Home NAS upgrade

[Nir]

Hey everyone,

 

I have a NAS running Unraid, mostly used for Plex and data archives for me only.

 

My current specs are:

Intel® Core™ i5-2500

Memory: 16 GiB DDR3

Intel DH67BL

No external GPU

WD RED 4TB *3

WD RED 3TB *2

 

This is not good enough for 4K, so I must upgrade.

I will re-use my PSU and case, I don't need new HDDs.

 

My budget is limited, This is what I have in mind:

Intel Core i5 14600KF

Noctua NH-L9I-17XX LGA1700

MSI PRO B760M-P LGA1700 DDR5

Kingston FURY BEAST RGB 32GB DDR5 4800MHz CL38

 

I have a PCIe SATA Card at home, not in use, I was thinking of using it to plug in one of the HDDs.

(Rivo PCIe SATA Card 6 Port, with 6 SATA Cables and Low Profile Bracket, 6Gbps SATA 3.0 PCIe Card,Support 6 SATA 3.0 Devices, Built-in Adapter Converter for Desktop PC. From Amazon).

 

Let me know what you think

 

Thanks!

[ZeusXI]

35 minutes ago, Nir said:

Hey everyone,

 

I have a NAS running Unraid, mostly used for Plex and data archives for me only.

 

My current specs are:

Intel® Core™ i5-2500

Memory: 16 GiB DDR3

Intel DH67BL

No external GPU

WD RED 4TB *3

WD RED 3TB *2

 

This is not good enough for 4K, so I must upgrade.

I will re-use my PSU and case, I don't need new HDDs.

 

My budget is limited, This is what I have in mind:

Intel Core i5 14600KF

Noctua NH-L9I-17XX LGA1700

MSI PRO B760M-P LGA1700 DDR5

Kingston FURY BEAST RGB 32GB DDR5 4800MHz CL38

 

I have a PCIe SATA Card at home, not in use, I was thinking of using it to plug in one of the HDDs.

(Rivo PCIe SATA Card 6 Port, with 6 SATA Cables and Low Profile Bracket, 6Gbps SATA 3.0 PCIe Card,Support 6 SATA 3.0 Devices, Built-in Adapter Converter for Desktop PC. From Amazon).

 

Let me know what you think

 

Thanks!

Why not just get a GPU and let that do the transcoding? 

[Nir]

3 minutes ago, ZeusXI said:

Why not just get a GPU and let that do the transcoding? 

My CPU usage when Plex is in use is 100%, do you think that with a modern GPU and a 10+ year old CPU, it would be ok?

My RAM is also just 16GB DDR3, idk if its a bottleneck.

[BM813]

1 hour ago, Nir said:

My CPU usage when Plex is in use is 100%, do you think that with a modern GPU and a 10+ year old CPU, it would be ok?

My RAM is also just 16GB DDR3, idk if its a bottleneck.

Yes.... Your CPU is software transcoding, which is an intense workload for a i5-2500, a slightly modern nvidia gpu (pascal or higher) should be adequate. Used quadro/tesla cards can picked up for under $100 (US). Wikipedia has a partial list of nvenc & ndvec generation to gpu compatibility, emphasis on partial. 

 

Also the 14600KF does not support intel quick sync, the 'F' denotes that. Quick sync would also work well for transcoding video when needed. 

 

Lastly, I believe an active Plex Pass is needed for hardware transcoding. 

[LIGISTX]

2 hours ago, Nir said:

Hey everyone,

 

I have a NAS running Unraid, mostly used for Plex and data archives for me only.

 

My current specs are:

Intel® Core™ i5-2500

Memory: 16 GiB DDR3

Intel DH67BL

No external GPU

WD RED 4TB *3

WD RED 3TB *2

 

This is not good enough for 4K, so I must upgrade.

I will re-use my PSU and case, I don't need new HDDs.

 

My budget is limited, This is what I have in mind:

Intel Core i5 14600KF

Noctua NH-L9I-17XX LGA1700

MSI PRO B760M-P LGA1700 DDR5

Kingston FURY BEAST RGB 32GB DDR5 4800MHz CL38

 

I have a PCIe SATA Card at home, not in use, I was thinking of using it to plug in one of the HDDs.

(Rivo PCIe SATA Card 6 Port, with 6 SATA Cables and Low Profile Bracket, 6Gbps SATA 3.0 PCIe Card,Support 6 SATA 3.0 Devices, Built-in Adapter Converter for Desktop PC. From Amazon).

