From TrueNAS to Unraid: advice for motherboard and Intel CPU

[Mr.Slumber]

Dear Unraid Community, 

 

I've been running a 60TB TrueNAS Server (hardware specs please find here:  The $1000 TrueNAS prosumer build ) with no downtime nonstop for 4 years now, but now it's time for a change 
Read a lot in the forums lately but would be very happy with some advice of you, thank you in advance 

MoBo + CPU now: Supermicro X11SSM-F + Intel Core i3-7320

MoBo + CPU future:  ? ? ? 

my use case for Unraid:
40TB ZFS Storage, 1 Cache Drive, running 10 Docker containers, running Plex Media Server as Docker container, running 2 VMs (Ubuntu Server 22.04 as printserver so no oooomphh requirement here)

 

My biggest concern is the Plex Server, so the MoBo and the Intel CPU should have enough power to deliver max 2 streams of 4K material. Later in the season I'm planning to add GPU/graphics card to the MoBo für Plex hardware transcoding but the CPU should be able to handle the load alone at the moment. Currently I'm running Plex server on an old Dell R-230 with an old Xeon 4core CPU and it's working fine.

The MoBo should be able to handle max 64GB RAM (ECC RAM is not necessarily required I think for Unraid)

Thank you very much in advance for your hints and opinions. 

I'm really looking forward to switch to Unraid with all it's fantastic features 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Mr.Slumber

[Zonediver]

6 hours ago, Mr.Slumber said:

My biggest concern is the Plex Server

 

You can use a modern i3/i5/i7 (12th, 13th Gen) and use HW-transcoding from Plex (Plex Pass required).

There is no need for an extra Graphic - the iGPU can handle that.

My old i7-iGPU can transcode ~8 4K-to-1080p streams without problems (transcode to RAM)...

Delivering 4K-streams without transcoding needs no CPU-Power at all.

And yes, ECC RAM is not necessary

Edited December 9, 2023 by Zonediver

[Mr.Slumber]

@Zonediver Thank you for your reply. 

Ok, will buy an i7 12th/13th generation, but now speaking about the mobo... I've had good experience with Supermirco boards but being "Pro" they are quiet expensive. Heard good things about ASRock boards but dunno...

Any suggestions much appreciated. Thank you.  

[Zonediver]

7 hours ago, Mr.Slumber said:

Heard good things about ASRock boards but dunno...

I use ASRock boards since 2010 for all my PCs and other creations.

My unraid bord (B365M) is running since 14.12.2020 every day ~16 hours without any problems.

My oldest (still working) ASRock board is a B75 Pro3-M from Nov. 2013 with an i7-3770.

This machine runs every day for 8-9 hours without any problems too.

So i think, they are reliable 🤣

I also use MSI boards but not that long... so i cant say how good they are...

Edited December 10, 2023 by Zonediver

[Mr.Slumber]

Reading on and on here in the forums this would be my hardware of choice which ticks most of the boxes for me but please correct me if I understand these things wrong: 
 

• MoBo: Supermicro X13SAE-F
   
• CPU: Intel Core i5-13500
   
• RAM: 2x Micron 16GB DDR5-4800 ECC UDIMM
   
• CPU Cooler: noctua NH-D9L

 

I hope this "fits together", will fit into my soon to be decommissioned TrueNAS build (further details in my signature) and will give me much "room to breathe" for the next years speaking of expanding the array, perhaps adding an Intel ARC (not really needed I think but...) and all these things to tinker around with... 

Critics, opinions and thoughts welcome anytime! Thank you. 

[Zonediver]

15 hours ago, Mr.Slumber said:

MoBo: Supermicro X13SAE-F

 

For what is this mainboard?

And the price... what the hell... € 564.- 🤪

And there is no 10GB-Lan on it... well... Way too expensive in my opinion but ok...

Edited December 11, 2023 by Zonediver

[Lolight]

On 12/10/2023 at 6:13 AM, Mr.Slumber said:

Ok, will buy an i7 12th/13th generation, but now speaking about the mobo... I've had good experience with Supermirco boards but being "Pro" they are quiet expensive. Heard good things about ASRock boards but dunno...

No need for Supermicro...

 

Any consumer motherboards of the well-known brands should be fine.

