FreeNas to unraid. Is my hardware good enough?


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Hi team, 

 

I recently purchased a used mini ITX set up for NAS. I spent a few nights trying to setup FreeNas as that is what is currently Installed but seems overly complicated. The main purpose of for a Plex server and maybe torrent downloading

 

I'm thinking of switching to unraid, but will my set up work well with it?

 

Came with

Core i3 3.4ghz CPU

8GB RAM

4x 2TB Hard Drives, 5tb of that is redundancy.

 

But I have now ordered a gen 3 i7 3.4ghz. gen 3 is due to the motherboard. I also purchased 16gb of ddr3 ram. And looking at also buying a SSD tomorrow. I haven't installed either yet.

 

The systemc currently has FreeNAS 11.3 installed on a USB drive in the actual casing

 

I'm very new to all of this..

 

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On 8/2/2020 at 2:27 PM, Patrick_1989 said:

I'm thinking of switching to unraid, but will my set up work well with it?

 

It depends on what you want to do with it. Plex will run just fine unless you need to stream to a lot of devices.

Does you motherboard/bios supports iommu/vt-d? If not, you won't be able to passthrough hardware to VM's (if you need any).

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On 8/2/2020 at 7:27 AM, Patrick_1989 said:

Core i3 3.4ghz CPU

8GB RAM

4x 2TB Hard Drives, 5tb of that is redundancy.

 

But I have now ordered a gen 3 i7 3.4ghz. gen 3 is due to the motherboard. I also purchased 16gb of ddr3 ram. And looking at also buying a SSD tomorrow. I haven't installed either yet.

I'd say Plex will do okay with it on the i3, but it won't do that great for handling multiple streams or anything past 1080p resolution. The i7 upgrade is a good call, and the extra RAM doesn't hurt, but unless you have tons of VMs you want to run, it's not really necessary. 

 

Adding an SSD as cache will be great, I'd aim to get as much capacity on the SSD as you can stand, as it will future-proof it somewhat to other storage upgrades/changes down the line. Speaking of...

 

I'd also upgrade drives, easiest path would be to get 1 4TB / 6TB drive to use as a parity drive so that your current drives can function as a fully 8TB array, and you can upgrade the 2TB to the aforementioned 4/6TB capacity over time. 

 

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9 hours ago, Aran said:

It depends on what you want to do with it. Plex will run just fine unless you need to stream to a lot of devices.

Does you motherboard/bios supports iommu/vt-d? If not, you won't be able to passthrough hardware to VM's (if you need any).

Thanks for the info, I don't really understand what VMs are. I searched on the website of the motherboard and couldn't find any mention of Iommi/vt-d. So I'm thinking it's too old. (P8H77-I)

 

As for Plex at the moment I'll just be steaming 4k to my one TV, the files will be big tho averaging around 15gb

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6 hours ago, untraceablez said:

I'd say Plex will do okay with it on the i3, but it won't do that great for handling multiple streams or anything past 1080p resolution. The i7 upgrade is a good call, and the extra RAM doesn't hurt, but unless you have tons of VMs you want to run, it's not really necessary. 

All my movies will be 4k but only streaming to one tv, the movie files are like 20gb tho.

6 hours ago, untraceablez said:

Adding an SSD as cache will be great, I'd aim to get as much capacity on the SSD as you can stand, as it will future-proof it somewhat to other storage upgrades/changes down the line. Speaking of...

 

I'd also upgrade drives, easiest path would be to get 1 4TB / 6TB drive to use as a parity drive so that your current drives can function as a fully 8TB array, and you can upgrade the 2TB to the aforementioned 4/6TB capacity over time. 

 

I was going to look today but that's a good idea, I do want to upgrade the 2TBs as I don't know how old they are.

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15 hours ago, Patrick_1989 said:

All my movies will be 4k but only streaming to one tv, the movie files are like 20gb tho.

You should be good with the i7 upgrade then, although you might still hit a ceiling if you ever go beyond the one TV. 4K is seriously demanding as far as transcoding goes. 

 

15 hours ago, Patrick_1989 said:
Quote

Adding an SSD as cache will be great, I'd aim to get as much capacity on the SSD as you can stand, as it will future-proof it somewhat to other storage upgrades/changes down the line. Speaking of...

