Graphics Card Recommendation // TrueNAS Scale + MiniX+

TrueNAS General
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No argument from me on using the right tool for the right job!

1 Like
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I wanted to chip in here. I have a MiniX+, and after reading this topic I understood that the A310 was a good option to get. Since some of you report issues with the A310 Sparkle’s fan, I went for the A310 ASrock.
The ASrock does not fit in the MiniX+ without removing the fans. Removing them was easy enough, as they’re just clipped in place, and for now I placed them on the side inside my case.

I’ll have to test the performance to see if it overheats, but finding this after waiting 2 weeks for delivery was a bit of a bummer.

Motherboard replacement / upgrade for TrueNAS Mini X+?
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It shouldn’t, but you should also know that @TheColin21 also helped find a fix for the Sparkle A310 fan ramp by updating the card firmware (this normally requires Windows as it’s part of the driver installation)

So if it’s not too late, you could return the ASRock - it’s double-wide and shouldn’t be expected to fit in the X+ chassis.

3 Likes
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Hi all just chimming in to provide my own success path:

  • Running TrueNAS Scale (25.10.4 - Goldeye) on a TrueNAS Mini X+
  • Purchased and installed a Sparkle Arc A310 (ECO - 4GB GDDR6)
  • Running Jellyfin as an Application (previously with no hardware acceleration, but a sizeable library of uncompressed 4K BluRay rips from my personal collection)

NOTE: While both the X and the X+ have a PCIe slot, it is disabled at the hardware-level on the X (to allow for more SATA lanes). So a discrete GPU can only be installed on the X+.

Everything worked completely smoothly, and was essentially plug & play.

NOTE: the Sparkle Arc A310 comes with a PCIe 4.0 16x Interface but runs in 8x mode. The Mini X+ has a PCIe 8x socket, but is open on the far side so you can still slot in a 16x interace into this just fine (without a downside either, as it only runs in 8x mode anyway)

When i installed the card, I had to re-arrange some cables inside the chassis to ensure the card could fit (there’s not much space), but it wasn’t too hard.

Jellyfin

After I installed the card, I then ensured that my Jellyfin app was configured to pass through GPUs (non-Nvidia), and then in the Jellyfin app I went to the administration dashboard and enabled:

Playback > Transcoding
  • Hardware Acceleration: Intel Quicksync (QVS)
  • QVS Device: /dev/dri/rednderD128
  • Enable hardware decoding for:
    • :check_mark:H264
    • :check_mark:HEVC
    • :check_mark:VC1
    • :check_mark:VP9
    • :check_mark:AV1
    • :check_mark:HEVC 10bit
    • :check_mark:VP9 10bit
  • Prefer OS native DXVA or VA-API hardware decoders: :check_mark:
  • Enable Hardware Encoding: :check_mark:
  • Allow encoding in HEVC format: :check_mark:
  • Allow encoding in AV1 format: :check_mark:
  • Enable VPP Tone mapping: :check_mark:
  • Allow subtitle extraction on the fly: :check_mark:
  • All other defaults left in place
Playback > Trickplay
  • Enable Hardware Decoding: :check_mark:
  • Enable hardware accelerated MJPEG encoding: :check_mark:
  • All other defaults left in place.

I’m now able to play my direct 4K BluRay rips with zero buffering and full bit-rate :smiley:

4 Likes
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On paper, the a310 looks like an awesome, power efficient solution to transcoding content. Thank you for the excellent tutorial.

We should put a couple of these together for popular packages like jellyfin, emby, plex. Ideally with a discussion up front of what to use when and why (ie use case analysis).

1 Like