Downsizing my unRAID -- e-ATX to mini-ITX


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...  (I KNOW gary will suggest the i7-4790)

 

:) :)

 

That would indeed be an excellent choice (and indeed is what I'd use), but for what you've described I suspect you'd be quite happy with an i5 for ~ $100 less.  An i5-4570, 4590, 4670, or 4690 would all be good choices.

 

I think it's unlikely you'll find an i5-4570 at the price spencers found it, but if you do, that's clearly a GREAT price.  Barring a find like that, they're all fairly close in price, so just buy whichever one you can get a good deal on.

 

[Or just bite the bullet and pick up an i7-4790  :) ]

... never heard anybody complain about having "too much" CPU power  :)

 

... FWIW I readily admit I've "wasted" $100-200 on each of the personal system's I've built in the past couple years (wife's, 2 HTPC's, spare system for guest room) by using the i7's ... I just use them "because I can" => and so if I ever want to repurpose them for anything they won't be underpowered  :)  In most cases, an i3-4330 would have been fine.

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

UPDATE TIME:

 

I've added a couple more dockers lately, namely CrashPlan and CrashPlan-Desktop to get a centralized backup system for our household going. I've set it to backup all data from C:\Users as that is where the important information lies (docs, pictures, spreadsheets, taxes, etc.) I've excluded certain folders like favourites, searches, appdata, etc that I dont care about.

 

 

Now, on the topic of CPU... I've spotted an i5-4570 used for $180, still seems steep for a used processor... I'll probably just wait out for a smokin deal.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

I don't know why, and it really irks me that people constantly want 95% retail for a USED CPU. I mean, really, it's used!

 

Anyways, I bit the bullet and purchased a new i5-4460 for $239 CAD, which is the best price i've seen around. These are normally listed for $250 CAD so I figured it was time to take the plunge.

 

I plan to install an AMD 5450 passive GPU and try a Plex Media Server VM. Wish me luck.

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I don't know why, and it really irks me that people constantly want 95% retail for a USED CPU. I mean, really, it's used!

 

Agree ... however, "used" is far less important than what CPU it is.    An older generation should certainly be worth less; but if it's a current generation CPU it's not going to functionally any different than a new one.    The only thing you're losing relative to a new one is the warranty ... clearly it will expire before a new one would. 

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I don't know why, and it really irks me that people constantly want 95% retail for a USED CPU. I mean, really, it's used!

 

Agree ... however, "used" is far less important than what CPU it is.    An older generation should certainly be worth less; but if it's a current generation CPU it's not going to functionally any different than a new one.    The only thing you're losing relative to a new one is the warranty ... clearly it will expire before a new one would.

 

Yes, but when someone (not on this forum) expects no less than $280 for a used i5-4690k, that's nuts. http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117372, they are $299 right now. I offered $240 cash, 80% retail value.

 

I've made my peace with it and I'm moving on with a i5-4460 for $239 NEW.

 

/rant

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Upgrade Step 1 complete. I have upgraded my cache drive from a 250GB laptop 2.5" drive to a more performance oriented 1TB SSHD 2.5" drive. While not a SSD, that upgrade will come at a later time if needed.

 

Once my i5 arrives I will install it and the HD5450, then on to Plex media Player VM.

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Success!

 

i5-4460 and HD5450 installed. I passed that and a USB IR receiver through to the Plex Media Player VM (using the img file for PMP).

 

Everything is working, even HD Audio (bit streaming DTS-HD right now).

 

My plan is to leave the VM running at all times so it's quick and easy to use plex, let's see how it recovers from being unused for a few hours.

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I don't know why, and it really irks me that people constantly want 95% retail for a USED CPU. I mean, really, it's used!

 

Agree ... however, "used" is far less important than what CPU it is.    An older generation should certainly be worth less; but if it's a current generation CPU it's not going to functionally any different than a new one.    The only thing you're losing relative to a new one is the warranty ... clearly it will expire before a new one would.

 

Yes, but when someone (not on this forum) expects no less than $280 for a used i5-4690k, that's nuts. http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117372, they are $299 right now. I offered $240 cash, 80% retail value.

 

I've made my peace with it and I'm moving on with a i5-4460 for $239 NEW.

 

/rant

 

Ya, exactly.

 

I recently went with a G3258 to get to a newer platform ($50), but now i'm really wanting vt-d, so I'm holding out hope for a good price on an i7. Looks like the best price wise though, is just getting an i5-4590 for US$160 (still), since i7s are $250+. Only $90, but that could be another hdd (or a pci-e card for my htpc VM)!!

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Ya, exactly.

 

I recently went with a G3258 to get to a newer platform ($50), but now i'm really wanting vt-d, so I'm holding out hope for a good price on an i7. Looks like the best price wise though, is just getting an i5-4590 for US$160 (still), since i7s are $250+. Only $90, but that could be another hdd (or a pci-e card for my htpc VM)!!

 

...or a SSD! I'm fortunate that the Plex VM i'm running doesnt need much disk i/o so my cache drive (2.5" 1TB SSHD) is sufficient.

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  • 6 months later...

I'm currently running 6.2.3 just fine. The Plex Media Player VM is working just fine. Soft reseting works without issue, leaving the VM running w/o use for days hasn't been an issue.

 

The i5-4460 is more than enough horsepower for my Plex needs, transcoding multiple streams w/o issues.

 

I tried 6.3 RC1 in an attempt to use iGPU passthrough and did see the image come up, but it was unusable (flickering like crazy). In addition, soft resets didnt work, and it also borked my unRAID console when I put the dGPU back in the VM.

 

Next steps are to replace my UPS (or only its battery, cost dependant here) as I received a "Battery Failure Warning" email the other day (I think this is just a time based warning, not a performance one). Then I need to look at either a SSD for cache (to speed up certain tasks, VM's, etc.) and/or more storage space.

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  • 2 months later...

Why is it that when UPS batteries decide to FAIL its at 2:00AM ?

 

After a couple years the battery in my APC BE550G-CN went tits up, replacement on order.

 

Question.. does anyone know if the date is updated when the battery is replaced, I know that UPSes generally use the battery expiry as an indication of battery condition.

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  • 3 years later...

So 3+ years later and very little has changed with this server.  The UPS is on its 3rd battery now, which is ok by me since its cheap insurance.

 

The server has been running flawlessly for all these years, with the only issue being a fan that has started making noise. Overall I'm very impressed with the entire build. It's been rock solid, through various unRAID upgrades, a house move, and frequent streaming (I have 3-4 remote streaming users on my Plex not including in house streaming).

 

Space still hasn't been an issue for me. I frequently go through the files and purge what's old and never accessed (from a media perspective). 

 

I no longer use a Plex Media Player VM.  Found it somewhat unreliable and Android TV's completely erase the need for it. 

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  • 1 year later...

2022 Update.

 

Hardware changes: none.  This thing has been rock solid!

 

UPS Battery #4 is in, they seem to last about 2 years (non-APC branded batteries).  They get a fair amount of emergency change over when storms hit and its saved from hard resets on numerous occasions.  I also have my cable modem and network gear on this UPS so in an outage my phones and internet still function.

 

My two older 3TB drives just surpassed 80,000 power on hours.  The other two are 30-40k.

 

I'm starting to think my SSD cache (SK Hynix 120GB) is starting to fail.. i've noticed delays while navigating its folder structure that I didnt see before.

 

System reliability is great, uptime is usually in the 100's of days and only resets when I have to swap out a UPS battery or perform an update to unRAID.

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