NAS suggestions

[MoVo]

Hello all,

I am currently considering to build a custom NAS, primarily because I am somewhat fed up with the fragmentation of Streaming services, so I wanted to give my own library another go. The NAS should fit the following requirements

• Handle a media library using Jellyfin/Plex and transcoding for min two streams
• Handle hosting a few simple docker containers for network services (paperless ng, pihole)
• 2.5G networking preferred
• Should be reasonably power efficient (I live in Germany, power is $$$

From the software side of things, TrueNAS Core seems to fit my need perfectly while UnRAID seems promising as well. Does someone have additional insight on why you'd want to use one over the other?

 

My main concern right now is also hardware. I currently have an i5 7th gen laying around, alongside a motherboard and 8 gigs of RAM and a sketchy power supply. I am however not really sure if that would be a good fit given my usecase or if buying new would indeed be a better option?

For buying new, I have contemplated the following options

 

AM4 buy in

AM4 is not a platform that has a long future ahead, but there still seem to be a lot of compelling offers around. Motherboards are rather inexpensive compared to AM5, so is DDR4 RAM. As far as I can tell AM4 is also pretty much the only platform where entry level Ryzen 3 still exist?

 

AM5

motherboards are still expensive, but DDR5 is coming down in price. Modern CPUs are substantially more power efficient, but even with power being 30ct/kWh ROI seems far off. Possible upgrade options will be there in the future if my needs ever do change. I made a sample config for this instance that would run me 550EUR excl. storage/

 

• CPU: R5 8500G - 130EUR
• RAM: 16GB Crucial Value 5200 - 52 EUR
• Cooler: boxed AMD cooler
• Mainboard: ASRock A620I Lightning WiFi - 144EUR 
• Case: Fractal Design Node 304 - 88 EUR
• PSU: Seasonic G12 GM 550W ATX - 66 EUR

 

Small intel mobo

most energy efficient NAS builds seem to reference intel N100 or similar low power CPU as a good option. Given their performance they seem to be rather expensive tho and hard to come by. Would such a low power CPU along with QuickSync still be able to handle CPU transcoding?

 

Your input is highly appreciated? Which route would you take?

 

[Bersella AI]

Requirements are similar to mine. I have a decent server built on a used commercial PC, HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF, which has a few advantages:

• It may reuse your 7th gen Core i5 processor and, possibly, stick(s) of 8 Gig RAM, assumed to be DDR4. This processor should be capable of 2~3 concurrent streams with transcoding from 4K HEVC with integrated GPU, HD 630. I have dual-core but performant Pentium G4600 with the same GPU.
• It's highly power efficient, as it comes with a 180W-rated, Platinum-certified power supply that guarantees efficiency at 10~50% load. With two 3.5-inch spinners, it consumes only ~20W from the grid in idle.
  Note that the more drives are spinning, the more power they will draw, and the two internal drive bays would guarantee both basic data protection and reasonable power consumption.
• It has four PCIe slots that may be used for NICs or SSDs, especially 2.5GbE.

On the system side: TrueNAS Core is being deprecated, and Scale is recommended over Core. Scale as well as Unraid have native Docker support, and both are capable of these requirements; however, note that Unraid requires royalty.