Family Plex Media Server/More?

[Gk2011]

So I could go into a long story on why I want to do this. I am just going to skip that and go with what was recommended to put in because I have built like 5 Computers in the last week and now I m planning a NAS which I have never done before.

 

Location - United States

Goals - 
Digitize 4 Huge Binders of DvD's and Blu-Rays

&

Run up to 3 Streams at a time from local or Remotely 

I also was thinking of eventually creating a Home Back-up server next year. I do not really know how to go about integrating something like later on.

My budget was originally $500. That probably sounds pretty silly  considering the parts listed here are about $720, but this is what I came up with from the research I had been doing. Still my first NAS build so I am really unsure on how much horse power I need to run something like this. I am not really opposed to going over the budget I just don't really want it to get out of hand. Max I want to go on this project is $750. I just do not know if the i3 can be swapped out for something cheaper or even if this RAID card will do what I want, or if I am even in the general ballpark of what I am trying to achieve.

RAIDMAX Hyperion MATX-102WBU Black/Blue Aluminum / Plastic / Steel Micro ATX Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156320

 

GIGABYTE GA-B85M-DS3H-A LGA 1150 Intel B85 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128822

 

SYBA SI-PEX40064 PCI-Express 2.0 Low Profile Ready SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) Controller Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124064

 

Intel Core i3-4160 Haswell Dual-Core 3.6 GHz LGA 1150 54W BX80646I34160 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4400

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117447

 

WD Red 4TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD40EFRX

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236599

I am probably going to need at some point 5 of these. I am opting to start with 3. I figure when I Digitize 8TB worth of the discs I'll decide how much more I need. I will be running these in a RAID 5 configuration.

 

Thank you for your time going through my thread. 

[Eelviny]

Have you looked into buying an Intel Pentium? That thing's much cheaper and has plenty of power for what you're building, dependant on your exact video processing requirements. I picked up a G3528 for my NAS.

Another option could be AMD, but I've got no experience with those.

[Oshino Shinobu]

If you're going to be using a dedicated NAS OS like FreeNAS, then the RAID card is not needed, as the volumes and arrays are all done through software, rather than hardware. 

For Plex, the importance of the CPU depends on how you're going to be streaming. If you're going to be transcoding (things like mobile devices tend to require transcoding) with 3 streams at once, you might want to step up the CPU. If it's mainly going to be direct streaming, then the i3 will do okay. 

As a base (excluding storage), this would be my recommendation. ECC support is useful for a NAS, especially if it's going to be used for frequent backups later. The i3 and be upgraded to a Xeon later if you need the extra power (i3 supports ECC, btw). Board can support up to 8 drives, as well as ECC, dual gigabit LAN and so on. 1x 8GB stick of un-buffered ECC for now. You'd probably want to add more (must be un-buffered ECC) if you add more storage. The case isn't the prettiest thing in the world, but it supports up to 7 3.5" drives internally, which is important for a NAS build. 

A USB drive to run FreeNAS on is advised, and as you already picked out, go for WD Red, or other NAS drives. 

 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($114.78 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: ASRock E3C224-V+ ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($157.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($47.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Case: Ultra XBlaster Pro ATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($28.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $379.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-18 18:41 EDT-0400

 

[Gk2011]

1 hour ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

If you're going to be using a dedicated NAS OS like FreeNAS, then the RAID card is not needed, as the volumes and arrays are all done through software, rather than hardware. 

For Plex, the importance of the CPU depends on how you're going to be streaming. If you're going to be transcoding (things like mobile devices tend to require transcoding) with 3 streams at once, you might want to step up the CPU. If it's mainly going to be direct streaming, then the i3 will do okay. 

As a base (excluding storage), this would be my recommendation. ECC support is useful for a NAS, especially if it's going to be used for frequent backups later. The i3 and be upgraded to a Xeon later if you need the extra power (i3 supports ECC, btw). Board can support up to 8 drives, as well as ECC, dual gigabit LAN and so on. 1x 8GB stick of un-buffered ECC for now. You'd probably want to add more (must be un-buffered ECC) if you add more storage. The case isn't the prettiest thing in the world, but it supports up to 7 3.5" drives internally, which is important for a NAS build. 

A USB drive to run FreeNAS on is advised, and as you already picked out, go for WD Red, or other NAS drives. 

