cards like this Hpe DL38X Gen10 12Gb SAS Expander and this would probably work fine as I would just need the one for all my hard drives but I cant tell if it supports initiator target mode or not. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, greencode said:

I will be doing a fair amount if transcoding, I only want to have one version of a movies and shows so each time the 4k UHD content is streamed it will need to be transcoded as most of my users don't have systems supporting direct play. And most of the new movie I buy and add will be 4k UHD so I see 2-3 simultaneous 4k to 1080 transcodes.

2-3 streams at once isn't much, and a 5950x will be more than plenty for this. Ive done 4k to 1080 on a old 6 core 1366 xeon.

 

1 minute ago, greencode said:

Right now I have 4x12s 4x8s and 4x3s. I am looking to replace the 3s with larger drives but it just has been easier to add new drives and I am not sure of the process in unraid. Looking forward 12tb will be the lowest capacity I buy. 

Yea I don't see the point of the massive case then, you don't have that many drives her.e

 

2 minutes ago, greencode said:

Do you have any case recommendations, would it be better to get like multiple less bay cases and connect them into a single like pool? Like I said I don't mind a bay style but can I sill set it on the ground or desk or do I have to buy a rack mount system with it? I know eventually at the rate I store and use data I will need a rack system.

You can get a sas jbod, to just add more drive pays if you can. 

 

3 minutes ago, greencode said:

Any card recommendations I see cards like this Hpe DL38X Gen10 12Gb SAS Expander and this would probably work fine as I would just need the one for all my hard drives but I cant tell if it supports initiator target mode or not. 

Yea that should work, but all the sas expanders shoujld work. 

 

Id get a case that has a sas expander built into the backplane, easier to setup that way.

[greencode]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

2-3 streams at once isn't much, and a 5950x will be more than plenty for this. Ive done 4k to 1080 on a old 6 core 1366 xeon.

 

Ok it will have plenty of power for streams and a modded server?

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 

You can get a sas jbod, to just add more drive pays if you can. 

 

So you would recommend something like this to start with and then as I need it add storage expanders like this.

11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 

Yea I don't see the point of the massive case then, you don't have that many drives her.e

 

That is true, but I plan on getting at least 20 more drive over the holiday this year depending on sales.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, greencode said:

Ok it will have plenty of power for streams and a modded server?

15 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea should be more than plenty

 

2 minutes ago, greencode said:

So you would recommend something like this to start with and then as I need it add storage expanders like this.

16 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

That first one is just a sas jobd, so It can't fit a pc inside. Get a pc case for the main unit.

 

Those can be good, but there pretty loud too.