Unraid Hardware Upgrade Recommendations

[coleblack]

Budget (including currency): $2000 USD

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Unraid Media Server

Other details:

 

Hey y'all, log time LTT watcher but never really interacted with the forum. Kinda more of a Reddit user, anyways. I have my trusty ole unraid server I built in 2014. It's been great but now going on 8 years old and it's time for an upgrade. My current server basically runs Plex, Emby, the 'arrs, Home Assistant, etc. and it a local file store for the network, but it mainly a Plex box. I also have a Windows VM that I use (primary Mac user, so any Windows needs I RDP into this, super handy). While I don't find the system that slow because the P2000 is doing the heavy Plex lifting. 32GB ram is becoming slim. I'm also moving to a new house with 10 gigabit internet here in a couple months and I'm out of PCIe slots to add a 10Gb SFP+ card.

 

CPU: Xeon E3-1246 v3 @ 3.50GHz (Haswell, 7200 CPU benchmark, ouch, I know)

Mem: 32GB Quad channel 1600Mhz ECC

Mobo: ASRock C226 WS

PCIe: LSI HBA 8-port SATA (PCIe x8)

Quadro P2000 (PCIe x16)

Samsung 3.2TB F320 NVMe (PCIe x8) (Drive is just plex appdata)

Mellanox 2-port SFP+ card (not in the server, ran out of PCIe slots, when I got the NVME drive)

Drives: Various 3-10TB WD reds, 10 in total. Plus 3 2.5inch sata SSDs for a total of 13 sata devices.

Case: Rosewill 12 3.5inch hotswap drive bays

 

Wanting to just do Mobo/CPU/Ram upgrade, keeping PCIe devices, power supply and case. Looking to spend maybe $2000 tops.

 

Couple quick question as with so much change in 8 years not sure what unraid does best on.

- ECC RAM? How important is it now days?

- Whats everyones thoughts on 1st gen threadripper? Or newer ryzen desktop with non-ecc? Don't need to go Intel for quicksync because I got the P2000. But 12th gen Intel is looking pretty nice.

- IPMI? I've play around with some iDracs on some dells and it sure is nice. Any recommended mobos with IPMI?

- Hows newer Intel Quicksync with plex? You think that a P2000 is necessary? 

 

TYIA

[Electronics Wizardy]

19 minutes ago, coleblack said:

- ECC RAM? How important is it now days?

 

About the same importance as 8 years ago. Its always nice to heve, but Id argue that its not needed for a home media server.

 

19 minutes ago, coleblack said:

- Whats everyones thoughts on 1st gen threadripper? Or newer ryzen desktop with non-ecc? Don't need to go Intel for quicksync because I got the P2000. But 12th gen Intel is looking pretty nice.

 

How much do you care about power usage? am4 and 1200 will have a good amount lower power usage. than threadriiper. 

 

One other option would be a lga 3647 board. Then you can use rdimms that are much cheaper(at least on ebay) than udimms, and much higher ram capacity. You often get more pcie slots(x8 or more), and impi, and onboard sfp+ nics, but there not cheap, and finding one on ebay can be a pain.

 

Id probably go 1200 here, chips are typically cheaper, and faster. The quicksync should be on part or better than the p2000.

 

You also probably won't get great performance from the unraid array reads as its only reading from one drive, probably around 100-200mB/s

 

 

 

 

[coleblack]

Thanks! LGA 3647 is the move! I just snagged this off ebay. Pretty legit board. Rdimms are pretty cheap too.