New to UnRaid - Need advice Please


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Hey all, so new to unraid. I currently run a Netgear ReadyNas 316 with 4 docker images but the device has become or rather feels limited to what it is capable of doing.

 

I have an Asus P8Z77 - V LX and an i7 3770 with 16GB (4x4GB 2166mhz) that's been sitting and doing nothing, it use to be in my PVR for around 3 months before shutting it down, would this be viable for the build?

 

Alternative to this would be a MSI B365M PRO-VH Intel B365 Coffee Lake LGA1151 Micro-ATX Desktop Motherboard and Intel Core i3-9100F if my current motherboard would not be viable.

 

It has 3 x 6GBs SATA ports and 3 x 3GBs SATA ports which the initial build will have 5 x 10TB Iron Wolf drives and one 512GB SSD for cache.

 

I will later add the SATA controller for more drives.

 

Would the motherboard and CPU be suitable?

 

Its main use will be Docker Containers, Sonarr, Radarr, SABnzbd, Plex Media Server (2 streams 2k video streams) and file storage and if possible an Ubuntu VM (for php coding)

 

Options:

 

Option 1;

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77 -V LX

CPU: i7 3770

RAM: 16GB

 

Option 2:

Motherboard: MSI B365M PRO-VH

CPU: i3 9100F

RAM: 16GB

 

Option 3;

Motherboard: ASRock H370M-PRO

CPU: i5 8600

RAM: 16GB

 

Option 4:

Motherboard: BIOSTAR B360 GT3S

CPU: i5 8600

RAM: 16GB

 

Option 5:

Motherboard: AMD B450 AORUS

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600

RAM: 16GB

 

Option 5:

Motherboard: Asus B350 Prime B350M-A AMD AM4

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600

 

 

These are the options I have, I will get either of these that would be suitable for the build and to run 6 drives for now and to later add the SATA controller.

Edited by hazelbag
Board and CPU options
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20 minutes ago, hazelbag said:

I have an Asus P8Z77 - V LX and an i7 3770 with 16GB (4x4GB 2166mhz) that's been sitting and doing nothing, it use to be in my PVR for around 3 months before shutting it down, would this be viable for the build?

 

Alternative to this would be a MSI B365M PRO-VH Intel B365 Coffee Lake LGA1151 Micro-ATX Desktop Motherboard and Intel Core i3-9100F if my current motherboard would not be viable.

Your biggest gotchas with either system is going to be transcoding for Plex if you need that and resources for the VM if it is constantly running.

 

For software (CPU based) transcoding, you need 2000 passmarks per 1080p encoded stream.  The is the Plex recommendation.  Both CPUs are in the 6300 - 6700 passmark range which means two simultaneous streams is your limit as you need about 2000 also for unRAID overhead operation.  If a VM is running at the same time, you could find yourself in a resource crunch.

 

For hardware (GPU based) transcoding, you need either an integrated GPU or a PCIe Nvidia graphics card.  The i7 3700 has a very limited integrated GPU which will basically give you H.264 encoding but not much else.  The i3-9100F would be a much better option up to and including HEVC 10-bit 4K video except for that "F". That means the CPU has no integrated graphics.  The non-F version of that processor is a great transcoder for Plex.

 

It looks like with either option, you are going to have to go with a supported discrete Nvidia GPU if you need or want hardware transcoding.  You may not need transcoding if everything is in a format that can direct play locally which is recommended.  Playing to mobile devices or remotely often requires transcoding.

 

The other consideration with either system is how active the VM will be.  You really need at least 2c/2t assigned to a very active VM.  The i3 does not support hyperthreading and has only 4 cores.  The i7 3700 has 4c/4t so you have a bit more headroom there.  In an active VM you usually want at least 4GB RAM assigned to the VM and 8GB or more is better depending on intended use.

 

With VMs, you also need to consider things such as video (passthough GPU or just VNC video), keyboard and mouse setup, USB ports or other things you need to passthrough.

 

The IOMMU groupings of your motherboard will either make that easy or very difficult.  My guess is that the MSI will have better IOMMU groups but I do not know that for sure.

 

For the docker containers you have listed (with the Plex caveats noted above) either system will work well for NAS and docker use.  The VM need complicates it a little depending on your intended uses and whether or not it is an occasional-use VM or an an always-on heavy-use VM and your hardware passthrough needs.

 

Both CPUs support VT-x/VT-d for virtualization so assuming the motherboards do as well, you are good to go with VMs.

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8 hours ago, Hoopster said:

Your biggest gotchas with either system is going to be transcoding for Plex if you need that and resources for the VM if it is constantly running.

 

For software (CPU based) transcoding, you need 2000 passmarks per 1080p encoded stream.  The is the Plex recommendation.  Both CPUs are in the 6300 - 6700 passmark range which means two simultaneous streams is your limit as you need about 2000 also for unRAID overhead operation.  If a VM is running at the same time, you could find yourself in a resource crunch.

 

I don't intend to run either at the same time, Plex will be in the evenings and the VM will be during the day, though this will also not be intensive either. Mostly for updating some PHP code and to get Ubuntu off my local disk.

 

8 hours ago, Hoopster said:

For hardware (GPU based) transcoding, you need either an integrated GPU or a PCIe Nvidia graphics card.  The i7 3700 has a very limited integrated GPU which will basically give you H.264 encoding but not much else.  The i3-9100F would be a much better option up to and including HEVC 10-bit 4K video except for that "F". That means the CPU has no integrated graphics.  The non-F version of that processor is a great transcoder for Plex.