Not every motherboard comes with the up to date BIOS, therefore the 12th Gen CPUs might be a better choice - no need for the BIOS update to make it compatible with the 13th gen.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/

[Lolight]

On 12/10/2023 at 6:30 PM, Mr.Slumber said:

Reading on and on here in the forums this would be my hardware of choice which ticks most of the boxes for me but please correct me if I understand these things wrong: 
 

• MoBo: Supermicro X13SAE-F
   
• CPU: Intel Core i5-13500
   
• RAM: 2x Micron 16GB DDR5-4800 ECC UDIMM
   
• CPU Cooler: noctua NH-D9L

 

If you're willing to spend that kind of money then why not..

But IMHO, it's unnecessary since it won't make your NAS any better than a significantly cheaper system.

[Mr.Slumber]

Thank you @Lolight for your feedback also. Yeah, I'm aware that you could build this thing for much lower cost, thanks for the link to pcpartpicker .
My main concern is always uptime and reliability because if something goes wrong it goes "...aren't you the tech guy in the house, why doesn't it run..." perhaps you know what I mean  so over the last years I chose always the "prosumer homelab route" to avoid stress...  Of course I know that a non-server-grade mobo can nowadays run for e.g. 5 years straight with no problems but isn't it always a game of numbers... 

Ok, today I pulled the trigger, let's see if Santa will be right in time with this build... more on this channel later on 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Mr.Slumber

[Mr.Slumber]

I also chose a new USB 2.0 flash drive for Unraid:  JetFlash 600 8GB USB 2.0 (it's got MLC NAND which is next best thing to SLC NAND. SLC NAND is far more expensive but of course far more reliable, so I think this is a good compromise) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Mr.Slumber

[Zonediver]

On 12/16/2023 at 8:23 AM, Mr.Slumber said:

I also chose a new USB 2.0 flash drive for Unraid:  JetFlash 600 8GB USB 2.0

And this USB-Stick has a (unique) GUID?

If not, you cant install unraid on it...

A recommened stick is the Kingston DTSE9H (16GB)

Edited December 17, 2023 by Zonediver

[Lolight]

4 hours ago, Zonediver said:

And this USB-Stick has a GUID?

If not, you cant install unraid on it...

What is it about that stick that made you question its GUID?

Just wondering...

[trurl]

48 minutes ago, Lolight said:

What is it about that stick that made you question its GUID?

Just wondering...

It's unfamiliar, and just wanted to be sure it met this critical requirement for use with Unraid. Often difficult to know since this isn't mentioned on the website or other documentation for most devices. And just having a GUID isn't enough, it must be unique. Some manufacturers just put the same generic GUID on their flash drives.

 

Also note that speed is not important for the Unraid boot flash drive, but reliability is. The Unraid OS doesn't run on the flash drive. The OS is contained in archives on flash, these archives are unpacked fresh from flash at each boot, into RAM, and the OS runs completely in RAM. The flash drive also contains your configuration in the config folder, so these will be updated when you make changes in the webUI, but other than that flash is seldom accessed.

 

Probably you already know all this.

[Lolight]

7 hours ago, trurl said:

It's unfamiliar, and just wanted to be sure it met this critical requirement for use with Unraid. Often difficult to know since this isn't mentioned on the website or other documentation for most devices. And just having a GUID isn't enough, it must be unique. Some manufacturers just put the same generic GUID on their flash drives.

Actually those Transcend JetFlash drives used to be a "familiar" brand back in the day.

Just about every legit USB drive manufacturer does include a unique GUID with each manufactured USB stick.

A case of a non-unique GUID is normally a clear indication of a counterfeited product.

 

And that was a reason for my question on the nature of @Zonediver doubts.

IMO any USB drive made by a lesser known but legit brand, particularly when purchased online would be a significantly safer bet in comparison to any "famous" brand since those are the once that are normally targeted by counterfeiters.

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Lolight

[Mr.Slumber]

On 12/17/2023 at 11:40 AM, Zonediver said:

And this USB-Stick has a (unique) GUID?

If not, you cant install unraid on it...

A recommened stick is the Kingston DTSE9H (16GB)

Yes, it's working just fine with it's GUID. Thanks for your recommendation.

[Mr.Slumber]

Please allow me to look again in the direction that started this post but of course thank you very much for your input 

Filling my array with precleared HDDs atm and it's just a "smooth sailing" along with Docker, this fantastic community and all the community apps. It's fun and thanks to everybody being involved with Unraid. Really loving it!!!

So for me the decision towards the Supermicro X13SAE-F was a good but not cheap one. I always found the idracs of Dell servers very useful for troubleshooting and the Supermicro has also a kind of online IPMI so this also was something which made me choose it. Of course other (much cheaper) brands would have been possible (thanks for your recommendations) but I hope for the next 5+ years I will not have to shut Unraid down. Let's see