Will it work? NAS/Docker/media-server running on Atom D525


_jonte

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I'm thinking about moving my NAS functionalities to a separate server. I have an older Zotac board with integrated Atom D5252 that I'd like to use, but not sure if it is powerful enough?

Aside from running unRaid and basic NAS-functionalities, I'd like to be able to run Rtorrentvpn, Sickrage and Emby dockers. It will not be doing an transcoding of course, but I'd like to be able to direct stream ~100GB 4k rips to Nvidia Shield boxes over the house without issues. 

 

This is the board I've got, plus 8GB RAM & 60GB SSD, (plus maybe a cache HDD)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500065

 

Also I would need to add a SATA controller card to connect the array drives. I have a LSI 9201-16e that I'd like to use. Will that card work in the PCIe x4 slot?

 

Thanks,

 

Edited by _jonte
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Should work.  D525 is 64 bit capable.  It certainly won't set any speed records, and if set up as dual parity it will struggle through writes.  Basic NAS, light docker usage it should be ok.

 

The 9201-16 *should* work in x4, but the problem is that its physically a x8 card, but it appears that the slot on the board linked is open-ended so you shouldn't have any problems.

Edited by Squid
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Just now, ashman70 said:

I was told unRAID 6 doesn't support Atom processors, regardless of 32/64bit. Version 5 does though. Am I wrong Squid?

Never heard that.  Unless you're thinking ARM.  But Atom will struggle on dual parity for sure.

Edited by Squid
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On 1/5/2018 at 9:50 PM, _jonte said:

I'm thinking about moving my NAS functionalities to a separate server. I have an older Zotac board with integrated Atom D5252 that I'd like to use, but not sure if it is powerful enough?

Aside from running unRaid and basic NAS-functionalities, I'd like to be able to run Rtorrentvpn, Sickrage and Emby dockers. It will not be doing an transcoding of course, but I'd like to be able to direct stream ~100GB 4k rips to Nvidia Shield boxes over the house without issues. 

 

This is the board I've got, plus 8GB RAM & 60GB SSD, (plus maybe a cache HDD)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500065

 

Also I would need to add a SATA controller card to connect the array drives. I have a LSI 9201-16e that I'd like to use. Will that card work in the PCIe x4 slot?

 

Thanks,

 

 

I ran unRaid on my Supermicro D525 board for years. I eventually retired it for file transfer speed issues, but I'm finding even on my much-more powerful (Xeon D-1521) system I'm still getting those file transfer speed issues. 

 

For a basic file sharing NAS type application the D525 will be perfect.

 

The poor Supermicro board is sitting in a box begging to be used :( 

Edited by Smitty2k1
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On 1/6/2018 at 4:50 AM, Squid said:

Should work.  D525 is 64 bit capable.  It certainly won't set any speed records, and if set up as dual parity it will struggle through writes.  Basic NAS, light docker usage it should be ok.

 

The 9201-16 *should* work in x4, but the problem is that its physically a x8 card, but it appears that the slot on the board linked is open-ended so you shouldn't have any problems.

Worth a try at least, thanks!

How much will a spinning cache drive help? The 60GB SSD will not be big enough to cache downloads etc. I'm thinking writing directly to the array could slow it all down a bit?

I only use single parity.

x4 should have more than enough bandwidth for 6-8 drives?

 

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1 hour ago, Smitty2k1 said:

 

I ran unRaid on my Supermicro D525 board for years. I eventually retired it for file transfer speed issues, but I'm finding even on my much-more powerful (Xeon D-1521) system I'm still getting those file transfer speed issues. 

 

For a basic file sharing NAS type application the D525 will be perfect.

 

The poor Supermicro board is sitting in a box begging to be used :( 

Thanks, sounds good. How big transfer speed issues? Worth noting for my use case?

 

I've read somewhere unraid 5 could be better with Atom CPU's. Any experience with that?

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37 minutes ago, tdallen said:

Since you have the board, the best thing to do is stand up a test box with an unRAID trial license and see if it works for you.  Basic NAS should be fine, Dockers at the same time as streaming may be a question... 

Yeah that's my main concern, but I suppose I have to try.

My current unraid setup works great, but I need that computer for other stuff so it would be great if I could use this other board.

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10 hours ago, tdallen said:

A spinner for a cache drive works fine.  If you are sitting and watching you’ll notice it’s slower but if it is doing unattended work you probably won’t even notice.

I was thinking of using a 60GB SSD for the system and dockers, plus a spinner as extra cache for downloads etc, to avoid writing and reading to the array at the same time.

That is, if that would be a limiting factor when using an Atom?

 

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The Atom D525 really is a dead loss - it's very slow, and not at all power efficient when compared to anything more recent.  A J1900 or N34xx will totally slaughter the Atom, while using less power than the PCH on the Atom board.  The Atom CPU is power efficient, but the PCH uses nearly as much power.  The J1900 is a SOC, so everything is built in, no PCH to waste power.

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3 hours ago, HellDiverUK said:

The Atom D525 really is a dead loss - it's very slow, and not at all power efficient when compared to anything more recent.  A J1900 or N34xx will totally slaughter the Atom, while using less power than the PCH on the Atom board.  The Atom CPU is power efficient, but the PCH uses nearly as much power.  The J1900 is a SOC, so everything is built in, no PCH to waste power.

I hear what you're saying, and I might consider that.. 

When I look at the NM10 PCH specs, it says it uses about 2W. Plus 13W TDP for the Atom. I guess I'm missing something?.

(That said, the Supermicro X10SBA for instance does look interesting. €200 and I can reuse the RAM I've already got.)

 

 

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X10SBA is a good board, I had one here.  The only thing about it is the 4 additional SATA ports are run by a Marvell controller, so if you use VT-d the wheels can fall off unRAID pretty quick.  I had VT-d disabled, and it worked fine for me though.

 

Unfortunately the poor thing was killed in it's prime thanks to a bad PSU that nuked it.

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On 1/11/2018 at 12:36 PM, HellDiverUK said:

X10SBA is a good board, I had one here.  The only thing about it is the 4 additional SATA ports are run by a Marvell controller, so if you use VT-d the wheels can fall off unRAID pretty quick.  I had VT-d disabled, and it worked fine for me though.

 

Unfortunately the poor thing was killed in it's prime thanks to a bad PSU that nuked it.

I won't be using VT-d on this machine. It will be strictly for NAS functionality.

I'm also looking at the new Atom C3000 lite of boards. Any experience with those?

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  • 2 weeks later...

A few thoughts on your original question ...

 

First, UnRAID works just fine on a D525.    It's rock solid and draws very little power.    For some unexplained reason v5 runs significantly better than v6 -- at least on my SuperMicro D525 board.    I've outlined the performance issues in the following thread, but to summarize parity checks take nearly twice as long with v6; and transfer speeds are about 1/3rd slower with v6.    There's NO reason I can think of for these differences.   In fact, after I tried v6 about a year ago, I decided to just leave that particular server on v5 for the higher speeds.   But a couple weeks ago I decided to try it again and see if the latest version of v6 had improved any with regards to this -- it had not ... BUT the GUI improvements in v6.4 made me decide to simply leave that server at v6.   The GUI responsiveness has been DRAMATICALLY improved with 6.4 (not just on an Atom, but on all of my servers).

 

Bottom line:   As a basic NAS, I think you'd be fine with your D525 board.    I'd think even the lower transfer rate is still plenty fast enough to stream your 4k videos, but as already noted, the best way to confirm that is to simply get a Trial license and give it a try.   I would not, of course, suggest buying a D525 for a new build, but since you already have the board, I'd certainly give it a try.

 

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