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Sanity check - 24 drive bays

uaeproz

By uaeproz
in Unraid Compulsive Design

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uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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Hi all,

 

I have unraid server but based out of PC hardware. Current capacity is 128TB. The problem with it is that when more than 10 PLEX clients are transcoding, it becomes extremely slow.

 

So I decided to build a new server future ready but I'm not expert in server grade components and a lot of things does not make any sense to me. Anyways, I decided to start my list of components but I'm not sure what I'm missing, I hope someone could let me know what I'm missing. So here it is:

 

I know this configuration is overrated for the initial components but I'm making this investment for whenever the cash for the rest of the components are at hand. I will upgrade within few months.

 

What I'm missing here?

 

Thanks,

 

Abdulla 

 

 

 

 

 

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demonmaestro Enthusiast

demonmaestro

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As long as the black RAM slots are loaded you will be fine.

I would just load the UNRAID OS on a usb stick. The satadom if want to use one would be fine for a cache. But for the cost not worth it.

 

Everything you have selected is from SuperMicro. While that is what I use for my MoBos. You don't have to use everything from them.

There are cheaper alternatives out there on the market.

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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3 minutes ago, demonmaestro said:

As long as the black RAM slots are loaded you will be fine.

I would just load the UNRAID OS on a usb stick. The satadom if want to use one would be fine for a cache. But for the cost not worth it.

 

Everything you have selected is from SuperMicro. While that is what I use for my MoBos. You don't have to use everything from them.

There are cheaper alternatives out there on the market.

Thanks for your input. I just worry about compatibility. I'd love to hear about some suggestions though.

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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Guys, 

 

I need your opinion. Most of the components now are confirmed with exception to one thing, HBAs. In the backplane manual, it says that I can connect 2x HBAs to achieve Load Balancing and/or Foilover. However, it says that I need to run Linux MPIO software (I don't really know how that can be accomplished with Unraid OS). The backplane will have 24 drives which is ALOT. That being said, do I really need dual HBAs? My concern is data transfer speeds and continuity which is translated to Load Balancing and Foilover but I need your advice guys wither this can be accomplished (with or without the Linux MPIO software) and how?

 

Dual HBAs VS. Single HBAs connected to 24 port backplane, is there any difference in data transfer speeds? Any risk of foilover in single HBA route?

 

Thanks,

 

Abdulla 

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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4 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

One HBA dual linked to the backplane expander will provide adequate bandwidth for 24 disks.

You are awesome sir. Thank you for the super fast response. Just one question though, foilover? do I really need that to function with dual HBA (if I am to go with the dual route)? or dual HBA is not possible with unraid os anyways?

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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Thanks to @johnnie.black and @demonmaestro for their support in my build, here is an updated list of items for my rig:

SSD Mentor

SSD

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I am not a transcoding expert, but if you have a lot of transcoding, would quicksync feature come in handy?

 

16 1.7GHz cores doesn't necessarily scream as a great transcoding platform, vs 6 ~4 GHz cores with iGPU. Esp. if/when you start dealing with HEVC  and 4k.

 

 

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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5 hours ago, SSD said:

I am not a transcoding expert, but if you have a lot of transcoding, would quicksync feature come in handy?

 

16 1.7GHz cores doesn't necessarily scream as a great transcoding platform, vs 6 ~4 GHz cores with iGPU. Esp. if/when you start dealing with HEVC  and 4k.

 

 

 

Now that what I was looking for! transcoding is my most concern and I have a lot of 4k movies that requires heavy transcoding. What CPUs do you recommend? please share your thoughts.

SSD Mentor

SSD

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In theory, a machine with a decent GPU should be able to have hardware assisted transcoding though "Vulkan drivers", but at this point, only Intel CPUs with embedded iGPUs support this feature (as far as I know). It is called "quicksync". I am not sure about AMD.

 

Look here for Intel CPUs that support it. The most cores supported is 6. The most cores on a Xeon is 4.

 

https://ark.intel.com/Search/FeatureFilter?productType=processors&QuickSyncVideo=true

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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2 hours ago, SSD said:

In theory, a machine with a decent GPU should be able to have hardware assisted transcoding though "Vulkan drivers", but at this point, only Intel CPUs with embedded iGPUs support this feature (as far as I know). It is called "quicksync". I am not sure about AMD.

 

Look here for Intel CPUs that support it. The most cores supported is 6. The most cores on a Xeon is 4.

 

https://ark.intel.com/Search/FeatureFilter?productType=processors&QuickSyncVideo=true

 

Is it possible that the Xeon has different technology for the video processing? I mean, it doesn't make sense that the latest Intel products has no technological edge towards video processing. Am I missing something here?

SSD Mentor

SSD

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@uaeproz -

 

The "video processing" is a function of the iGPU and not the processor itself.

 

Xeons tend to come out after i3/i5/i7 versions of the next generation chips. And iGPUs are often not included in server class CPUs (Xeons) as the focus is on processing power and not fancy video output, which is more of a workstation function.

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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18 minutes ago, SSD said:

@uaeproz -

 

The "video processing" is a function of the iGPU and not the processor itself.

