Another First Unraid Build

[xxDeadbolt]

Hi everyone, I've been lurking for a while reading posts & trying to get myself to a fairly decent level of understanding before diving into my first Unraid build.

 

My current server (a repurposed Dell Optiplex 990 DT, specs below) is running out of storage space, & there's no room to expand it, so I'm looking to start my first dedicated Unraid build. 

 

My budget is around the £650 mark. As far as expandability is concerned, I'd like to be able to add another couple 4TB drives at some point, but that likely won't be for a while. the 3TB drive in my current set up will be added to the array after moving the data.

 

It's main uses will be storage & a Plex server. I'll be running the Plex, Radarr, Sonarr dockers & potentially NextCloud to begin with.

 

My main question is, although the Ryzen CPU is clearly the better of the 2, will I lose much transcoding power by losing QuickSync? At most, I would have 2 or 3 concurrent streams from users. I could have 4 if all users decided to stream something at the same time on something that won't direct play, but that's never happened & very unlikely to. 

 

Anyway, after the longwinded first post, here's my current setup & planned build. Appreciate any feedback/comments etc.

 

Current Build:

CPU: Core i7 2600 @ 3.4GHZ

Memory: 10GB DDR3 

OS SSD: 120GB Toshiba SSD (THNSNJ128GCSU)

Storage: 3TB Seagate Barracuda 

 

 

Unraid Build (I already have the video card and SSD laying spare):

 

PCPart Picker list

Case: Fractal Design Node 804 

Motherboard: Asus PRIME B450M-A Micro ATX 

CPU: Ryzen7 2700 3.2GHz 8-Core 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 
Cache Drive: Crucial MX500 250GB SSD 
Storage: WD Red 4TB
Storage: WD Red 4TB 
Video Card: MSI GeForce GT 710 1GB
PSU: SeaSonic FOCUS Gold 450W 80+ Gold Semi-modular ATX

 

 

[WooperDeeDoo]

The main thing that jumps out at me from your list when it comes to use case concerns are your transcode requirements. 

Even though Ryzen CPU's provide exceptional value for money on the compute side of things with extra cores and higher passmark scores, the one thing that they are lacking are the addition of the discrete graphics that appear on the majority of Intel consumer chips. This means that the CPU will only be offloading the files for transcode to your GPU, as it can't actually transcode them itself.

The next issue in this chain is that consumer Nvidia graphics cards are throttled to just two transcodes via the drivers meaning that the setup you have listed will never be able to transcode more than two streams at a time.

I'm actually in a similar position to you with a new build that I was considering the Ryzen route due to cost for performance. Then I started weighing the cost for performance as a plex server when pairing a CPU with a GPU to be able to transcode on Ryzen what just a CPU with built in discrete graphics could handle on its own from Intel so definitely look into that.

 

For example:
Plex state that you need approximately a 2000 passmark score per transcode required of a CPU. So for your use-case specifically, you could potentially scrap the GPU completely and go for something like an i3-9100 (passmark of 8624) which has Intel 630 graphics built in. This should handle your 2-4 transcodes, has the same TDP but will have a lower idle power usage than the Ryzen and save you the GPU entirely. 

 

[xxDeadbolt]

Yep transcodes is what is giving me the biggest headache when trying to decide, heh. I am starting to feel like I'm letting the Ryzen marketing/packaging get the better of me. My first ever self-build with with an Athlon XP setup, moving from an intel 386 so you can imagine my giant nostalgic soft-sport (read bias) for AMD after seeing the difference🤣

 

The GPU was more for initial setup & 'just in case' I needed to use at, as it'll be headless afterwards. I didn't even think that particular GPU could do transcodes, tbh, so it was never considered for that purpose. Have it in a box in my 'will get used at some point' pile. 

