Hi everyone,

 

After 7 years my old motherboard on my unraid server has died, so looking for a more modern replacement.

 

I am running a very basic set-up here, so no VMs and only really using Plex for 1 transcode at a time. Might consider running Kodi centrally, but will see.

 

I am running 14tb split over 7 discs + 4tb Parity drive. No cache drive as yet.

 

Could I get away with a Pentium G4600 for these needs, or would I need something a bit beefier?

 

Many thanks for your advice.

A G4600 would be sufficient for basic NAS plus Plex with one stream.  I'd also suggest 8GB of RAM, though you could get away with 4GB (and obviously more is good).   However, you may want to implement a cache drive at this point since the cache drive has become the defacto "application drive" and is typically where the Docker image and Docker data is stored.  You can run Dockers from the array, but performance will suffer and you'll keep drives spinning that otherwise would be able to sleep.

Agreed on both tdallen's points - the Pentium is fine, and a cache drive is pretty much essential.  Even a cheap 500GB WD Blue would be fine - a SSD is even better.

Many thanks to both of you for the repsonses.

 

I think a G4560 looks like a good deal for me, so will pick that up. Is there a widely recommended S1151 motherboard for use with this? I saw the ASROCK H270M Pro 4 get a lot of mentions, but I want an Intel NIC.

 

Thank you for highlighting the necessity of a cache drive - not something I really needed back when I built my original server, but clearly needed now. Is there going to be a noticeable difference between a WD Blue and an SSD?

 

Thanks again for all your advice.

 

5 minutes ago, BlackBriar said:

Is there going to be a noticeable difference between a WD Blue and an SSD?

Yes and no.  The reads and writes on an SSD are considerably faster than a hard drive.  But pulling out a key word from your question - will you notice it?  If you're running a VM and sitting in front of it, then yes.  If you copy lots of data from your PC to your server, and use the cache drive for traditional write-caching, then yes.  If you're mostly using Dockers that run unattended, then no.  I have an old, slow HD as my cache drive at the moment (long story).  The only time I "notice" that it's slow is when starting Dockers or manually copying a file that hits the cache drive.  It's slow the rest of the time, too - but I'm not sitting there watching it so I just don't notice it .

 

If you're buying new, I'd get a pro level SSD.  If you have a WD Blue lying around and only plan to run Plex with a single transcoded stream, it should work fine for now.

Thanks again for the advice. Looks like I will be picking up a 1tb WD Blue for the cache - this upgrade keeps getting more and more expensive!

 

Think I will go for this as a motherboard: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asrock-h270-pro4-intel-h270-s-1151-ddr4-sata3-m2-(pcie-sata)-2-way-crossfire-intel-gbe-usb-30-aplusc

 

It has the Intel LAN and seems to get good reviews on these forums.

 

Thanks again for all your help!

 

A

2 hours ago, BlackBriar said:

Looks like I will be picking up a 1tb WD Blue for the cache

By a 1TB WD Blue, I'm not sure if you mean HD or SSD since WD uses that branding for both now.  While I certainly wouldn't hesitate to use an HD I had lying around for the cache drive, if I were buying new I'd buy an SSD - unfortunately I don't have experience with the WD SSDs yet.  And if you do decide to buy a hard drive, I'd get something larger than 1TB - no point in buying such a small hard drive these days given the cost / TB.

 

FYI, I don't cache writes to my array so I find 250GB is fine for a cache drive as an "application" drive.  I find that regular writes to the array are fine most of the time and when they aren't I turn on Turbo Write.

WD SSDs are just a rebranded SanDisk.  Which is no bad thing, really.  Various reviews tally the WD drives with their SanDisk counterparts.  I think the WD Blue is a SanDisk Z400.

 

My cache drive not only does my appdata/Docker stuff, but it's main function is power saving.  My downloaded TV Shows tend to be watched the same day they're downloaded, so I leave them on the cache so I don't have to spin up a HDD to view those new shows.  Everything is then transferred to the array once a day, which means on a typical week the array drives only spin up for 7 hours a week.  

Edited September 19, 20178 yr by HellDiverUK

On 15.9.2017 at 2:46 PM, BlackBriar said:

...is there a widely recommended S1151 motherboard for use with this?

...I want an Intel NIC...

 

 

The ASRock Z270 Pro4 has only 6 SATA-Ports - i recommend this both boards for future expansion of HDDs:

 

ASRock Z270 Extrem 4 - 8x SATA 6Gb/s, 1x Intel NIC (i219-V)

ASRock Z270 Taichi - 10x SATA 6Gb/s, 2x Intel NIC (i219-V/i211-AT)

 

Both boards use the ASMedia ASM1061 SATA-Controller which is supported by unRAID.

Edited October 4, 20178 yr by Zonediver