 

Let me know what you think

 

Thanks!

Are you trying to transcode 4k? Don’t try and transcode 4k… then your CPU will be plenty fast enough.

 

Storing media on a codec your devices can play is critical, especially with 4k. Direct playing media takes next to no CPU power, while transcoding 4k takes quite a lot. 

[Nir]

2 hours ago, BM813 said:

Yes.... Your CPU is software transcoding, which is an intense workload for a i5-2500, a slightly modern nvidia gpu (pascal or higher) should be adequate. Used quadro/tesla cards can picked up for under $100 (US). Wikipedia has a partial list of nvenc & ndvec generation to gpu compatibility, emphasis on partial. 

 

Also the 14600KF does not support intel quick sync, the 'F' denotes that. Quick sync would also work well for transcoding video when needed. 

 

Lastly, I believe an active Plex Pass is needed for hardware transcoding. 

Wow, that's super important, I'll make sure to double-check that it has quick sync. Do you have any recommendations for a GPU, if I'm not buying a new CPU, RAM, and motherboard, I have a large budget for it

(I have active Plex Pass)

1 hour ago, LIGISTX said:

Are you trying to transcode 4k? Don’t try and transcode 4k… then your CPU will be plenty fast enough.

 

Storing media on a codec your devices can play is critical, especially with 4k. Direct playing media takes next to no CPU power, while transcoding 4k takes quite a lot. 

I need to transcode 4K sometimes when I'm outside, and I want to watch 4K content, but the connection is not strong enough. Can I just have another copy of a file and Plex will use a lower-quality one if I select for it?

[BM813]

1 hour ago, Nir said:

Do you have any recommendations for a GPU, if I'm not buying a new CPU, RAM, and motherboard, I have a large budget for it

 

A GPU for just transcoding a single stream... for me it'd cheapest card from the latest generation that I budgeted for.

 

P400 has:

NVENC: 6th Gen
NVDEC: 3rd Gen

 

T400 or 1650

NVENC: 6th Gen
NVDEC: 4th Gen

 

1660

NVENC: 7th Gen
NVDEC: 4th Gen

 

3050

NVENC: 7th Gen
NVDEC: 5th Gen

 

4060

NVENC: 8th Gen
NVDEC: 5th Gen

 

***all information pulled from techpowerup

[Nir]

2 hours ago, BM813 said:

A GPU for just transcoding a single stream... for me it'd cheapest card from the latest generation that I budgeted for.

 

P400 has:

NVENC: 6th Gen
NVDEC: 3rd Gen

 

T400 or 1650

NVENC: 6th Gen
NVDEC: 4th Gen

 

1660

NVENC: 7th Gen
NVDEC: 4th Gen

 

3050

NVENC: 7th Gen
NVDEC: 5th Gen

 

4060

NVENC: 8th Gen
NVDEC: 5th Gen

 

***all information pulled from techpowerup

Thank you, I'll see if I can get a deal on the 4060.

[Bersella AI]

8 hours ago, Nir said:

Thank you, I'll see if I can get a deal on the 4060.

The Arc A380 GPU from Team Blue may also be considered, as it has the almost same capability of encoding/decoding as RTX 4060, e.g. 8K AV1 transcoding, with less limits in concurrent streams & considerably lower costs. Be aware that both of them require the latest drivers and/or Linux kernel (v6.2 or above).

[Nir]

1 hour ago, Bersella AI said:

The Arc A380 GPU from Team Blue may also be considered, as it has the almost same capability of encoding/decoding as RTX 4060, e.g. 8K AV1 transcoding, with less limits in concurrent streams & considerably lower costs. Be aware that both of them require the latest drivers and/or Linux kernel (v6.2 or above).

I want this NAS to just work, all the time (as it has for the last many years, with freenas before).

So, I going the safest as I can, with team green, and mainstream parts.

But, thank you for the input.

[LIGISTX]

23 hours ago, Nir said:

Can I just have another copy of a file and Plex will use a lower-quality one if I select for it?

Yes. This is the “preferred” way to deal with this type of situation. That said, I have never done it. I never watch content any way except on my nvidia shield plugged onto my tv, so I never need to transcode my 4k content. But if you poke around the Plex forums, there is good advice there on how to handle this type of situation. 

