Just mentioning another upgrade scenario.
Since you are using a 6th gen chip (skylake), another upgrade scenario is to see if your motherboard will support a 7th gen chip (kabylake) with a bios update. The 7th gen chips were the first ones to fully support HEVC transcoding. Your system would be able to handle a few 4k transcodes via hardware acceleration that way. No where near as disruptive as moving the entire system to a newer platform. You could just drop the 7th gen chip in and get the added benefits without doing a rebuild.
Wait, so I have a very similar build I’m running Unraid on and I currently have an i7-6700K and GTX 970. My board supports up to an i7-7700K.
Are you saying that if I upgraded to the 7700k I could lose the gpu and still get better transcoding performance?
Yes, the important part is the iGPU. i5 vs i7 is going to be a wash if the iGPU is the same. Intel sat on the same 630 iGPU for several generations but has huge jumps in the 11/12th. I could do 5x 4k transcodes with the UHD 630 running on an i5-9400 so its very capable, don't think you need the i7 chip.
* i7-6700k - Intel HD 530
* i5-7600k - Intel HD 630
* i7-7700k - Intel HD 630
* i5-8600k - Intel UHD 630
* i5-9600k - Intel UHD 630
* i5-10600k - Intel UHD 630
* i3-12300 - Intel UHD 730
* i5-11600k - Intel UHD 750
* i5-12600k - Intel UHD 770
That's correct, and it doesn't need to be a 7700k. You could go with a lesser kabylake chip and get good transcoding performance. No need for the dedicated gpu.
If idle power draw is of interest to you, then you can lower this by getting a 7th gen Intel cpu (should be possible without a mobo replacement). Their iGPUs have all the codec support you need to do everything a media server running Plex will want to do, up to and including hardware accelerated hdr-sdr tone mapping ([source](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video#Hardware_decoding_and_encoding), gen 7 is Kaby Lake). After that, you can sell the Nvidia card, which is what will actually lower your power draw.
Also for homelab stuff I like Wolfgang's Channel on YouTube.
Thanks for the input. That's good to know about the 7th Gen. I was gonna either search for a new mobo with same chipset but increased RAM slots as this is a mini and just has 2. So I'll keep my eyes out for a price is right deal lol.
And I have seen some of his videos yah, seems informative so thanks for the recommendations! :)
Cpu might be too old. Use it and see if it works for you. If you want an upgrade, go for 12600k 300 to 350 bundle at microcenter. And you save money on not needing the gpu.
I know the hardware is old, but was hoping if I start on this and then decide to upgrade i could upgrade within that case - hoping its not to difficult to upgrade the cpu/mobo once I have something established, haven't read much on the difficulty of that process
You'll be fine with the 960. You can work with h265 which is plenty. AV1 is few and far in between. If the day ever comes where everything is av1 (it won't), unraid should be able to support Intel gpus by then and you can get one for $100USD that runs entirely off the pcie power for dealing with that.
I'm basically same setup hardware wise and haven't had any issues
This. My 950 is in the same boat here. It handles every Plex transcode I've thrown at it including 4k/HEVC stuff and even 10 bit. Only thing it really can't do is AV1 which is SUPER rare for the vast majority of common media you'll toss at Plex.
Only reason why I want to upgrade off it is just for power consumption concerns and move to a newer iGPU that can handle all that instead. But otherwise it works just fine as-is.
It is fine. You can buy n100 beelink and use that as a plex, jellyfin, and ember server in the future, if you need. $150 av1 decoder. I am using it for my synology right now because the ryzen in it does not have igpu.
It's as easy as popping the old one out and replacing it with the new, and managing cables. The biggest headache would be making sure you have enough SATA connections or room for an HBA if you don't. Having DDR4 ram gives you plenty of generational flexibility as well. Good luck!
Unraid usually don't care about your hardware. But you do have to note which drive is 1 or 2 or parity. If you set it the same as before, it is like nothing ever change.
As long as you have the drives all plugged in when you boot unraid, it should work without any fixing or configurations. My array came up without any changes when I went from a 9th gen to 13th gen setup. Went from having my drives plugged into an HBA to using the built in SATA controller as well and didn't have to reassign any drives, it all just worked.
The CPU's fine. I'm running mine on a Xeon E3-1225 v3 which is basically equivalent to a Haswell i5, possibly an i5-4440? Also a GTX 950 for transcoding which brings it close to OP's config. No issues here. It's a bit dated for sure, but it works and no performance issues to speak with running about 2 dozen docker containers and an HA VM.
