Hi all, i hope i’m posting in the right area, my apologies if not.
I am looking for a little advice and hoping it doesn’t go too much over my head.
So i currently own a Synology DS920+ with 4x 14TB drives in a Synology SHR configuration (1 drive is kept as a backup/spare).
I use it to run Radarr/Sonarr/Prowlarr/Plex/ in docker but i am running out of space. I was looking at buying some larger drives, 20/22TB, but i’ve read varying reports on success of using drives that large and also the cost is quite high.
I have laying around an ASRock B450m-HDV motherboard which has a Ryzen 3 3200G cpu and 16gb (2x 8Gb Corsair Vengeance) ram sitting around doing nothing so i got to thinking maybe i could repurpose that and build my own DIY nas. I’m thinking of using the Fractal Node 804 case because i’ve read it supports up to 10 3.5" HDDs and for the OS i’ve read Truenas Scale is a good option because it supports docker which i’m vaguely familiar with after using it with the synology.
I share my plex library with a couple of friends and my parents and i have plex pass for hardware transcoding support.
I guess what i’m after is opinions on the hardware i have spare, will it be good enough to do what i can already do with the synology and will hardware transcoding be supported with an AMD (again i’ve read conflicting reports).
Next i would like to transfer my existing plex library over to the new system, can i just migrate the discs over and have access to my data or am i gonna need some drives to back it all up first then rebuild?
I’ve read some stuff about HBA with SAS cables to support up to 8 drives, the motherboard i have has 4 sata ports, can they be used in conjunction with the HBA for 12 drives and they will all go together in one pool or will i need different pools?
Any tips, recommendations or information anyone might be able to offer would be greatly appreciated. I’m in no way a noob to computers and their technical stuff but this home server/nas stuff is fairly new to me and has been pretty simple with the synology. Saying that though i am always eager to learn so fire away
The hardware is not optimal (no ECC, only 4 SATA and Realtek NIC, generally consumer-grade rather than server) but should be capable enough for a first dip into TrueNAS. For transcoding, your best option is an Arc 310 dGPU: Intel is much better than AMD at this.
TrueNAS can only read ZFS drives and knows nothing about SHR and its shenanigans, so it will be a transfer over the network.
You can mix motherboard SATA ports and HBA ports in a pool. But you have only one x16 slot for extension, so think hard about how many drives you want.
The x1 slot can only be used for boot drive, or an Intel i210 NIC to replace Realtek.
For the sake of location-aware recommendations: Where are you?
Hi, thanks for the reply. I am located in the United Kingdom.
is ECC a big thing? As i said i’m fairly new to the whole home server stuff and being that i’m only really looking to host a plex library with a couple of friends and family i wasn’t worrying too much about server hardware, instead hoping to use the stuff i had laying around, purchasing the HBA and case for the larger number of drives.
I was hoping the igpu of the ryzen would do the hardware transcoding rather than needing a dedicated gpu so i could use the x16 slot for the HBA. I do have a gtx 970 spare that i could use if need be though, i assume that would do the job?
Not unless you’re paranoid about your data (and if you’re considering ZFS, you are expected to be…), but it is a nice box to tick. I admit, however, that it is much a lesser concern than the lack of I/O on your B450M.
AMD iGPUs are far less effective at transcoding than Intel’s. I’m not sure where the GTX970 fits in there (and also which codecs you want to transcode…), but if you’re planning on using the case for more than 4 drives, you already need the slot for a HBA.
At this point, my suggestion would be to skip the HBA (even though it makes wiring easier) and get a (second-hand) Intel motherboard with 8 SATA ports. Say a Cascade Lake Z390 board with a Core i3-9100—or ideally this.
Again, i appreciate the reply. Annoyingly i gave away a Z390 motherboard with an i7-9700 to a family member a while back.
I do also have a Asus Rog B450-F Gaming II motherboard if that would be a better option but i don’t think that will fit the Fractal Node case. Hmm, i may have to condsider my options and wait till after christmas.
My media is generally H264/H265 or X265. I have no issues playing it myself but i have noticed plex always shows my parents stream, they use a firestick with the plex app installed is being trasncoded
How about an i5-10600k with an Asrock z590m phantom gaming 4 motherboard?
