New media server build

johnybean

I am finally looking to replace the N54L which has been an absolute workhorse for the past few years but I am running out of space and want to consolidate all of my hard drives (current and future) into 1 24 bay enclosure like this. I will be running UnRaid on the new server with dockers for Plex, ftp, utorrent and possible a VM down the line. I want to make allowances for potential transcoding of 4 streams down the line. I have currently kind of lost the run of myself at the moment because I am looking at something like this! I dont want to way over spec the machine but I am also aware of the complete lack of power I currently have with the microserver, Parity updates and validates being a massive issue at the moment as the system grinds to a halt for up to 20 hours once a week to do the validate check for my 30TB of info. If anyone is in a similar situation or has built something similar I would be super grateful if you could give me some real world experience and feedback.

ED E

Im a hoarder but 24 bay? You've got problems dude. First step is admission.... :pac:

My workstation is a faster version of the setup you linked, your home server doesnt need that much grunt. And the noise will just piss off anyone unfortunate to live in the same townland.


Regarding RAID operations, power wont help you once you arent totally starved. I've 12TB of disks, reading them through takes about 5hrs. Thats just the effective read limit. Scale that up to your array and its up to 13hrs ish. Unless you want to buy some really expensive spinning rust that cant be avoided. You can avoid the upd/val system entirely though with a HW RAID but thats a significant change in ethos.


Personally I'd be slow to buy such a large chassis when HDD prices have stagnated and SSDs are catching up faster and faster. Buying 3TB Reds a couple years ago I expected them to be dirt cheap by now, nearly the same price today. Within 2-3yrs its not unlikely that we'll be able to build an affordable solid state NAS. 8 Bay 3.5" becomes a 25x 2.5" with a little duct tape.

K.O.Kiki

ED E wrote: »

Im a hoarder but 24 bay? You've got problems dude. First step is admission.... :pac:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/

I would hazard a guess and say TV stuff is taking up a massive chunk of your storage. I used to keep everything before I realised I would never in 10 lifetimes have the time to watch most of it again. Movies OK but 99% of tv is watch once and bin for me these days or stream if I forgot to download it that day.

tazzzZ

looking at the cpu's in the parts you are looking at each one has a tdp of 115W. thats 230W in cpu draw alone. are you planing on keeping that running 24/7? if plex is going to be your most hungry app then i suggest going for a much newer and power efficient cpu.

If you are aiming for 4 transcodes at any given time plex suggests @ 1080p/10Mbps: 2000 PassMark
I currently have my server running a 4790S, tdp 65W, with a passmark of 9591. so i have allowed for 4 and change. My server shows a draw of 64W through my UPS with 1 plex transcode going atm. I have 6 HDD and 4 SSD in there too.

Just something to consider if you want it to last you a long time and power draw might be an issue.

Personally depending on how much youre willing to spend ryzen is probably the way to go given the performance to price and power usage. ryzen 1700 has a tdp of 65W and passmark score of 13879. this is overkill for your needs but if youre anything like me i have a tendency to push the boat out on stuff like this.

Serephucus

As someone who's currently running a C2750D4I in a Silverstone DS380, and has it completely full up, I've been jumping between:

• Exactly that setup.
• A regular desktop case with a single 2670 (type) CPU
• Waiting for Ryzen Server

And I'm still not sure what the best option is. I will tell you though, that the C2750 handles 90% of what I throw at it completely fine. That includes hosting seven (I think) Minecraft servers, a Space Engineers server in a Windows VM, a Plex library of about 25TB (will do 4-5 streams, usually), and all of the usual Docker stuff people run with unRAID - All the torrent stuff, backups, VPN, etc.

The only reasons I'm looking to upgrade are:

• No room left for more drives, and given that prices have stagnated there, I'd rather not have to sell off drives to upgrade to bigger capacities.
• The single-thread performance can sometimes be bothersome in an MC server if lots of other things are going on, particularly as I have the draw distance maxed out on the server side.
• Because I can? :P

As for your issues, my parity usually takes between 21 and 23 hours. As ED said, that's kinda just how it is. Hard drives are slow. I'd probably disagree though that SSD arrays are that close. I'd say we're looking at five years minimum, and that's being very optimistic.

Hopefully that helps in some way, and doesn't just raise further questions.

johnybean

I was previously looking at the C2750D4I but I would be slightly concerned about the apparent spate of failures after 18 months that seem to be becoming more common. Also, would that board be able to cater for 24 drives? Only 1 PCI slot, would I be able to add a HBA card to connect the remaining drives?

Serephucus

Yeah, that Intel problem is a bit annoying alright. ASRock have said it's covered under warranty though, and the board has a 3-year one, so it's not too bad. I've had to RMA my board twice, once with Overclockers (slow as fook), and once with ASRock (about a week and a half).

You could absolutely add a HBA for the rest of the drives, yeah.

ED E

I coped Sere with the 2750 but I wouldnt buy one now as the failure rate is likely to sky rocket as they age (Netgear just recalled a massive chunk of products based on them).


Really is a shame there isnt a DS480 with like 12 bays. That'd be perfect.

Serephucus

ED E wrote: »

Really is a shame there isnt a DS480 with like 12 bays. That'd be perfect.

So much this.

They made one for 2.5 drives (DS280, I think?) and another, mATX one, but that also only had eight drives, and didn't have as much 2.5 support, for some reason.

Edit: Yeah, it's the CS380. You can add this to it, and get eleven drives.

Edit 2: Might be worth having a look in the Off-Topic thread, OP. Some more stuff on Naples (Zen Server) showed up recently.