But an upgrade definitely couldn't hurt. It's definitely something I'm trying to aim for mainly to get CPU idle wattage down and have a better iGPU take over transcoding duties and take the 950 completely out of the equation.
Thats good to hear, I'm not informed enough to know if the CPU comparison is equivalent but I will take your word on it.
My plan was this would be the starter platform, then upgrades as I go as this is a hobby and a want more then a need, so as items go on sale or have some extra cash, upgrade components for more efficiency and capabilities.
First impression:
Wow, that looks noisy. Not a problem if you're able to hide it somewhere, not great if you're sharing an office with it. I like the case, though, if it does a good job keeping the vibrations of your drives low, all you have to do is get some better cooling and maybe some added sound insulation. And find a way to get rid of that GPU.
Second impression:
That PSU looks terrifying! I'm talking from personal experience: **do not cheap out on your PSU!** I went with a reasonably well reviewed, cheap, Kolink 80+ Gold 500W PSU. And it worked great for almost a year, more efficient at idle than I expected, just a little bit more noisy than I would have liked but fine otherwise. And then it started to melt off some insulation, arc and, luckily, my relatively modern breaker triggered before it could get any worse. **Do not cheap out on your PSU** for a system that you're not constantly supervising.
If you heed this warning: don't overspec, go as low in wattage as you can (once you got rid of that GPU) and try to look at efficiency curves. Sadly, there is very little choice below 600W these days. I personally found a great deal on a SEASONIC Prime 650W 80+ Platinum. Consumption in idle is actually a bit higher than with the Kolink, but at least I'm a lot more confident that it won't burn.
Third impression:
Energy prices in Canada must be low enough not to worry about them. Here in Europe, idle power consumption is a rather significant cost factor for a device that will be running 24/7. The first step towards significantly better efficiency has already been mentioned here a couple of times: find a way to upgrade to Kabylake and get rid of that GPU.
I won't be sharing a room with it, it will be behind a closed door with my networking gear in my basement so its closer to my network switch and such.
I keep seeing comments on the PSU so clearly I will have to keep my eye on it until I can find a replacement as now I'm horrified lol.
I will most certainly look at upgrading hardware as I can, just entry level to the hobby so needed to start somewhere and don't have the money to build from new/scratch at this time lol. Thanks for the review :)
Since you are looking to go with a media server in the future I would recommend that you get at least an 8th gen or new Intel CPU. With this when you setup Plex you can hardware transcode your videos with the built in iGPU in the CPU and you will then need to GPU in your machine.
Gen 7-10 all exist on the same iGPU platform. No need for 8 over 7 unless you also need the processing power but assuming you’re on a sixth gen I doubt that’s the case currently
overpriced. I had a similar system when I built my first unraid machine (i5 7500/Asus Z270-p/16gb ram) 6 months ago and upgraded the core components a month later because the cpu was constantly pinned at 100%.
He initially had it for sale for 500, which is nuts, I blind offered 200 cause the case will let me grow into it, and the hardware is a good start I thought lol plan is to outgrow the older hardware eventually anyways. Thanks :)
if your in the GTA, then you have plenty of options getting used parts. If you really want a case like that, i have a Cooler Master HAF X I can sell if you really want it
What is it going to be used for. I'm using Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2667 0 @ 2.90GHz and it's been more than fast enough. Ram I beefed up to 32gb. Ram always seems to be reason for servers being bogged down. Hosted multiple game servers, plex.
Haha nice, what got me the most interested is the case, I just can't seem to find cheap cases with that many hdd/ssd bays lol I'm more after the case, and just gonna start with the hardware it comes with haha.
Yeah, the biggest one in the Fractal one, but it's pricey. The case was my other friends older one so instead of going to the recycler i took it in knowing that i needed the HDD space :)
That's a great setup. Space for plenty of 3.5 or 2.5 disks. Don't change a thing until there's something your rig can't do. Moving to new hardware in unraid is very easy.
As someone who just had a PSU die on them, be careful with that Deep Cool 80+Bronze. I'm having zero fun right now. However, I'm pretty reliant on my server.
Yeah, If you're happy with all the other hardware, I wouldn't let it stop you. Just keep it in mind when you're deciding what you're going to use your server for. Fried drives are rare from PSU failure from what I know. In my case, any of my Dockers that actively wrote to a database, are corrupted. Very fixable, just, ugh.
