Plex Server / NAS on a budget

[PenguinMaster]

Hi all,

 

I am looking to build a new NAS / Plex Server.  I talked about it in the past before but I never ended up making anything due to budget constraints, but now I have the money to spend on one.  I am a noob when it comes to the UNRaid / TrueNAS so I am not sure which I should pick.  I want the NAS portion for picture storing and some game file storing, like save on one computer to the NAS and then pick back up on another computer.  Like maybe install my Steam library to the NAS.  For the PLEX portion there will be times where 3 people are streaming at the same time at 4K resolution (Apple TVs).  I am looking for some advice on what specs I should be looking for... I would prefer to buy some used hardware to save some money if possible.

 

I already have 6 WD RED Plus 4TB HDDs for this NAS.  What RAID settings should I use?  1 redundant or 2 redundant drives?

 

Why pick UNRaid over TrueNAS or vice versa?

Does PLEX benefit from a GPU?  Would an RTX 2060 be fine for this?

 

Thanks for any help

[LIGISTX]

24 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

Like maybe install my Steam library to the NAS

You won't want to do that. Loading things off of a network share that requires a lot of reading data from isn't going to be fun. If you had 10 GBe networking and set up an iSCSI array, maybe.... but you likely won't be doing that, so no, don't consider this as an option because it will not be fun.

 

24 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

For the PLEX portion there will be times where 3 people are streaming at the same time at 4K resolution (Apple TVs).

Streaming in 4k is extremely easy for a machine to do. Transcoding is where things get tricky, and the first 3 rules of transcoding are:

1) don't transcode 4k

2) don't transcode 4k

3) don't bother trying to transcode 4k, and keep a separate 1080p copy

 

24 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

1 redundant or 2 redundant drives?

This is totally up to you and what your downtime goals are. IMO, single drive redundancy is "dead" due to a lot of statistics that more or less is just to show that the likelihood of losing multiple drives at once is actually not very small, likelihood of corruption on more than 1 drive is not very small, and likelihood of losing a drive while rebuilding a failed drive (this has actually happened to me and my RAID Z2 which is ZFS's version of 2 parity drives saved me....) is not very small. So if you take all of that into account, plus the fact that large drives take a while to rebuild thus prolonging the amount of time your single redundant array is vulnerable, you see why I say its dead. But, this entirely depends on your preferences and how much this data being unavailable means to you. 

 

Also remember, the first 3 rules of RAID is:

1) RAID is not a buckup

2) you get my point....

 

RAID isn't a backup, so any truly important data should be backup elsewhere, like the cloud. Probably your 4k content is not mission critical, but any of your personal data like pictures or docs, you should backup to the cloud since RAID is... you guessed it, not a backup

 

24 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

Why pick UNRaid over TrueNAS or vice versa?

 

There is a lot here... but the surface level bit is unraid is A LOT easier to add storage to down the line. Truenas and thus ZFS are much more difficult to add storage to. A ZFS vdev has its own redundancy requirements, so if you want to add more drives to ZFS, you need to add a full new vdev with its own parity drives. Unraid, you can just throw more drives in it, and it will utilize the already existing parity drives. The flip side is, no filesystem will work harder then ZFS to keep your data corruption free and in tact; ZFS does a LOT of work in the background to keep your data 100% in tact forever and ever, unraid doesn't do this, at least not to teh same extent. Does that mean unraid is not keeping your data safe? No, not at all. But nothing will do a better job than ZFS does, but that may not be a huge issue to you.

 

24 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

Does PLEX benefit from a GPU?  Would an RTX 2060 be fine for this?

Plex can use a GPU for transcoding, but if you don't need to transcode, no, you don't need a GPU. OR you can use the CPU to transcode which will almost certainly be plenty enough power. I used to run my homelab on a i3 6100, and the plex VM only got 2 of the 4 threads of that CPU, and while that system was running many VM's it was still able to transcode 2-3 1080p movies down to 720p no problem at all; my current Xeon I give 8 threads to my plex VM, and it can do upwards of 10 1080p to 720p transcodes at once. So..... you probably don't need a GPU.

 

24 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

I am looking for some advice on what specs I should be looking for... I would prefer to buy some used hardware to save some money if possible.