I couldn't actually tell you when I enabled hardware acceleration on Plex (as I wasn't aware of the option until fairly recently), but I have a feeling it was less than 12 months ago & I've been running Plex for closer to 4 years. I'm not sure if QuickSync will be *that* big a loss for my use-case, but I found it difficult to find black & white comparisons of having it or not, mainly because, admittedly, I'm not 100% sure on what exactly I'd be checking for on the CPU reviews.

[Decto]

Ryzen has generated a lot of press and excitement with more core for your cash so the idea or a 8C16T server at bargain prices can often seem like the obvious choice when the focus is raw CPU power per unit cost, however it's usually more complicated.

 

I run Plex, Radarr Sonarr, downloaders, some other dockers, a VM and some gamer servers on a E3-1225 V3 which is similar in performance to your current i5 2600 and it's fine, the only real CPU load is unrar of big downloads and that'sa burst now an then. 

 

As you say, the GT710 is hardware limited in decoding, and while it can do two streams (soft limit) there are a lot of formats it can't decode so will fall back to CPU. You also use up an expansion slot you may want for a SATA controller, faster networking etc. in the future. A lot of consumer boards won't boot unless they see a GPU so even running headless you may need the card in place or something with an iGPU or onboard VGA (usually server).

 

Take a look at an Intel B360 board, you shoud get at least one M.2 which I'd use for cache and that leaves 6 SATA for drive exansion. Look for 4 Dimm slots for future expansion and there is no real Ram compatibility issues (Ryzen Zen+ can be fussy) so you can pick the cheapest ram with the specs you like.

For CPU, the I5 9400, 9500, 9600 depending on budget and what you find in stock. (Not the I5 9x00F 's which have no GPU). 

 

While 6 core vs 8 core may seem like less performance, once you start transcoding being able to offload to the iGPU means you'll actually have more CPU resources available and your net power draw will be lower as the Intel CPU will be virtually idle (other than the iGPU transcode block). 

 

I have Ryzen in my gaming PC, great bang for buck and very versitile, but in my personal, non professional opinion for your use case of multiple plex streams, docker etc intel is a better fit. 

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by Decto

[xxDeadbolt]

Cheers, I'll have a look at those boards & CPUs.

Does having an M.2 not usually mean losing at least 1 SATA port? M.2/NVMe etc are all quite new terms for me, so still learning.



Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

[Decto]

Also consider the B365, a very similar board.

 

There are two types of m.2 drive, SATA and PCI-E.  Sata is a regular drive on a gum stick and in some cases shared ports with existing sata controller so you lost one if you used m.2.

 

The b360 / b365 has a good number of PCI-E lanes from the chipset so can operate a mix of PCI-E X2 and x4 gum stick drives which are independent from Sata. I have a WD blue in my gaming pc, approx 3 X SATA speed and very little price difference. Be aware there are both SATA and PCI-E drives labeled blue so you have to get the right one.

[xxDeadbolt]

Not sure why - but the i5 9500 & 9600 seem to be difficult to find without them looking overpriced, in the UK... Either out of stock, 'delayed' or even 'pre-order' in some places. the 9400 is easier to source, but no idea why the others aren't.

 

Slightly random question, but are c-states an issue with Intel CPUs, or is that just linked with Ryzen? I've read a few topics where it had to be disabled, but they were all Ryzen based builds.

 

For a B360 mobo I've randomly chosen (albeit, if I was to go Intel, it'll likely be my choice if I get my head around this M.2 stuff), the attached shows you need a M.2 PCIe SSD so that no SATA connectors are disabled. Am I right in thinking that this would be an NVMe M.2, or is it something like an adapter that slots into one of the actual PCIe slots that you then plug an M.2 guy into?

 

I've got a quick parts list for an Intel build drawn up, here... Is my understanding correct that, considering the attached specs for the mobo, this WD Blue guy wouldn't cause a SATA port to be disabled?