 

It looks like with either option, you are going to have to go with a supported discrete Nvidia GPU if you need or want hardware transcoding.  You may not need transcoding if everything is in a format that can direct play locally which is recommended.  Playing to mobile devices or remotely often requires transcoding.

 

Most of my media files are HVEC files so the i7 3770 will not be suitable? I also have an old 1050ti I could drop in to the board as well, if that will help transcoding or is that entirely the CPU? My current NAS has an Intel Atom D2701 and runs the HVEC files without issues. As for the i3, instead of Intel I could also go AMD on a similar board of size (micro-ATX).

 

The devices used to play the files are Mii TV Boxes if that would make a difference? Remote or on mobile, we do not use at all.

 

8 hours ago, Hoopster said:

The other consideration with either system is how active the VM will be.  You really need at least 2c/2t assigned to a very active VM.  The i3 does not support hyperthreading and has only 4 cores.  The i7 3700 has 4c/4t so you have a bit more headroom there.  In an active VM you usually want at least 4GB RAM assigned to the VM and 8GB or more is better depending on intended use.

 

With VMs, you also need to consider things such as video (passthough GPU or just VNC video), keyboard and mouse setup, USB ports or other things you need to passthrough.

 

The IOMMU groupings of your motherboard will either make that easy or very difficult.  My guess is that the MSI will have better IOMMU groups but I do not know that for sure.

 

The VM will not be active at all, not an all day device, I use my Mac as my daily driver and my Desktop machine for gaming and so forth. That runs an i5 9600K on an SUS ROG Strix B360-F board and 32GB DDR4 and an RTX2080, which is slight overkill for my games. Would that CPU and motherboard and RAM be more suited for the NAS? If running a VM on the NAS will be costly to my other processes I will refrain from doing so, I will then map a drive to my PC and use said as the drive for storage to be used in the VM and still keep the VM on my desktop but the storage and ISO on the NAS?

 

8 hours ago, Hoopster said:

For the docker containers you have listed (with the Plex caveats noted above) either system will work well for NAS and docker use.  The VM need complicates it a little depending on your intended uses and whether or not it is an occasional-use VM or an an always-on heavy-use VM and your hardware passthrough needs.

 

Both CPUs support VT-x/VT-d for virtualization so assuming the motherboards do as well, you are good to go with VMs.

 

My main thing is running Docker containers. I forgot to mention MySQL as well in a container and some smaller one like Pi-Hole and so forth. As for running a VM, I could spin up a docker container with NGINX and PHP and use that instead of the VM as that is what the main use of the VM will be for.

 

Thanks @Hoopster for the info so far :)

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On 4/15/2021 at 2:45 AM, hazelbag said:

Most of my media files are HVEC files so the i7 3770 will not be suitable? I also have an old 1050ti I could drop in to the board as well, if that will help transcoding or is that entirely the CPU? My current NAS has an Intel Atom D2701 and runs the HVEC files without issues.

 

It comes down to whether the device you are playing the video on can Direct Play the file or not.  Many modern TVs and media clients play HVEC natively, so the Plex server does not need to transcode.  An Atom can pass a file easily.

 

But if the file needs to be transcoded, either because the device can't Direct Play the format, or you are compressing it down so it can be sent over the Internet to your mobile device away from home, then the advice Hoopster gave you above is valid.

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  • 2 years later...
On 4/14/2021 at 10:06 PM, hazelbag said:

Hey all, so new to unraid. I currently run a Netgear ReadyNas 316 with 4 docker images but the device has become or rather feels limited to what it is capable of doing.

 

I have an Asus P8Z77 - V LX and an i7 3770 with 16GB (4x4GB 2166mhz) that's been sitting and doing nothing, it use to be in my PVR for around 3 months before shutting it down, would this be viable for the build?

 

Alternative to this would be a MSI B365M PRO-VH Intel B365 Coffee Lake LGA1151 Micro-ATX Desktop Motherboard and Intel Core i3-9100F if my current motherboard would not be viable.

 

It has 3 x 6GBs SATA ports and 3 x 3GBs SATA ports which the initial build will have 5 x 10TB Iron Wolf drives and one 512GB SSD for cache.

 

I will later add the SATA controller for more drives.

 

Would the motherboard and CPU be suitable?

 

Its main use will be Docker Containers, Sonarr, Radarr, SABnzbd, Plex Media Server (2 streams 2k video streams) and file storage and if possible an Ubuntu VM (for php coding)

 

Options:

 

Option 1;

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77 -V LX

CPU: i7 3770

RAM: 16GB

 

Option 2:

Motherboard: MSI B365M PRO-VH

CPU: i3 9100F

RAM: 16GB

 

Option 3;

Motherboard: ASRock H370M-PRO

CPU: i5 8600

RAM: 16GB

 

Option 4:

Motherboard: BIOSTAR B360 GT3S

CPU: i5 8600

RAM: 16GB

 

Option 5:

Motherboard: AMD B450 AORUS

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600

RAM: 16GB

 

Option 5:

Motherboard: Asus B350 Prime B350M-A AMD AM4

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600

 

 

These are the options I have, I will get either of these that would be suitable for the build and to run 6 drives for now and to later add the SATA controller.

 

I know this is an old thread but i'm trying to install Unraid on my RN316 and not having any luck. I can't figure out how to get the device to boot from USB. If you can provide any instructions or tips it'd be much appreciated. Thanks

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