Hi everyone!
(from France, so sorry for my english ^^)
I’m opening this first topic here because I want to build my first TrueNAS (in replacement of a Synology RS3621RPxs pool1 raid 6 4x14tb + pool2 6x3tb btrfs).I own a APS PSU
I have learned a lot from reading here and there (reddit, blogs…)!
I’d like to get some advice from more experienced people here, especially in a first time for the essential pair of components (CPU + motherboard).
My use:
Media storage (sharing and streaming to some friends and family): ROMs, video, music, photo, ebooks, accessible via FTP, SMB or other protocol
Services: Jellyfin (transcodage) or Plex (transcodage), up to 4 people simultaneously
Backup: PC, VMs
Cloud Backup: replicate the most sensitive data (not all NAS content) to external storage
Download: nzb, qBitorrent
Hardware essential characteristics:
Intel socket (Xeon ?)
DDR4 ECC (mini 4 slots)
M.2 for boot (on board or PCI card)
LSI SAS (2008, 3008 ?) controller (on board or PCI card)
I look for stability, durability and scalable material. I’m not in a time constrained situation and plan to purchase the components based on any promotions or second hand.
I have a big preference for Intel because I have owned a few AMD in the past (the 2000s) but each time disappointed, either because of the drivers, or because of the compatibility with specific equipment. A little burnt overall…
I think I’ll start with 8 drives, probably 12 afterwards.
I have a 4U rackmount Logic Case for my Proxmox machine of which I am fully satisfied, so I will definitely look at a 3 or 4U Logic Case with lots of hot-swappable drive bays.
I bought a HP prodesk mini G6 because it has more than enough cpu and ram to cope with multiple smb shares, jellyfin, vm for nginx proxy and nextcloud. I have installed 32GB of ram to increase cache size. It was just over £100 referbished and it contains an nvme ssd internally and 2x samsung hdds externally.
X12STH (or other C256 motherboard) + Xeon E-2300 (and the heavy Xeon tax compared with a desktop Core 10xxx); or
Whatever refurbished Xeon Scalable hardware you may find (at higher idle power); or conversely
The low power option X10SDV in FlexATX form factor (onboard 10 GbE?), one x8 slot for the transcoding GPU, the other slot for the HBA (or -7TP4F / -7TP8F board with onboard HBA).
This is a solid proposition! The price too, on a global configuration.
I think it will take a while to find good deals on this equipment.
Is Supermicro a trusted manufacturer for this type of card?
Core vs Xeon for my use?
If I leave the transcoding on my current machine, does this provide alternative solutions?
Supermicro is trusted, but really any server board from AsRock Rack, Gigabyte or others should do.
Xeon E (= Core with ECC) lets you do the transcoding by iGPU and provides the highest clocks, for SMB serving to a few clients.
Xeon Scalable or D would require a dGPU for transcoding (unless you get a Scalable CPU that is beefy enough to handle it), but can provide more cores (and support more RAM) for many apps and/or heavy VMs.
Hi, sorry for my absence.
Yes, there is a specific reason : I dedicate VMs to my other Proxmox machine. So, Core should mainly focus on files management and possibly some light services.
this should require lower performance, and therefore “less expensive” hardware.
So how much storage space are you wanting to have? Most people increase storage capacity when they upgrade.
Does the system need to be silent? Does it need to be small?
Is your priority lower cost or more reliable machine? And how reliable? (Yes we all want low cost and reliable but compromise is part of the game). One drive failure, two drive failure, etc? If you want 30TB of RAIDZ2 storage in a small form factor, then we can tell you how to do it. If it must also be silent, then that can be done too, with a much larger cost in my mind. Think about requirements like you were ordering a new car from the factory, all the little things that make it custom to your liking.
There are a lot of things you can do however being in France, I know you are limited by your market. I could tell you that the AMD SUX2000 motherboard it what you should have but it isn’t available or the cost is too high in France.
There are a lot of postings on the forum of people asking questions similar to yours. I recommend you search for those and read them in your spare time. Odds are you will see something you may desire or at least get you to a functional design faster that may meets your current needs.
Since this is your first posting, just a heads up… Do not buy cheap crappy parts or you will pay terribly for it later. Cutting corners on parts is a mistake if you want a reliable server that will last you in general at least 10 years (minus any HDD/SSD/NVMe and fans).
Looking to hear your answers to the questions. TrueNAS is a very good NAS platform, and much more.
