I know this has been covered thousands of times, I've read 12 or more threads about this very topic but none fit my situation.

 

Currently I'm running

 - Supermicro - X10SLL-F motherboard

- Intel® Xeon® CPU E3-1220 v3 @ 3.10GHz Processor

- 32GB of ECC Ram

 

My current setup has 5 drives (2 Parity & 3 data) and a single cache drive.

I have 2 VM running, one is a simple website, the other is a VDI (not for gaming general web work)

I have 5 dockers running about 100% of time time.  only one draws much cpu time (plex)

 

Since plex has introduced Live TV my family records about 15 to 20 shows a day, and seems to stream a lot more than usual.  I'm getting transcoading issues due to lack of CPU power.  I've given Plex full control of 3 of the 4 cores and everything else runs on core #1

 

I'd like to upgrade processors for more cores to assist in the overload issues.  I know my current MB is a few gen old so can anyone assist me in parting out new hardware?

 

Thx

Ok I take back what I said, your board can only take dual or quad core CPU's, so you'll have to get a new board. I would start listing features your current board has that you want, features it doesn't have that you want and features you don't want.

Edited September 11, 20178 yr by ashman70

1220v3 is 4 cores.  Best CPU to swap in is the 1281v3 which is 4.1GHz, 4 core with Hyperthreading (so sort of 8 core).  It'll be WAY faster than what you have.  

 

Though, the 1271v3 is probably easier to find, it's 4GHz but stlll 4 core with HT.

Like @HellDiverUK mentioned, you can find Quad Core E3s that support hyper-threading.

 

I myself run a E3-1241v3, Here are the Passmark Comparisons between the E3-1220v3 and the E3-1241v3.

 

With a 10K passmark score, plex thinks it'll be able to handle 5 1080p transcodes.

 

 

Edited September 14, 20178 yr by MowMdown

Looking up the suggested processors,  thanks for the great suggestions.

 

Is there an advantage to keeping with Xeon processors and not moving to a i5 or i7?

 

As for things that I'd like to get that i currently dont have more on-board sata would be nice, but I have an expansion card if and when i need it.

Edited September 14, 20178 yr by m.b.d

On almost all i5 and i7 you lose ECC support.  There's typically a Xeon E3 part to match every i5 and i7 as far as clock speed and core counts are concerned.

 

There are a few i5 and i7 chips that support ECC, but I've never seen them 'in the wild' as they either never really existed, or were used in specific OEM machines.

On 9/14/2017 at 1:30 PM, HellDiverUK said:

On almost all i5 and i7 you lose ECC support.  There's typically a Xeon E3 part to match every i5 and i7 as far as clock speed and core counts are concerned.

 

There are a few i5 and i7 chips that support ECC, but I've never seen them 'in the wild' as they either never really existed, or were used in specific OEM machines.

I knew i would loose the Ecc support, but with Unraid is ECC worth the expense?

 

I've ordered the replacement 1281v3 its sitting at the post office waiting for Monday

I used to argue that ECC was a nice to have not a need to have, and to some degree I still feel that way however it comes down to how important your data is to you. For the extra cost I now feel it's worth it, but that is just my opinion. You get extra protection with ECC in the event that a memory error occurs. Some might say memory errors are rare and they may be right, but again, how important is your data?

If I have a board/CPU that supports ECC, then I'll use it - if I can't I don't sweat it.

 

Anecdote: 6 workstations running 24/7 at work for just under 9 years, and only 1 ECC memory error has happened in all that time, and it was quite recently during a storm where the mains went out and the building switched to generator.  They're Dell Precision T5400 with dual Xeon chips and the super-expensive FBDIMMs.