unRAID-noob: Did I chose the right hardware? Did I plan my migration right?


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Hi guys

 

Since my old FreeNAS in a Fractal Note case has just 600GB of free space left and I do not dare to fill the last two 3,5 slots with HDDs because of the ventilation, I plan to build a new server. After having read lots about FreeNAS, proxmox and unRAID, I am quite sure that I will like the easy setup and the whole storage system of unRAID with its easy storage upgrades. Furthermore, I really want to try virtualization, perhaps I can get rid of my gaming tower in the future. From what I've read, Proxmox seems to be problematic in terms of hardware passthrough and the FreeNAS virtualization apparently is immature.

 

Primarily, I want to use the unRAID server as a NAS for personal data and videos. But being sick of running multiple Raspis and of migrating the Kodi SQL databases every time I update Kodi, I also plan to run

- (4 cores, up to 8192 RAM) Jellyfin Docker (OpenSource Emby fork)

- (1 cores, up to   512 RAM) small VM for a PiHole

- (1 cores, up to 1024 RAM) VM for Ubuntu Server for OpenHAB (home automatization - runs on a Raspi 3+ at the moment)

- (4 cores, up to 8192 RAM) perhaps Ubuntu Desktop to use as a personal workspace (at the moment, Ubuntu is installed on an own SSD in my Windows 10 gaming PC - but I would love to seperate Windows from my personal Linux workspace)

- would love to additionally run an instance of Debian for a max2play server (Multiroom-Audio) - 2 cores with 1024 RAM would be enough

 

So, I finally ended up with the following configuration for my future unRAID server (please correct me if my assuptions are wrong - that's the purpose of this post😞

 

 

 

Setup

Case:  Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 Rev. B

  -  lots of space for HDDs, SSDs and ventilation

 

PSU: 650 Watt Corsair TX650M Modular 80+ Gold

  -  650 Watt because I plan to buy a Geforce 1650 with h.265-transcoding support for Jellyfin in the future and/or to upgrade the CPU for a gaming VM

  -  modular

 

Mainboard: AsRock Rack X470D4U - AM4 X470 server/consumer mainboard

  -  I decided to go for an AM4 board because of 1. the TDP of the Ryzens and Threadrippers 2. the price-performance ratio of AMDs consumer multicore CPUs and 3. because I am more flexible (since I think about upgrading the server to a gaming VM host later)

- the X470D4U has 2x Gbit LAN + a third RJ45 port for IPMI 2.0, supports up to 128 GB DDR4 ECC-RAM in 2x2 dual channel slots, has 8x SATA 6Gb onboard, an onboard ASpeed AST2500 256 MB GPU and 2x M.2 full profile slots (1x PCIe 3.0 x2, 1x PCIe 2.0 x4)

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 6x 3.20 GHz - Socket AM4, no iGPU

  -  since I have IPMI 2.0 and an onboard GPU, I do not need an iGPU, although it would be nice if it could be used by Jellyfin for transcoding - but from what i've read, the passthrough of the iGPUs seems complicated

  -  6 cores/12 threads for <100 Euro

 

RAM: 16GB Kingston KSM26ED8/16ME DDR4-2666 ECC - 2x for 32GB RAM

  -  listed on ASRocks Qualified Vendor List for the X470D4U mainboard, ECC works

  -  2x16 because this way I will be able to upgrade to 64GB without any problems (I am pretty sure that I wont need 128GB RAM during the next decade)

 

SSD-Cache: SanDisk Extreme PRO 500 GB M.2 NVMe 3D SSD - 2x (in RAID1) for 500GB Cache

  -  equivalent to WD Black 3D NVMe SSD

 

HDDs: WD Red 4000 GB - 4x 3,5" (+ 4x 3000 GB 3,5" after data migration)

  -  never had a problem with the Reds in my FreeNAS for 5 years now, so I bought new ones when they were on sale recently

  -  after data migration, I will have the 4x 3000 GB WD Reds from the old FreeNAS to extend the unRAID storage

 

SSDs: SANDISK Ultra 3D 512 GB - 2x 2,5"

  -  got them on sale, not sure what to do with them tbh XD thought about passing them through as native storage for the private Ubuntu VM or/and a possible windows 10 VM?

 

HBA: LSI Broadcom 9201-8i 6Gbps SATA SAS HBA Controller

  -  should work out of the box (unRAID hardware compatibility list)

  -  I do just need 2 more SATA ports, but if I have to upgrade the server some day, I think I will be happy for the extra slots

 

Plans for the future:

  -  install a low profile Geforce 1650 and pass it through to Jellyfin for transcoding

  -  update the CPU (8 core AMD Ryzen 7 2700X or 12 core AMD Ryzen 9 3900X - depending on my budget ^^)

  -  get a 10 Gbit LAN card when the house is built and Cat. 7 cables are installed - 'till then I am stuck on 1 Gbit powerline/DLAN adapters

 

 

 

 

Plan for migration:

- already installed unRAID on a SanDisk Cruzer Fit 16GB USB2.0 - tested on my Windows machine, was able to boot and start unRAID

- assemble the server and start unRAID the first time

- build an array of 2x 4 TB WD Reds with 2x 4 TB WD Reds as two parity disks

  -  data on the old FreeNAS: 7,11 TiB

  -  capacity of the new array: 7,12 TiB (2* 4 TB * 0,89 TiB in TB) - if it doesn't fit, my gaming machine has some additional space left

  -  Two parity disks because I really do not want to lose my media, I have a little PTSD from losing all my 380 music videos back in the times of cable modems - the personal data is additionally E2EE-backuped on a dedicated Nextcloud instance

- copy the data (FreeNAS 1xGbit -> Gbit 4 Port Managed Switch -> unRAID 2xGbit with the NVMe cache - limited to the 1xGbit of the FreeNAS)

- wait

- wait

- ... (think again about my idea to host a FreeNAS VM, install the 4x 3 TB in the new server, import the zpool from the old FreeNAS and copy the stuff directly, still not being sure if that would have worked out)...

