Truenas Build

[Aaron0619]

Hello everyone, 

 

So before anything else, here is the hardware that I am looking at for the time being: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/jq26TJ

Along with that, looking at this for case: https://www.newegg.com/rosewill-rsv-r4000u-black/p/N82E16811147326

 

So given that hardware, my I am planning on using this for the following:

1. Truenas Core (Obvious given title)
2. Plex (Via Plugin)
3. Homebridge (Via plugin)

For Plex, I am going to use the built in iGpu for hardware accelerated transcoding. I do not have much 4K media yet, and most of it will be played via direct playback, but I would like the flexibility to stream it on mobile later on. 

 

Given this so far, is there any glaring issues with this build? I am very new to the truenas/plex/server space, so all these decisions have been made from lots of reading on community forums.

 

Secondary to all that, would the hardware given above be capable of running pfSense in a VM? I know I would need to purchase some NICs to do this, but would I just need 2 cards with 1 port each (WAN and LAN)? Or would I benefit from dual or quad port cards?

 

Thanks for the help.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id really avoid the router in a vm. Its much easier to just get a seperate hardware, and then its less likely your network would go out. Id also go with proxmox if you want to do this as it handles vms better. Id just get a cheap router like a edgerouter if you want a better router.

 

this system is pretty overkill for plex even at 4k, but will work fine.

 

Id probably get more ram if you can, esp with the extra vm.

 

Id get a supermicro server board instead, they normally have ipmi.

 

Id also probalby go with a ryzen system and the asrock rack board. A 3900x should be faster and cheaper here, even without hardware encoding. 

[Aaron0619]

@Electronics WizardyI do not know if this makes a difference, but there will also be at least 4 other people on this PLEX server as well, so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of power. 

 

As for the Ryzen system, I was hesitant here as I would no longer be able to hardware accelerate the transcoding process unless I got a NVIDIA GPU, which in this market, no thanks. I would like to ideally be able to transcode at least 3 4K streams at once for future purposes.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Aaron0619 said:

As for the Ryzen system, I was hesitant here as I would no longer be able to hardware accelerate the transcoding process unless I got a NVIDIA GPU, which in this market, no thanks. I would like to ideally be able to transcode at least 3 4K streams at once for future purposes.

The cpu alone should be able to do that, the 3900x is cheaper than the xeon you slected, and the extra cores can easily do that workload.

[Aaron0619]

@Electronics Wizardy What about ECC? I know that Ryzen unofficially supports it, but their boards don’t?

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 minutes ago, Aaron0619 said:

@Electronics Wizardy What about ECC? I know that Ryzen unofficially supports it, but their boards don’t?

Did you take a took at those asrock rack boards? They support ecc, with a igpu and ipmi, pretty good for server use. https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=X570D4U-2L2T#Specifications

 

But for a plex server, ecc is likely overkill, if you wan to save a bit id go 10400 + b460.