Unraid Server - Setup Change/Advice

[Scarous]

I have an Unraid server running on a Dell Poweredge T40 and am looking to make this noob configuration better. Here are the specs:

https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Product_Docs/en/dell_emc_poweredge_t40_spec_sheet.pdf

 

Intel Xeon E-2224G @ 3.5ghz

24gb DDR4 ECC

Samsung 860 EVO SSD 500gb x2 (SATA)

WD WD30EFRX 3tb x2 (SATA)

Seagate ST4000DM000 4tb (USB)

WD WDBAMA0180HBK 18tb18tb (USB)

WD WDBWLG0200HBK 20tb (USB)

SanDisk 3.2Gen1 32gb (Unraid boot USB)

 

Currently hosted dockers:

Minecraft

Valheim

Homeassistant

Jellyfin

Mosquitto

Pihole

Unbound

Vaultwarden

MQTT

 

I have one array with the two WD 3tbs for a total of 6tb with the Seagate 4tb as parity for essential files.

The WD 18tb is holding movies/tv shows for Jellyfin with the 20tb as parity.

The two 500gb Samsung SSDs are used as cache.

The server is currently housed in its original tower case from Dell, but I also have this case that is currently sitting empty in my rack:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F7RJPHO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

Jellyfin can struggle to run 4k videos on this machine so I have also purchased an Intel A380 that gets delivered soon. 

 

I have 10gig networking available in either RJ45 or SFP, so it would be nice to get a new NIC since this motherboard is limited to 1gig.

 

I definitely feel that I have set this up in a non-optimal way and am probably pushing the 300w PSU too hard (especially when I add the GPU). I have run out of internal SATA so I had to use USB drives. What should I do to improve this setup? Open to outright replacing components and building a new system or moving parts around. 

 

Appreciate the input! 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

That 300w psu is fine, and I dont see an issue there.

 

Does the t40 let you use the igpu? That should have pretty good transcoding abilities and is built into the cpu.

 

a380 still is inda a pain on linux toget woring with transcoding, so it might not work here yet.

 

 

[Scarous]

Hmm I may have misconfigured it in Jellyfin. Gotta do some research there. Its hit or miss. Streaming 1080p is no problem on anything. But streaming 4k is super laggy unless I'm streaming to a PC.

 

Edit: Guess I am not sure how to set up hardware transcoding properly. It appears that my CPU is capable of Quick Sync but enabling that in the Jellyfin Playback>Transcoding settings just causes streaming to error out. Something about passing through the iGPU to Jellyfin in Unraid but I can't find instructions how to do it?

[Bersella AI]

Since only the Xeon processor (expected ~60W) & two 3.5' spinners (expected ~50W in peak) is installed in this rack, the power supply would not seem to be loaded that heavily. An Arc A380 GPU is expected to crunch ~75W, although it's doubted that Unraid has had its driver built in, requiring some tricks. As such, it should be fine having only 300W of power available.

 

The integrated GPU, UHD P630, in the contrast, has been supported by Unraid, and should be accessible in this platform. First, access Unraid via SSH and check out whether the path /dev/dri/renderD128 exists. If it's the case, mount the GPU as a device to the Docker container of Jellyfin. Then, check out the encoding settings in Jellyfin and set up hardware transcoding by choosing Quick Sync as the pathway. Google or tell us if these don't work.

[Scarous]

That was exactly what I needed! I was struggling to find the "extra parameters" section in the Unraid docker, but using your comment as a Google search lead me to the Advanced tab. Integrated GPU mounted and Quick Sync is working I think! No more errors. Is there a way to verify? 

 

Checking some 4k transcodes and it completely pins all 4 cores at 98% with 1 stream, haha. Will see if I can get the A380 to offload that hopefully. Some comments seem to say it works. They say the "official" Unraid docker has the Intel drivers, but I don't see an "official" Unraid docker in the app store. Also appears that Unraid removed the ability to add additional repositories to the app store.

[Electronics Wizardy]

19 hours ago, Scarous said:

Hmm I may have misconfigured it in Jellyfin. Gotta do some research there. Its hit or miss. Streaming 1080p is no problem on anything. But streaming 4k is super laggy unless I'm streaming to a PC.

 

Edit: Guess I am not sure how to set up hardware transcoding properly. It appears that my CPU is capable of Quick Sync but enabling that in the Jellyfin Playback>Transcoding settings just causes streaming to error out. Something about passing through the iGPU to Jellyfin in Unraid but I can't find instructions how to do it?

Does the t40 show the iGPU to the host. Not all of these xeon e systems do that. If you have shell access run lspci and see if ti shows the intel iGPU. There might also be a bios option you can change.

[Scarous]

Yeah its listed in system devices in Unraid after I followed Bersella AI's instructions and was able to pass it through to Jellyfin. Prior to this, using Quick Sync encoding would error out. Now it works fine. However, I can't stream remotely still. Maybe just a Jellyfin limitation? The stream tries to load but I imagine a 4k file over a cell network is too much.

 

[8086:3e96] 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation CoffeeLake-S GT2 [UHD Graphics P630]

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, Scarous said:

Yeah its listed in system devices in Unraid after I followed Bersella AI's instructions and was able to pass it through to Jellyfin. Prior to this, using Quick Sync encoding would error out. Now it works fine. However, I can't stream remotely still. Maybe just a Jellyfin limitation? The stream tries to load but I imagine a 4k file over a cell network is too much.