- wait

- done!

- :) after the copying of the data remove the 4x 3 TB HDDs from the FreeNAS, install them in the rack and preclear them

- add them to the array

 

 

 

Sooooo, my questions:

 

1. Have I overlook something or is my plan reasonable?

 

2. Since I am new to virtualization: is it possible and advisable to assign more cores than my CPU has threads? In my case, can I assign more than 12 cores using a 6core/12 thread CPU?

 

3. Is the combination of CPU and RAM strong enough to virtualize an additional Windows 10 VM? With a GTX 1650, I should be able to in-home-stream Steam games, right?

 

4. What should I do with the 'additional' 2x2,5" SanDisk Ultra 3D 512GB? Is it possible to use the 2x 500GB M.2 NVMe as cache and the 2x 512GB 2,5" as back-up? In doing so, I would increase my SSD-cache to 1TB. Or asked differently, would a RAID1 of 2x 500GB NVMe M.2 and 2x 512GB 2,5" slow down the cache because of the significantly lower read/write speed of the 2,5" SSDs?

 

5. What do you think about the WD Reds? During my recherche, I saw lots of people use non-NAS-specific HDDs like the WD Greens. I am still not sure if the NAS-HDDs can play to their strenghts in terms of 24/7 activity with the unRAID file system - since I don't know enough about it. But, I already bought them and didn't read anything bad about them in posts about unRAID.

 

6. What's with my migration plan?

- I am really not sure about copying via LAN - but adding a FreeNAS VM, passing through the SATA controller and importing the old zpool to copy the data within the machine seems a little bit risky to me since I am inexperienced with VMs

- somewhere I read that preclearing isn't necessary anymore because unRAID is able to preclean without array downtime now, is that correct?

 

Thanks those, who took the time and read my post... and to those, who try to answer my questions :)

 

- priest

Edited by HojojojoWololo
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Just now, trurl said:

LAN makes more sense to me. Why go to a lot of extra trouble to save a little bit of time for a one time operation?

Yeah, you got a point there. Altough the estimated 20 hours are more than a little bit of time for me, I really don't want to mess around with the zpool.... 😅 Thanks for your reply.

- priest

Edited by HojojojoWololo
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4 hours ago, HojojojoWololo said:

Since my old FreeNAS in a Fractal Note case has just 600GB of free space left and I do not dare to fill the last two 3,5 slots with HDDs because of the ventilation

 

4 hours ago, HojojojoWololo said:

-  no hotswap or other special features, never needed those (but something to consider for the future)

 

The ventilation of rack case actually more poor then tower case due to its length, 4x80mm FAN even worse. The height (2U) also a limitation for CPU heatsink. If no special benefit ( i.e. form factor ) then no reason go to rack case.

 

4 hours ago, HojojojoWololo said:

I am quite sure that I will like the easy setup and the whole storage system of unRAID with its easy storage upgrades.

This should be main reason why we use Unraid instead others, but I suggest you should try setup all ( VM / docker / Networking ...) in existing hardware or only new CPU / MB first. Because you may change the design at last.

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58 minutes ago, Benson said:

The ventilation of rack case actually more poor then tower case due to its length, 4x80mm FAN even worse. The height (2U) also a limitation for CPU heatsink. If no special benefit ( i.e. form factor ) then no reason go to rack case.

 

This should be main reason why we use Unraid instead others, but I suggest you should try setup all ( VM / docker / Networking ...) in existing hardware or only new CPU / MB first. Because you may change the design at last.

Ouch, the height. Yes, new case. Thanks. But no idea where to put a tower. Have to figure that out first.

Edited by HojojojoWololo
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

Hey Jones,

 

as you can see in my signature, I switched to a Ryzen 2600 and the server runs like a charm - despite some config-errors during the setup (first unRAID setup ;). The CPU's cores are only fully utilized when I run foldingathome - even during three streams with downcoding via Jellyfin, the max. CPU-usage is at about 40-60 percent (at the moment no GFX card). Max. CPU-Temp. is around 37°C (~30 in idle) with the boxed cooler. Planning to upgrade the server with a GFX-card and watercooling in the future though.

 

The SSD-cache seems crucial to me, otherwise copying data to the server would definitaly be to slow for me. The SanDisk nVMe-SSDs get a little warm on a high workload (about 45-55°C) but thats just during intense copying-sessions. Picking the WD-HDDs was a good choice, too - no problems, even my 5-year-old WD Red 3TBs from my old FreeNAS still work fine without SMART-errors or other problems.

 

Case keeps the machine very silent.

 

And finally, I am very happy about the two Gbit-LANs. Makes lots of stuff easier. The IPMI-feature I only used for the setup... made things a little bit easier but since I never used it again, I'd say the feature is rather nice-to-have than a must-have.

 

If you have any other questions, just PM me.

 

Best wishes.

Edited by HojojojoWololo
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