 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($114.78 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: ASRock E3C224-V+ ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($157.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($47.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Case: Ultra XBlaster Pro ATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($28.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $379.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-18 18:41 EDT-0400

 

What CPU would you recommend for two simultaneous streams that we will say under the worst case scenario are being transcoded and being streamed via a VPN.    

[brob]

11 minutes ago, Gk2011 said:

What CPU would you recommend for two simultaneous streams that we will say under the worst case scenario are being transcoded and being streamed via a VPN.    

An i3.

 

This build should easily handle 3 simultaneous transcoded streams. It also provides the basics needed for a good FreeNAS box. Just add hdd. FreeNAS boots from a usb stick.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1226 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock C226WS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($183.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Mushkin Proline 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($159.88 @ OutletPC)
Case: NZXT Source 220 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($48.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($53.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $756.82
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-18 20:07 EDT-0400

[Oshino Shinobu]

5 minutes ago, brob said:

An i3.

 

This build should easily handle 3 simultaneous transcoded streams. It also provides the basics needed for a good FreeNAS box. Just add hdd. FreeNAS boots from a usb stick.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1226 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock C226WS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($183.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Mushkin Proline 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($159.88 @ OutletPC)
Case: NZXT Source 220 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($48.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($53.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $756.82
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-18 20:07 EDT-0400

To be honest, I would advise spending $20 more to get the Xeon E3-1231 V3 for the hyperthreading capabilities, which come in handy for transcoding. If $20 is too much, it can easily be saved by spending less on things like the case. 

[brob]

17 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

To be honest, I would advise spending $20 more to get the Xeon E3-1231 V3 for the hyperthreading capabilities, which come in handy for transcoding. If $20 is too much, it can easily be saved by spending less on things like the case. 

Except one would then have to add a low end gpu. Comes down to how much budget is available.

[Oshino Shinobu]

5 minutes ago, brob said:

Except one would then have to add a low end gpu. Comes down to how much budget is available.

The board I suggested in my build above has onboard video. No need for a dedicated GPU with it, even if the CPU has no iGPU.

Besides, once FreeNAS has been setup for the first time, you don't need a video output as it can all be controlled remotely. Just moving a GPU from an existing PC (assuming he has one available) to do the first setup would solve the GPU issue if the board did not have onboard video. 

 

[Gk2011]

On 3/19/2016 at 2:14 PM, Oshino Shinobu said:

The board I suggested in my build above has onboard video. No need for a dedicated GPU with it, even if the CPU has no iGPU.

Besides, once FreeNAS has been setup for the first time, you don't need a video output as it can all be controlled remotely. Just moving a GPU from an existing PC (assuming he has one available) to do the first setup would solve the GPU issue if the board did not have onboard video. 

 

What if I decided to simply go with one 4tb drive for the time being. How complicated would it to take a mostly full drive and convert it into say a raid 5 between 3 drives? 

[Oshino Shinobu]

4 minutes ago, Gk2011 said:

What if I decided to simply go with one 4tb drive for the time being. How complicated would it to take a mostly full drive and convert it into say a raid 5 between 3 drives? 

I'll start off by saying that I don't really advise going for RAID 5 with 3 drives. You don't really get the benefits from RAID 5 without 4 or more drives. 3 drives is just the minimum that it can work with. 

Switching from a single drive to any RAID will require the drive to be formatted, so you'd need a way to back up the data, create the array, then move it back. Other than that, it's not a complicated process. Just backup the single drive, put all the other drives in the system and assign them all to the RAID, then move the files onto the new RAID volume. 

[brob]

6 minutes ago, Gk2011 said:

What if I decided to simply go with one 4tb drive for the time being. How complicated would it to take a mostly full drive and convert it into say a raid 5 between 3 drives? 

RAID 5 is not a good choice for large drives. Especially if the chipset RAID controller is used.

[mluton]

Buy off the shelf or used, My Home server is used for plex and can handle 3 streams easily. It's a Fujitsu TX100 S3

 

3 Virtual Raid 1 Drives (Total 6 Internal, 1 External), OS (500gb), Personal Data (500gb), Media (2TB) & Backup (1TB)

Serves....

Domain Controller

Plex Server

3CX Phone Server

Yawcam (2 Instances)

File Server

Utorrent Client

NZB Client

Sonaar

Couch Potatoe

DHCP Server

DNS Server

Terminal Server
Backup Server