 

I'd also upgrade drives, easiest path would be to get 1 4TB / 6TB drive to use as a parity drive so that your current drives can function as a fully 8TB array, and you can upgrade the 2TB to the aforementioned 4/6TB capacity over time. 

 

I was going to look today but that's a good idea, I do want to upgrade the 2TBs as I don't know how old they are.

Yeah, the idea was that it would be cheaper for you to get going now while not screwing yourself down the road. Ideally your parity drive is as big as the largest individual drive in your array, so if you can stand to get one that's 6TB+ you'll be set for quite a while. Warning though, once you go above 4TB HDD prices can get a bit crazy. But hey, it's what you get being in the NAS/Homelab game, right?

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16 hours ago, Patrick_1989 said:

Thanks for the info, I don't really understand what VMs are. I searched on the website of the motherboard and couldn't find any mention of Iommi/vt-d. So I'm thinking it's too old. (P8H77-I)

I looked it up and your motherboard bios and cpu supports intel vt-d. You can enable it in the bios under 'Advanced' > 'CPU Configuration' > 'Intel® Virtualization Technology':

 

Quote

Intel® Virtualization Technology.

[Enabled] Allows a hardware platform to run multiple operating systems separately and simultaneously, enabling one system to virtually function as several systems.

[Disabled] Disables this function.

In short, it means you can passthrough devices (usb controllers, gpu's, network cards, etc...) to a virtual machine you created in unraid. You will find out when you learn to know unraid ;). Don't bother if you don't need it.

Edited by Aran
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On 8/3/2020 at 4:38 PM, Patrick_1989 said:

All my movies will be 4k but only streaming to one tv, the movie files are like 20gb tho.

 
 
 

 

On 8/4/2020 at 7:46 AM, untraceablez said:

You should be good with the i7 upgrade then, although you might still hit a ceiling if you ever go beyond the one TV. 4K is seriously demanding as far as transcoding goes. 

 

What are you using to play the movies on your TV? 

Any relatively recent device (Roku/AppleTV/FireTV/Shield) should be able to direct play your movies so you don't have to worry about transcoding.

Then your i3 will be plenty.

 

You'll also want to make sure your NAS is connected to your network via ethernet, not over wifi.  Trying to stream 4k when both your NAS and playing device are connected over wifi will be a buffering mess, regardless of how powerful your processor is.

Edited by krailor
grammar
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On 8/5/2020 at 12:46 AM, untraceablez said:

You should be good with the i7 upgrade then, although you might still hit a ceiling if you ever go beyond the one TV. 4K is seriously demanding as far as transcoding goes. 

 

Yeah, the idea was that it would be cheaper for you to get going now while not screwing yourself down the road. Ideally your parity drive is as big as the largest individual drive in your array, so if you can stand to get one that's 6TB+ you'll be set for quite a while. Warning though, once you go above 4TB HDD prices can get a bit crazy. But hey, it's what you get being in the NAS/Homelab game, right?

Thanks for your information, I ended up buying a 4TB HHD along with a 1TB SSD. The 6TB was just out of my budget at the moment. The 4TB with the other 2TB will work for now and in the future I'll upgrade to a few more 4TB. 

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On 8/5/2020 at 9:24 AM, krailor said:

 

 

What are you using to play the movies on your TV? 

Any relatively recent device (Roku/AppleTV/FireTV/Shield) should be able to direct play your movies so you don't have to worry about transcoding.

Then you're i3 will be plenty.

 

You'll also want to make sure your NAS is connected to your network via ethernet, not over wifi.  Trying to stream 4k when both your NAS and playing device are connected over wifi will be a buffering mess, regardless of how powerful your processor is.

I just bought a 65in LG CX so it has Plex as an app but I also have a NVIDIA shield so I plan on playing with both. I purchased a ethernet splitter the other day so I don't have to use wifi. I'll be home in a few days so hopefully all the parts are there so I can have a play

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On 8/5/2020 at 2:03 AM, Aran said:

I looked it up and your motherboard bios and cpu supports intel vt-d. You can enable it in the bios under 'Advanced' > 'CPU Configuration' > 'Intel® Virtualization Technology':

Sweet, I'll try work that out haha

On 8/5/2020 at 2:03 AM, Aran said:

In short, it means you can passthrough devices (usb controllers, gpu's, network cards, etc...) to a virtual machine you created in unraid. You will find out when you learn to know unraid ;). Don't bother if you don't need it.

Cheers for the info

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