 

[8086:3e96] 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation CoffeeLake-S GT2 [UHD Graphics P630]

There are some options you have to enable in jelly fin for it to use hardware accerlation.

 

Also the file has to be a a supported codec and format for encoding to work on hardwrae

[Bersella AI]

On 12/3/2023 at 10:35 PM, Scarous said:

That was exactly what I needed! I was struggling to find the "extra parameters" section in the Unraid docker, but using your comment as a Google search lead me to the Advanced tab. Integrated GPU mounted and Quick Sync is working I think! No more errors. Is there a way to verify? 

 

Checking some 4k transcodes and it completely pins all 4 cores at 98% with 1 stream, haha. Will see if I can get the A380 to offload that hopefully. Some comments seem to say it works. They say the "official" Unraid docker has the Intel drivers, but I don't see an "official" Unraid docker in the app store. Also appears that Unraid removed the ability to add additional repositories to the app store.

The Unraid app store has a limited set of Docker images, unlike other systems with a default Docker setup. The best option for Jellyfin would seem to be that from linuxserver, which has latest drivers from Ubuntu, and has been released for years. You may also find that from hotio, which provides both latest stable & nightly versions, although I have not had a try with that; use it with cautions.

[Scarous]

Thanks for the input! Yeah I am using the linuxserver version of Jellyfin. Seems to be working fine with the integrated GPU, but I did just receive the A380. Going to attempt to get that working. It shows up in the system devices but I cant seem to get Jellyfin to direct to it. 

 

Is Unraid what most people are using these days or has the consensus been to switch to something else? Proxmox or TrueNas?

[LIGISTX]

3 hours ago, Scarous said:

Is Unraid what most people are using these days or has the consensus been to switch to something else? Proxmox or TrueNas?

Lots of folks do, but lots also just virtualize everything. I run Proxmox with TrueNAS as a VM, that way I can easily have all the VM’s I want next to Truenas for things like Plex, or docker containers running on an inviter server vm. 

[Bersella AI]

18 hours ago, Scarous said:

Thanks for the input! Yeah I am using the linuxserver version of Jellyfin. Seems to be working fine with the integrated GPU, but I did just receive the A380. Going to attempt to get that working. It shows up in the system devices but I cant seem to get Jellyfin to direct to it. 

 

Is Unraid what most people are using these days or has the consensus been to switch to something else? Proxmox or TrueNas?

The documentation of Jellyfin has informed that Arc A-series GPUs are supported by Linux kernel 6.2 or newer. However, the latest version of Unraid, i.e. 6.12.5, still has the kernel 6.1 built in, and may require some tricks to make use of Arc GPUs. A Reddit thread has managed to adapt the latest kernel into Unraid, and make transcoding on the Arc A380, and could be referred to as needed.

[Scarous]

You rock! I have been digging around and finding partial answers. That thread is fantastic. You all have been super helpful! 

 

While I have you, what 10gig NIC would you add to this Dell T40 thats supported by Unraid? And whats the best way to start ramping up to more internal drives? Have lots of USB devices plugged in and feel like I should start looking at something else? Either another server altogether or something external rack mountable that plugs into this T40?

[Bersella AI]

On 12/12/2023 at 10:05 AM, Scarous said:

You rock! I have been digging around and finding partial answers. That thread is fantastic. You all have been super helpful! 

 

While I have you, what 10gig NIC would you add to this Dell T40 thats supported by Unraid? And whats the best way to start ramping up to more internal drives? Have lots of USB devices plugged in and feel like I should start looking at something else? Either another server altogether or something external rack mountable that plugs into this T40?

Although I have not researched Ethernet beyond 1Gbps, some tech nerds in Chinese forums have found TP-Link NT521, Intel X520 DA1, Intel X540 & Mellanox CX341 to be compatible with Unraid. Note that some of them require a PCIe to OCP adapter.

 

A PCIe/M.2 to SATA expansion card would seem to be a better option for more drives. A used SAS HBA card from LSI (in IT mode), such as LSI 9260/9270, could also be considered, especially when you wish to expand with SAS drives. Consider external bays only when the power supply becomes insufficient due to lack of either SATA power jacks or rated load wattage.

[LIGISTX]

On 12/11/2023 at 6:05 PM, Scarous said:

You rock! I have been digging around and finding partial answers. That thread is fantastic. You all have been super helpful! 

 

While I have you, what 10gig NIC would you add to this Dell T40 thats supported by Unraid? And whats the best way to start ramping up to more internal drives? Have lots of USB devices plugged in and feel like I should start looking at something else? Either another server altogether or something external rack mountable that plugs into this T40?

Is anything else on your network 10gig? If not, that won’t be very useful.

 

LSI HBA’s with SAS to SATA breakout cables. 1 SAS breaks out to 4x SATA, so a dual port card will get you 8 SATA ports. If you need more, a SAS expander will break it out further. 
 

H210’s flashed to IT mode are pretty abundant on eBay, they even come with the break out cables in most of the listings. 

Edited December 13, 2023 by LIGISTX

[Scarous]

Thanks for the suggestions! I've struggled to figure out how to best get more drives set up. How would you fit the drives themselves into the case if I did get a HBA? I bet I could find something to 3D print. 

 

As for 10gig, yes I do have a Ubiquiti aggregation switch between my 24 port switch and NVR, before the UDM Pro. My main PC is 2.5gig plugged in directly to the aggregation as well.