Do you have an old PC laying around? You can run a simple home NAS and either use a truenas jail or unraid docker container to instal plex, and this setup would run on literally any core series CPU (the core i5/i7 900 series would struggle some, but anything i5 2500 or newer would likely do just fine). If you were going to buy something, used server gear is always an option and what I typically do. I got my 28 thread Xeon, server mobo, 64 GB of ECC RAM, brand new 512 nvme 980 ssd, the riser card I needed to make it work on the slightly older mobo, and a nice new noctua cooler all for like 550 bucks, just takes a bit of work and figuring out what server stuff plays well (like RAM and mobo's.... ECC can be confusing).

 

BUT, for this setup, you don't need all that fancy server stuff, literally any CPU in the core i3+ lineup since 2014 would be just fine. And get 16 GB of RAM.

[PenguinMaster]

44 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

If you had 10 GBe networking and set up an iSCSI array, maybe

Oops I forgot to mention that my house is run for 10GbE CAT6A.

 

44 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

don't transcode 4k

So when adding movies to plex make sure they are already in 4K?  Or don't store 4K at all?

 

44 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

2 parity drives saved me

My original plan was to have the 2 parity drives.

 

44 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

RAID is not a buckup

I have a mac mini with a 16TB WD External HDD to back up the server.  Should be good enough for my purposes.

 

44 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

but the surface level bit is unraid is A LOT easier to add storage to down the line

Yeah I've read a lot about both of them and it seems like most people are recommending UNRaid over TrueNAS because its more simple for first time users to comprehend also.  I think UNRaid is the way I will go.

 

44 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

ZFS does a LOT of work in the background to keep your data 100% in tact forever and ever, unraid doesn't do this

This is something to consider, I don't really see myself adding more drives in any time soon either so that benefit of UNRaid doesn't seem like a huge benefit to me.  Do you think TrueNAS is a better choice?

 

44 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Plex can use a GPU for transcoding, but if you don't need to transcode, no, you don't need a GPU. OR you can use the CPU to transcode which will almost certainly be plenty enough power.

So would it be better to get a higher tier CPU and no GPU or get a lower tier CPU or mid-tier and a GPU?

 

44 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Do you have an old PC laying around?

I don't right now so I would either need to buy someone's used system on eBay or buy new parts and build something.

 

I actually was originally planning on using a Dell DL380 Gen9 server for this which I upgraded to have 28 cores, 56 threads, 64gb of ddr4, a P440 SAS Card, and a 10Gb SFP+ NIC but after a bit my family realized the fans it has in it are way too loud even though its in the basement.  Also power consumption is a bit high on it.  If there's a way to quiet it down a bit I would actually like to use it.

 

Would you reccomend SSDs for a cache drive?  I was thinking like 2 Samsung 980 1TBs or something similiar.

[PenguinMaster]

@LIGISTX

 

This was the original server I was planning to build but it is a little too expensive and seems overkill.

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9S 46.44 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
Storage: Samsung 980 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Storage: Samsung 980 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1650 G5 4 GB VENTUS XS OC Video Card
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS PLUS 850 Gold 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Wired Network Adapter: Intel X550-T2 2 x 10 Gb/s Ethernet PCIe x4 Network Adapter
Custom: Unraid Plus OS

Case: Rosewill 4U Server Chassis RSV-R4000U

[Donut417]

25 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

o when adding movies to plex make sure they are already in 4K?  Or don't store 4K at all?

You're only transcoding if the device you are streaming to doesn't support the video or audio format. For example Over the Air TV is delivered via MPEG2 here in the US. My parents Roku sticks dont support that format, so when they use the Plex server to watch over the air TV, it has to transcode those streams. OTA TV is only in 1080p or lower resolution which doesn't really require that much power. You make sure that your videos are in a format that your streaming devices understand. The lower resolution content is for devices that dont support 4K, because 1080p is a hell of a lot easier to transcode. 

25 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

So would it be better to get a higher tier CPU and no GPU or get a lower tier CPU or mid-tier and a GPU?

You dont need a GPU to transcode, you can brute force it with a CPU like I do.  GPUs are just more efficient at transcoding. Also should mention that GPU transcoding and the Live TV DVR functionally are locked behind the Plex pass. I bought the $119 life time pass but they do offer cheaper monthly and yearly subs I think. 