It has the pcie x16 slot the HBA card, an X4 slot for any other expansion and an X1 slot for an ethernet card if the onboard (Intel I219v) is not suitable?
Not protective at all, as mentioned it’s just gonna be a Plex server for myself, 2 friends and my parents so no data that is important I’m the grand scheme of things to worry about if data is lost.
I just want it to be expandable and I have this hardware laying around so my only cost will be the Fractal Node 804 case, about £100, and the HBA, about £40-50 from the quick search I did.
Depending on if you’re going to do HDR content, you may wish to plan for something that can indeed slot a GPU. iGPU, even on intel, really struggles with tone mapping. Otherwise, iGPU will pull you through without problems & this should be just fine.
Double check if any of the PCIE or nvme slots impact each other’s performance or shut down any sata ports when in use on the motherboard’s manual to avoid any gotchyas & plan accordingly after validating.
Thanks, nothing special or HDR stuff. Its literally just tv shows and movies that i’ve ripped from DVD/Blurays with MakeMKV. I’ve just run out of space on the synology and for the cost of 4 larger drives plus i won’t actually gain all that much extra space i figured i’d try and do a DIY using some of the older hardware i have laying around. I will be using WD Red nas drives though so hopefully that will lower (i know you can never say it won’t fail) the risk of something going amiss but as i mentioned, no big deal if it does, i can always rip the discs again
If you forego ECC, any motherboard with enough SATA ports should do.
You may drop the ‘K’ from the CPU.
Bonus if you can find an Intel i210 as NIC (no i211, i219).
All in the same house… or through Internet? Use a VPN!
As mentioned its not optimal, but nothing usually is, and although its not “server grade”, that shouldn’t really matter and it should make a good first TrueNAS…
(baring in mind that I have NOT researched your components)
Do run a memtest to verify that your RAM is currently functional before putting into service.
Is there any bifurcation options on that slot in the B450? Probably not… that would be good though.
The x1 slot is probably sufficient to run an intel gigabit or a 2.5gbps ether card if you have issues with the RealTek.
As far as I know, Intel iGPUs are highly optimised for efficient transcoding at low power (that’s what the Quick Sync brand is about). Non-Intel dGPUs can achieve better video quality at much higher power draw (an order of magnitude more). All I remember reading about transcoding on AMD iGPUs is: “Visible artifacts”.
I came from the Synology crib to TrueNAS, and I regretted it at first. It’s not that TrueNAS is bad - quiet the opposite - it’s brilliant! …and …it has a real learning curve to it.
As a “noob”, if you want simplicity and can stay in the Synology camp, do. It’s so much easier. Truly!
TrueNAS is amazing at what it does, and so much more so for being “free”, but don’t mistake the opportunity to reuse old hardware for a free meal. What you save for on hardware, you generously make up for in hours spent learning how to run TrueNAS and it’s ecosystem.
Ironically, I can say now that I’d never go back… I LOVE TrueNAS now that I know how to use it, but boy, oh boy were there frustrating late nights where I wish I had stayed in the comfort of the Synology guild… Life is finite!
Thanks for the suggestion and i did contemplate it but iam planning to forge ahead with the truenas. I won’t abandon the Synology till i feel comfortable enough with TrueNAS, my plan is start out with some small HDDs and learn a bit before taking the plunge to move all of my data over from the Synology
It took me 3 wipe-the-boot-drive-and-start-from-scratch attempts to get TrueNAS set up correctly, suffice it to say that the most important things I learned on the journey were:
ix-systems are upfront about the importance of the “immutability” of the operating system… avoid customizing / hacking the OS - use containers and/or VMs for customizing the box.
Consider watching some of Stux’s videos (Youtube) before setting up your apps & pools; his guidance on setting up Dockge is particularly helpful. While TrueNAS does a good job at hiding much of the complexity of running containers, in the long run it pays off to set up your stacks & container storage in places you own and can readily see.
Spend the time needed to understand ZFS. It’s an insanely cool filesystem, and absolutely isn’t the same as ext4, fat, ntfs, etc. I did some pretty dumb things at the outset because I didn’t understand “the ZFS way”.
