Is an i5-4590S decent? What's a good complementary mobo?

[Karyudo]

Background:

I've had a home server since WHS v1 (HP MediaSmart). I'm currently running WHS 2011 + DriveBender with an Intel Pentium G3258 on an ASRock Z97 Anniversary (ATX, LGA1150) motherboard, with a SiL 3132 SATA card and a couple of CFI 5-drive port-multiplier backplanes, and am having nothing but trouble. Time to migrate to unRAID 6, for some trouble-free operation and peace of mind!

 

Part I – Use Cases, and CPU:

I'd like to eventually run 12+ drives, for computer backups, torrents, SABnzbd, Sonarr, Plex server, etc.

 

I think I will also want to run a Windows VM, so I can continue to use my Hauppauge Colossus capture card (there are no Linux drivers) and an OTA card under NextPVR.

 

For Plex, I've got almost exclusively 1080p movie rips, and 720p TV rips. I watch natively at home, but it's plausible I may do some simultaneous transcoding. So maybe 2-3 streams at once?

 

I will be doing no gaming whatsoever on the unRAID box.

 

Does an i5-4590S make sense? Is the lower 65W TDP OK (or even preferred)? Is the number of cores, cache, 7001 CPU Mark, etc., also OK for what I want to do? I've checked ARK, and it's on the list for VT-d.

 

Part II – Mobo to Suit:

I envision getting a big honkin' Rosewill RSV-4412 or -4500 case (12 or 15 drives, respectively), so I don't mind—actually, probably prefer—an ATX mobo. I'll probably start with just the SATA ports on the mobo, but I suspect I'd maybe end up on a flashed IBM 1015 or some other SAS-to-SATA card or two, so I'd need more than one PCI-e 2.0 or 3.0, x4 or better slots. I don't think I need any legacy PCI slots. Onboard video should be fine. I don't think I need more than one gigabit LAN port, but I could perhaps be convinced.

 

Got any recommendations for a decent (not too extravagant) mobo?

 

In the meantime, does the ASRock Z97 Anniversary support VT-d, in case I wanted to give a VM a try?

 

Thanks for your input!

[Karyudo]

Partially answering my own questions:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=37473.msg346601#msg346601

"[A]n i5-4590s is an excellent CPU [for Plex transcoding] and I'm sure it can support at least 3 simultaneous streams even without GPU hardware assist [...]"

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=40393.msg380086#msg380086

"I have an ASRock Z97 Extreme6 motherboard with an Intel® Core™ i5-4590S CPU @ 3.00GHz processor. I have all of the virtualization stuff turned on in the BIOS and I had this working fine with my old Xen setup, so I know it works."