[Stiibun]

Yes that WD Blue should work just fine and like you said, you will not lose a SATA Port like that. So yes, you’ll need to look at NVMe M.2 SSD’s. Not sure if that WD is the best SSD for the price, some people with more knowledge might have better answers on that. 
 

Is there a reason you choose a motherboard with a B360 chipset? Just made my first unRAID build myself with a Gigabyte H370 D3H GSM board, which has 20 PCI lanes instead of 12 compared with the B360 chipset  Which gives me 2 M.2 slots so if I wanted to I could add two such SSD’s and put them in RAID 1 or use one for downloads and the other for the rest of the stuff. 

[xxDeadbolt]

No particular reason other than what was recommended above, so threw it together quickly. Although I said I'd likely go for it in my last reply, I'm more than happy to change components if within budget and there's a good reason... That definitely seems like a good reason for a different chipset.

The WD blue was chosen for same reason, just as it was mentioned and so I can try to get an understanding of the difference between an M.2 SATA & NVMe/PCIe.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

[Decto]

Recomendation for B360/365 vs H370 is cost, signifcant price jump to H370 typcially >£50 which would buy an additional NVME, a better CPU etc.

 

Some B360 do disable a SATA M.2  but only if you install a SATA M2 drive, no reason to do that this day and age.

The Blue drive was also quoted only as an example of little cost difference, though 250GB drives seem very expensive vs the small step up to 500GB,

 

The B365 also has 20PCI-E lanes so I had a quick look on PCpartpicker (UK) for cheapest, probably better for intel 9x00 anyhow as no risk of needing to flash the bios for support.

 

The ASROCK B365M PRO4 looks a good contender, 2x NVME drives, 6 SATA, 2 pcieX16 Slots (x16+x4) for expansion. A LSI card would be fine in the x4 later.

All in for ~£80

 

The 9400 can be found at smaller vendors, I've used pcupgrade.co.uk before and they show the 9400 in stock @ £173, may not be the cheapest but they show stock in this case.

 

You really have to shop around vendors to get the best deals and the 'value' intel CPU are a challenge at the moment as Intel isn't prioritising them since they have been in supply challenges the last 2 years. If it wasn't for a transcode server build I'd be recommending Ryzen all day long at this price point!

 

 

Quick Edit on M2 drives, if the max speed for read/write is around 560MB/s then it's sata , NVME should be >1000MB/s, typically >1500MB/s so it's a sure fire way to check. Don't get hung up on max read/write speed, most benefit of SSD is latency from being solid state so high sustained write speed doesn't matter for unraid. 

 

Also drive durability scales with size so while a 250GB drive may be specified as lifetime of 100TB written, an identical 500GB drive will be 200TB written. The cache drive will soak up frequent read write from dockers etc so bigger is better for drive life.  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 9, 2020 by Decto

[xxDeadbolt]

Funny you mentioned that ASRock board, I've got that on a list to check out, heh. 

 

I'm always drawn to the CPU midway in any model set, but looking at the 9x00's, other than the obvious clock speed, etc., there's not too much difference. Some instruction sets (TSX-NI, stable Image Platform Program (SIPP) & Trusted Execution Tech), which I doubt I would ever have a need for in my use-case.

 

Think the 9400 wins on this one due to price alone. 

 

I have a 250GB NVMe in my current saved list, but I think you're right in moving to 500GB... for another £20, it makes no sense when spending £600-£700 anyway.

[testdasi]

Hold your horses!

It's not that straight-forward, mate.

I was busy over the weekend defending my place against Ciara or I would have posted something.

 

First and most importantly, AFAIK, 9th-gen full QuickSync support is only available in kernel 4.20 and up.

Unraid 6.8.2 stable is still on 4.19 kernel.

So if you want QuickSync (which is the foundation of all the recommendations above about transcoding), you have to use 6.8.2-rc7 (which was on 5.x kernel) or wait for the Soon™ 6.9.0-rc1 (which Limetech promised will be on 5.x kernel).

