Exploring Unraid, First Step

[mechprone]

Hello! I've been lurking and googling Unraid a bit and want to join in on the fun. Below is my current use case and plan for an Unraid server. Please comment and help to set me straight as I'm still figuring all this out.

 

I have an old Blackarmor 220 NAS that has become my network bottleneck (10mbps)  that I need to replace. It just hosts documents, pictures and other media. I have a standalone desktop that stays running to run my Plex media server which I access through a number of Rokus and a Nvidia Shield.

 

With that I figure an Unraid server would easily replace all that and boost my network data transfer between various other laptops and tablets. I have looked at some of the Nas killer builds along with some on here but not sure what would work for me.

 

My goals:

1) Basic Nas function with a number of shares

2) Plex media server capable of a single 4k transcode if needed

3) Windows 10 VM set to autoboot for normal family use stuff like web browsing, printing/scanning docs, etc

 

I came across the Dell Precision T7910 barebones on eBay for under $500 that seems pretty powerful when coupled with a Xeon E5-2690v3 (19k+ passmark) for another $200 plus drives and memory. Is that overkill? Can I build something just as capable for less? I need the all in cost to be as low as possible but still able to handle the above and have potential down the road for upgrades. I don't need a ton of drives, maybe 4-6 total.

 

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance!!!!

[kizer]

Found this on Plex

 

 

The most basic thing to remember is that the more Plex apps you have playing content at the same time, the more CPU power you’ll need. Generally speaking, if you have two Plex apps requiring transcoded content at the same time, that will require about twice the CPU processing power compared to if there was only one app playing content.

If you want very basic minimum suggestions:

No transcoding: Intel “Atom” 1.2GHz (NAS devices based on ARM processors should also be capable of at least one stream with no transcoding)

Single 720p transcode: Intel Core i3 3.0 GHz

Single 1080p transcode: Intel Core i5 3.0GHz

Single 4K transcode: Intel Core i7 3.2GHz

If you’ll need to support more than one simultaneous transcode, you’ll need a more powerful processor.

Related Page: NAS Devices

The Guideline

Very roughly speaking, for a single full-transcode of a video, the following PassMark score requirements are a good guideline for the following average source file:

4K HDR (50Mbps, 10-bit HEVC) file: 17000 PassMark score (being transcoded to 10Mbps 1080p)

4K SDR (40Mbps, 8-bit HEVC) file: 12000 PassMark score (being transcoded to 10Mbps 1080p)

1080p (10Mbps, H.264) file: 2000 PassMark score

720p (4Mbps, H.264) file: 1500 PassMark score