 

Xeons tend to come out after i3/i5/i7 versions of the next generation chips. And iGPUs are often not included in server class CPUs (Xeons) as the focus is on processing power and not fancy video output, which is more of a workstation function.

 

I thought many unraid owners are running Xeons. What do they do when it comes to transcoding? 

SSD Mentor

SSD

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1 hour ago, uaeproz said:

 

I thought many unraid owners are running Xeons. What do they do when it comes to transcoding? 

 

Plex will transcode with the CPU. Works fine for X.264 / 1080P. But for HEVC / 4k, it needs a huge amount of processing power. 

 

32 minutes ago, uaeproz said:

What can I add to my build to enable PLEX transcoding example video card? 

 

Like I said, Plex can do quicksync transcoding only with iGPU. Otherwise it uses the CPU, and it takes a lot of processing power.

 

EDIT - 

 

See here for similar post and answer

 

 

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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20 minutes ago, SSD said:

 

Plex will transcode with the CPU. Works fine for X.264 / 1080P. But for HEVC / 4k, it needs a huge amount of processing power. 

 

 

Like I said, Plex can do quicksync transcoding only with iGPU. Otherwise it uses the CPU, and it takes a lot of processing power.

 

Extremely sad news to me. I was just about to make the payment. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I have 2 options:

  1. Change the motherboard and get one that is compatible with i7
  2. Get a high processing CPU?

 

Alright How about Intel® Xeon® Gold 6144 Processor ... 16 3.50GHz cores? https://ark.intel.com/products/124943/Intel-Xeon-Gold-6144-Processor-24_75M-Cache-3_50-GHz

SSD Mentor

SSD

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I do believe that transcoding using a regular GPU using Vulkan drivers is coming eventually. That would enable quicksync with any CPU.

 

High processor performance does not equal quicksync level of performance. However, I have read that quicksync image quality is not as good as software transcoding.

SSD Mentor

SSD

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Posted
10 hours ago, uaeproz said:

 

Extremely sad news to me. I was just about to make the payment. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I have 2 options:

  1. Change the motherboard and get one that is compatible with i7
  2. Get a high processing CPU?

 

Alright How about Intel® Xeon® Gold 6144 Processor ... 16 3.50GHz cores? https://ark.intel.com/products/124943/Intel-Xeon-Gold-6144-Processor-24_75M-Cache-3_50-GHz

 

If your purpose for the upgrade is to be able to do real-time transcode of HEVC content, I'd have to recommend a hex core like the i7-8700k. It's as fast as the pair of 8 core 1.7GHz CPUs you were looking at, with far fewer but much faster cores. I'd recommend it even if you were just looking for a fast box.

 

Xeon supports ECC memory - but other than that, there is no huge draw for me. My advice is test the crap out of your memory and go with the i7. 

 

A high processing CPU is gonna work hard to transcode a single 4k stream in real-time. (Not even sure the dual 3106s setup would have been powerful enough). A iGPU would do with little CPU, and would likely be better able to do multiple as well (need to confirm).

 

The 8700k gives you all the processing power you were looking to buy + quicksync! It's your decision, but seems like the way to go for your use case.

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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On 2/26/2018 at 8:37 AM, SSD said:

 

If your purpose for the upgrade is to be able to do real-time transcode of HEVC content, I'd have to recommend a hex core like the i7-8700k. It's as fast as the pair of 8 core 1.7GHz CPUs you were looking at, with far fewer but much faster cores. I'd recommend it even if you were just looking for a fast box.

 

Xeon supports ECC memory - but other than that, there is no huge draw for me. My advice is test the crap out of your memory and go with the i7. 

 

A high processing CPU is gonna work hard to transcode a single 4k stream in real-time. (Not even sure the dual 3106s setup would have been powerful enough). A iGPU would do with little CPU, and would likely be better able to do multiple as well (need to confirm).

 

The 8700k gives you all the processing power you were looking to buy + quicksync! It's your decision, but seems like the way to go for your use case.

@SSD Thanks for the great support and valuable info you are sharing. I really appreciate that.

 

I will get the i7 8700k for my existing server but that would require me to swap the motherboard that has LGA 1151 socket. I'm just not sure how to do the swap without moving my data that is contained in the existing HDDs. It's massive amount of data. I'll do a research on the forums for that and I'll dedicate it for transcoding 4k files.

 

But I will keep the new server configuration. For what it's worth, I made the deal on everything with a new set of processors that I found on eBay: 2x of https://ark.intel.com/products/124942/Intel-Xeon-Gold-6146-Processor-24_75M-Cache-3_20-GHz

 

 

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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These processors has massive processing power. In total, I would have 24 cores at 3.20 GHz. And I will get the i7-8700 with new mobo for the existing server. 

 

@SSDFor comparison sake though, how would you compare 24 cores at 3.20 GHz (no iGPU) vs 16 cores at 1.7 GHz (with iGPU) in terms of transcoding power? Just curious.

uaeproz Apprentice

uaeproz

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Thanks to @johnnie.black , @demonmaestro and @SSDfor their support in my build, here is the ordered items for my rig so far:

 

Still deciding (trying to find a deal) on the following:

 


 

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