[LIGISTX]

23 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

So when adding movies to plex make sure they are already in 4K?  Or don't store 4K at all?

 

Store 4k content and if you plan to transcode down to 1080p or 720p for mobile viewing or viewing on a screen that won't support a 4k stream, save a 1080p copy as well. That way you can server the 1080p copy or transcode that down to 720p if trying to watch on a non 4k screen or outside your LAN (unless your internet upload is fast enough to allow for 4k remote streaming).

 

25 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

This is something to consider, I don't really see myself adding more drives in any time soon either so that benefit of UNRaid doesn't seem like a huge benefit to me.  Do you think TrueNAS is a better choice?

 

Its hard to say. It is really up to you. Unraid has some features that are nice, truenas has others. There is no best option, there are just different options. For me, TrueNAS is what I went with and I am 100% happy with that choice for my needs. Another thing to consider is truenas is used in enterprise, which is always a + for knowing its reliable and well supported (not that unraid isn't well supported, but, enterprise software is held to a higher standard as would be expected).

 

27 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

So would it be better to get a higher tier CPU and no GPU or get a lower tier CPU or mid-tier and a GPU?

 

It really depends what the use case is. Will there be much transcoding happening? What is the main use case for plex streaming? Direct play takes literally no resources, so if itll mostly be direct play (4k source on a 4k tv), you can run plex on a potato. 

 

29 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

Dell DL380 Gen9 server for this which I upgraded to have 28 cores, 56 threads, 64gb of ddr4

This is like trying to kill a spider with a flame thrower... Or maybe even a grenade. I am sure you could make it quiet, but that is WAY more then is needed for this... I ran my entire homelab which used ESXi as the host, VM's were truenas with 10x4TB drives, multiple ubuntu server VM's one which held plex, windows LTSC, home assistant, and a few other random low power VM's all on a i3 6100 and 28 GB of RAM and everything was happy as could be, and I exclusively stream bluray 4k Dolby Vision/Atmos content from Plex - at least when available. That machine would work more then fine, just a big electricity hog if this is all you wanted to do with it. With a machine like that, you could get into some fun homelab stuff and run a bunch of VM's next to truenas and get real fancy and learn some fun stuff which is more or less what I have done. I started out as bare metal truenas with Plex as a plugin, and over the past 6 years... things have changed

 

27 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor

This is a lot of overkill, an i3 would be PLENTY.

[Jarsky]

4 hours ago, PenguinMaster said:

@LIGISTX

 

This was the original server I was planning to build but it is a little too expensive and seems overkill.

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9S 46.44 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
Storage: Samsung 980 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Storage: Samsung 980 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1650 G5 4 GB VENTUS XS OC Video Card
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS PLUS 850 Gold 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Wired Network Adapter: Intel X550-T2 2 x 10 Gb/s Ethernet PCIe x4 Network Adapter
Custom: Unraid Plus OS

Case: Rosewill 4U Server Chassis RSV-R4000U

 

 

If its only a media server (Plex/Emby/Jellyfin, and its eco system of apps torrent client, overseerr, sonarr, radarr, etc...) then the i5 12600K as well as a GTX 1650 are overkill. 

A few things to consider. 

 

If you do get Plex Pass / Emby Premiere to be able to do hardware transcoding, then you can either use the integrated graphics on the CPU, or the Nvidia, you dont need both.

If you're going hardware transcoding, then you dont need the i5 either, you can use an i3 non-K sku. 

The Z690 is overkill if you dont need a K SKU cpu and the extras. 

32GB is a lot of memory for just a Plex Server...Plex uses hardly any memory. 

4 x 8TB could be cheaper, than 6 x 4TB. Less drives to go wrong, cooler, less power, and easier to expand. 

If you reduce the drives, you can also go with UnRAID Basic. You could of course save another $60 and go with TrueNAS Scale. You just will have less flexibility with adding more drives. 

 

 

Consider something more like below (the 10TB's are on special @ NewEgg right now I assume youre using those SSDs in a mirror for Containers, VM's, etc...) :

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i3-12100 3.3 GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($129.98 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: Asus PRIME B660-PLUS D4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($129.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($59.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial P3 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($74.98 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial P3 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($74.98 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 10 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($169.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 10 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($169.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 10 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($169.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 10 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($169.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair CX750F 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($94.01 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1243.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-08-03 02:22 EDT-0400

[PenguinMaster]

On 8/2/2022 at 9:51 PM, Donut417 said:

Live TV DVR functionally are locked behind the Plex pass

What do you think about the Live TV feature on Plex?