Of course, given the fluid nature of Linux kernel, things could have been changed but keep that in mind if you find your QuickSync not working / not up to par.

 

Now on with other pointers:

• AMD and Intel measure TDP differently. Anyone trying to derive power consumption by using TDP numbers cross-brand has no idea what they are talking about, sorry to be harsh.
  • The GT 710 power consumption is so relatively low in the grand scheme of things that if you are so concerned about it in your upgrade decision, then you have even more pressing concerns to deal with e.g. food.
     
• The Ryzen 7 2700 can handle 3-4 1080p streams. In fact, I would not be surprised at all if it can handle 6-8. The Plex passmark recommendation is extremely conservative.
  • C State is a Ryzen thing.
     
• Ironically, I would still recommend you to go Intel i5-9400 for your build because, with your suggested usage assuming QuickSync works, it's a somewhat more cost effective build.
  • This particularly takes into account you already have hardware acceleration enabled in Plex, which means you have already purchased a Plex pass, which has to be considered as part of a Ryzen build cost.
  • This also assumes you shop around for a good Intel deal.
     
• When getting an NVMe drive, make sure it's 3D TLC (or 3D NAND or V-NAND or terms like that).
  • Avoid QLC like Intel 660p despite its low cost. It's dirt cheap for a reason (it's on par with a good SATA SSD on a good day and super freaking terrible on a bad one)
  • If you ever intend to pass through the NVMe as a PCIe device to a VM (i.e. stub it and select it in the other PCIe device section of the VM template GUI) then make sure to google the controllers of your NVMe in case there's any kernel conflicts. Some (e.g. many NVME runs SM2263 controller) need special workarounds (with limitations) and some (e.g. Intel 660p) just downright refuse to be passed through.

[xxDeadbolt]

25 minutes ago, testdasi said:

Hold your horses!

It's not that straight-forward, mate.

I was busy over the weekend defending my place against Ciara or I would have posted something.

 

First and most importantly, AFAIK, 9th-gen full QuickSync support is only available in kernel 4.20 and up.

Unraid 6.8.2 stable is still on 4.19 kernel.

So if you want QuickSync (which is the foundation of all the recommendations above about transcoding), you have to use 6.8.2-rc7 (which was on 5.x kernel) or wait for the Soon™ 6.9.0-rc1 (which Limetech promised will be on 5.x kernel).

Of course, given the fluid nature of Linux kernel, things could have been changed but keep that in mind if you find your QuickSync not working / not up to par.

 

Thanks for the post, I hope Ciara wasn't too harsh to deal with!

 

I won't be starting the process of buying the parts in for the build until later in the year, I have June/July in mind, so waiting on this support won't bother me too much. Even if it's not supported when I build, if I go Intel, I don't foresee any imminent issues in waiting for the Unraid updates. Also, do you mean 6.8.0-rc7, or have I misread some other posts?

 

As an aside, how often does Unraid typically update from, for example, 6.x.0 to 6.y.0? 

 

37 minutes ago, testdasi said:

Now on with other pointers:

• AMD and Intel measure TDP differently. Anyone trying to derive power consumption by using TDP numbers cross-brand has no idea what they are talking about, sorry to be harsh.
  • The GT 710 power consumption is so relatively low in the grand scheme of things that if you are so concerned about it in your upgrade decision, then you have even more pressing concerns to deal with e.g. food.

Nah, it was thrown in as it's laying spare & I thought I'd need it at least to do the initial setup.

 

 

40 minutes ago, testdasi said:

• Ironically, I would still recommend you to go Intel i5-9400 for your build because, with your suggested usage assuming QuickSync works, it's a somewhat more cost effective build.
  • This particularly takes into account you already have hardware acceleration enabled in Plex, which means you have already purchased a Plex pass, which has to be considered as part of a Ryzen build cost.
  • This also assumes you shop around for a good Intel deal.