[Nir]

2 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

Yes. This is the “preferred” way to deal with this type of situation. That said, I have never done it. I never watch content any way except on my nvidia shield plugged onto my tv, so I never need to transcode my 4k content. But if you poke around the Plex forums, there is good advice there on how to handle this type of situation. 

Thank you, OK, I'll try. Although it means taking much more storage...

[voyager_]

Rule #1 is don't transcode 4k, that being said I often do... I am all for upgrading the platform, you could probably easily go i3 as long as it has intel quick sync. My unraid server has been running in a Ryzen 2700x for years along with a used Quadro k2200. If your just running unraid and plex you don't need anything too crazy. I picked up the Quadro for around $100 a couple years ago and it will handle a couple transcoding streams without issue. I would look at posting this on the unraid and plex facebook groups there are a ton of helpful users in those groups. With your budget being limited you can probably get a could deal on last gen hardware.

[Nir]

14 hours ago, voyager_ said:

Rule #1 is don't transcode 4k, that being said I often do... I am all for upgrading the platform, you could probably easily go i3 as long as it has intel quick sync. My unraid server has been running in a Ryzen 2700x for years along with a used Quadro k2200. If your just running unraid and plex you don't need anything too crazy. I picked up the Quadro for around $100 a couple years ago and it will handle a couple transcoding streams without issue. I would look at posting this on the unraid and plex facebook groups there are a ton of helpful users in those groups. With your budget being limited you can probably get a could deal on last gen hardware.

I am thinking of upgrading not just for performance, but also for reliability. I don't know how long my old system will work (without a randomly blown capacitor in the MB)...

Locally the used market is kina bad unforchantly

[QuantumRand]

I recently upgraded my Unraid server from an old AMD A8-3800 (a 4-core APU from ~2010) to an AMD Epyc 7551 (a 32-core, 64 thread CPU). The cost to me was about $470USD, but I did reuse some components. Watch Ebay and Facebook Marketplace. As new components come out, older stuff goes on sale in waves for super cheap.

 

CPU: AMD Epyc 7551 ($85)

Motherboard: Supermicro H11SSL-i ($250)

RAM: 64GB (8x16GB) ECC DDR4-2666 8-channels ($50)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S for SP3 socket ($80)

Storage: 4x 2TB Intel 670p ($220)*

SSD Cache: WD Blue SN570 500GB (pulled from the old server)

 

All other components (including various HDDs) were sourced from the old server.

 

What I love about this setup:

• Integrated IPMI (server management port) made this a breeze to setup and run headless
• Tons of PCIe expansion
• Ability to bifurcate any PCIe slots in BIOS
• Tons of RAM and CPU threads for running things like transcodes, game servers, etc
• ECC memory. I'm afraid of bitrot, and ECC is one of the best ways to passively protect against it

Some things I don't like:

• I hadn't worked with server hardware before, so there was a learning curve setting things up at first
• PCIe is only gen 3
• Front panel headers are weird. I never got it to work with the power button in my case (IPMI is how I have to turn it on)
• Only has 1gig networking. Had to add a 2.5gig NIC (although in aggregate mode, this gives me ~4gig connectivity)
• Fan control was pretty limited, but using my case's fan hub kept things quiet
• Idle power consumption went up to about 80W compared to 60W of my previous server

 

* The Intel 670p has been replaced by some other brand that bought the product line from Intel. I think when I purchased these drives, it was when they were trying to clear out the old Intel-branded inventory. Obviously nvme storage is completely unnecessary, so I did not include this in the total cost.

 

Something else I was considering was a Ryzen 7000 or 5000G series CPU with a DDR5 supported motherboard. In theory, DDR5 has a bit of ECC built in, though not as robust as registered dimms, and the integrated Radeon GPU could potentially be used for transcoding. The main limitation was that a lot of the transcoding software I was already using only supported Nvidia and Intel hardware.

[LIGISTX]

On 1/16/2024 at 3:31 AM, Nir said:

I am thinking of upgrading not just for performance, but also for reliability. I don't know how long my old system will work (without a randomly blown capacitor in the MB)...

PC parts can last for decades... I wouldn't worry about this at all. A system built with a i5 2500 has a lot of life left in it. Knock on wood, I have never had a pC fail of old age. It certainly can happen, but I wouldn't be too worried about it. 

 

That said, upgrading may not be a horrible idea.