 

Also thank you for the other information on transcoding and about the GPU!

[PenguinMaster]

On 8/2/2022 at 9:55 PM, LIGISTX said:

Unraid has some features that are nice, truenas has others

I did a lot of research and decided to go with the UNRaid path.  

 

On 8/2/2022 at 9:55 PM, LIGISTX said:

Will there be much transcoding happening? What is the main use case for plex streaming?

I actually don't know how much real transcoding will be going on.  Like you said it seems like maybe a lot of direct play.

 

On 8/2/2022 at 9:55 PM, LIGISTX said:

This is like trying to kill a spider with a flame thrower

I love this analogy 

 

I am mainly going to use this machine for just the NAS and for Plex and I have another "desktop in a server chassis" machine that I can use to play around with linux or whatever I decide to use it for.  It's a 2U and it has an i5 9600 and 16 GB of ram and a 500GB ssd.  Plenty for what I'll end up using it for for now, but like you said who knows what the future will hold...

 

So it seems like I'll end up selling the HP server because of the power consumption and go with some regular consumer parts.  

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

What do you think about the Live TV feature on Plex?

I mean it allows us to use one antenna and have TV on all devices. I have the HD homerun with 4 tuners and its nice. The reason why I use Live TV is we have a data cap, so it allows us to watch TV without using much data, as Plex uses maybe 1.5 Gigs in a month. I have yet to try the feature that strips commercials automatically from recordings. I do find that sometimes when you're trying to skip commercials when watching recordings that you hit the limit the device buffered the content, so you have to wait for it to catch up. Other than that it works well. 

 

The other good thing about the DVR is the content isnt encrypted like it would be if you used one from the cable co. So you can literally copy the recorded works and take the with you. So if you wanted to watch them locally on a computer for example. Also if you find you need more tuners because you want to have more recordings and watchings going on at once, you can use multiple tuners if you wish, Just make sure your antenna setup supports this use case. 

 

The only issue I find with the DVR function is that some stations cant be enabled because guide data is not available to them. I find these are mostly useless channels but it does happen. Some times this information is made available after a while some times not. I think I have over 60 channels but only 55 can be enabled. 

[PenguinMaster]

On 8/3/2022 at 2:28 AM, Jarsky said:

f its only a media server (Plex/Emby/Jellyfin, and its eco system of apps torrent client, overseerr, sonarr, radarr, etc...) then the i5 12600K as well as a GTX 1650 are overkill. 

Thank you for the input and that parts list.  Will definitely take a look at the parts when I go to build it!

[PenguinMaster]

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I mean it allows us to use one antenna and have TV on all devices. I have the HD homerun with 4 tuners and its nice. The reason why I use Live TV is we have a data cap, so it allows us to watch TV without using much data, as Plex uses maybe 1.5 Gigs in a month. I have yet to try the feature that strips commercials automatically from recordings. I do find that sometimes when you're trying to skip commercials when watching recordings that you hit the limit the device buffered the content, so you have to wait for it to catch up. Other than that it works well. 

 

The other good thing about the DVR is the content isnt encrypted like it would be if you used one from the cable co. So you can literally copy the recorded works and take the with you. So if you wanted to watch them locally on a computer for example. Also if you find you need more tuners because you want to have more recordings and watchings going on at once, you can use multiple tuners if you wish, Just make sure your antenna setup supports this use case. 

 

The only issue I find with the DVR function is that some stations cant be enabled because guide data is not available to them. I find these are mostly useless channels but it does happen. Some times this information is made available after a while some times not. I think I have over 60 channels but only 55 can be enabled. 

What antenna setup do you guys have?  I think this is the way I'll go in the future.

[Donut417]

23 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

What antenna setup do you guys have?  I think this is the way I'll go in the future.

Its from One by One I think is the company. Its just one of those $30ish flat antennas. Not really the best setup, but Im only about 21 miles from the transmitters. 

 

Check out Tyler The Antenna Man on Youtube. He does Antenna reviews and has lots more knowledge than I do. https://www.youtube.com/c/AntennaMan