Yeah I'd had Plex Pass for some time prior to finding the hardware acceleration option; I'd fallen into the misguided 'I need Plex Pass to share my library with others' train of thought.

 

I think Intel has won this battle for my build; while the CPU I currently have is still solid for my usage, I don't foresee the need to upgrade again any time soon going that way, unless my needs change. Having QuickSync seems like the way to go (even if it's in an updated version).

 

50 minutes ago, testdasi said:

• When getting an NVMe drive, make sure it's 3D TLC (or 3D NAND or V-NAND or terms like that).
  • Avoid QLC like Intel 660p despite its low cost. It's dirt cheap for a reason (it's on par with a good SATA SSD on a good day and super freaking terrible on a bad one)
  • If you ever intend to pass through the NVMe as a PCIe device to a VM (i.e. stub it and select it in the other PCIe device section of the VM template GUI) then make sure to google the controllers of your NVMe in case there's any kernel conflicts. Some (e.g. many NVME runs SM2263 controller) need special workarounds (with limitations) and some (e.g. Intel 660p) just downright refuse to be passed through.

I doubt I'll be doing this at any point, but that's good to know, cheers! 

[testdasi]

7 minutes ago, xxDeadbolt said:

Thanks for the post, I hope Ciara wasn't too harsh to deal with!

 

I won't be starting the process of buying the parts in for the build until later in the year, I have June/July in mind, so waiting on this support won't bother me too much. Even if it's not supported when I build, if I go Intel, I don't foresee any imminent issues in waiting for the Unraid updates. Also, do you mean 6.8.0-rc7, or have I misread some other posts?

 

As an aside, how often does Unraid typically update from, for example, 6.x.0 to 6.y.0? 

Thanks. We were fine but I saw tree branches flying in the air like leaves so could have been much worse.

 

It was indeed a typo. 6.8.0-rc7.

Officially Unraid will up a major version with a major feature release, which usually coincides with a kernel update.

6.8 was (as far as I can tell) for the new login screen and it was originally intended to be with 5.x kernel but LT had to fix a showstopper bug with docker networking so they reverted back to 4.19 (with the aforementioned promise of soon™ 6.9.0-rc1 coming out).

 

[xxDeadbolt]

I've not seen anything as bad as that where I am, but some of the videos/images on social media are crazy. As long as everyone is safe! 

 

That's not too bad, I wouldn't be confident running RC versions of Unraid (an additional variable on top of the chance of me accidentally borking something is something I can do without, heh) until I'm way more experienced with it, but I don't mind waiting on the support if the kernel update is relatively imminent.

[xxDeadbolt]

Another Question - looking at the prices just now, the i5-9400 is at the £190 mark (some of the links on PCPartPicker take you to different CPUs than the ones listed at lower prices). For an extra £10, an i5-9600k could be picked up. Would there be any disadvantages in doing this, other than not bothering with the unlocked multiplier? I know the TDP will be higher than the i5-9400; however, my current CPU is 95W I believe, same as the 9600k. Using Windows 10 at the moment, it'd probably be more efficient when using Unraid regardless.

 

Not saying this is the way I'm going to go, just wondering. 

 

[testdasi]

For £10 more, I would definitely pick the i5-9600K.

 

It really just a pure performance-based decision. You shouldn't be overclocking an Unraid server so whether it's K or not has no bearing. And 30W TDP diff in a 804 case is meaningless.

 

You will need to buy an additional CPU cooler though - I don't think the K series CPU comes with a stock cooler. Something like a Cooler Master Hyper 212 is a good budget choice (for about £30). It has quite a cult following as a good budget air cooler.

[xxDeadbolt]

Excellent, thanks. I'll keep an eye on the prices & hopefully they don't go up/crazy by the time I start the build.

 

I think I actually have a Noctua cooler spare, too, from when I moved to a Corsair H55 liquid cooling on my gaming rig using same CPU socket. 

 

If I don't this is a good shout.