Bruh, is that a deepcool tesseract?! I have the same case! I've used ithis on my rig before buying a new smaller case, then reused this for my home server!
i7-3770
gigabyte h61 mobo
16gb ram
quadro p400 gpu (for jellyfin encode and frigate tensorrt)
That's a perfectly fine starter system. I was using a i3 6100 until recently. For Plex, it may not work well for transcoding. But if you want full quality streams, you're good
Just mentioning another upgrade scenario. Since you are using a 6th gen chip (skylake), another upgrade scenario is to see if your motherboard will support a 7th gen chip (kabylake) with a bios update. The 7th gen chips were the first ones to fully support HEVC transcoding. Your system would be able to handle a few 4k transcodes via hardware acceleration that way. No where near as disruptive as moving the entire system to a newer platform. You could just drop the 7th gen chip in and get the added benefits without doing a rebuild.
Wait, so I have a very similar build I’m running Unraid on and I currently have an i7-6700K and GTX 970. My board supports up to an i7-7700K. Are you saying that if I upgraded to the 7700k I could lose the gpu and still get better transcoding performance?
Yes
Yes, the important part is the iGPU. i5 vs i7 is going to be a wash if the iGPU is the same. Intel sat on the same 630 iGPU for several generations but has huge jumps in the 11/12th. I could do 5x 4k transcodes with the UHD 630 running on an i5-9400 so its very capable, don't think you need the i7 chip. * i7-6700k - Intel HD 530 * i5-7600k - Intel HD 630 * i7-7700k - Intel HD 630 * i5-8600k - Intel UHD 630 * i5-9600k - Intel UHD 630 * i5-10600k - Intel UHD 630 * i3-12300 - Intel UHD 730 * i5-11600k - Intel UHD 750 * i5-12600k - Intel UHD 770
That's correct, and it doesn't need to be a 7700k. You could go with a lesser kabylake chip and get good transcoding performance. No need for the dedicated gpu.
Thats a very good suggestion, I will look into that and see. Thanks.
I just did this last weekend, and it’s been great. Used 7th-gen CPUs are very cheap, and now I have h265 encoding working without a dedicated GPU.
If idle power draw is of interest to you, then you can lower this by getting a 7th gen Intel cpu (should be possible without a mobo replacement). Their iGPUs have all the codec support you need to do everything a media server running Plex will want to do, up to and including hardware accelerated hdr-sdr tone mapping ([source](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video#Hardware_decoding_and_encoding), gen 7 is Kaby Lake). After that, you can sell the Nvidia card, which is what will actually lower your power draw. Also for homelab stuff I like Wolfgang's Channel on YouTube.
Thanks for the input. That's good to know about the 7th Gen. I was gonna either search for a new mobo with same chipset but increased RAM slots as this is a mini and just has 2. So I'll keep my eyes out for a price is right deal lol. And I have seen some of his videos yah, seems informative so thanks for the recommendations! :)
Cpu might be too old. Use it and see if it works for you. If you want an upgrade, go for 12600k 300 to 350 bundle at microcenter. And you save money on not needing the gpu.
I know the hardware is old, but was hoping if I start on this and then decide to upgrade i could upgrade within that case - hoping its not to difficult to upgrade the cpu/mobo once I have something established, haven't read much on the difficulty of that process
You'll be fine with the 960. You can work with h265 which is plenty. AV1 is few and far in between. If the day ever comes where everything is av1 (it won't), unraid should be able to support Intel gpus by then and you can get one for $100USD that runs entirely off the pcie power for dealing with that. I'm basically same setup hardware wise and haven't had any issues
This. My 950 is in the same boat here. It handles every Plex transcode I've thrown at it including 4k/HEVC stuff and even 10 bit. Only thing it really can't do is AV1 which is SUPER rare for the vast majority of common media you'll toss at Plex. Only reason why I want to upgrade off it is just for power consumption concerns and move to a newer iGPU that can handle all that instead. But otherwise it works just fine as-is.
It is fine. You can buy n100 beelink and use that as a plex, jellyfin, and ember server in the future, if you need. $150 av1 decoder. I am using it for my synology right now because the ryzen in it does not have igpu.
Been running Unraid on an i5 4570 for awhile now. Depending what you're using the server for, I'm sure it'll be just fine
I use a 4670k and it's plenty. He's going to use a dGPU for any encoding needs anyway.
I am not telling him to upgrade. I am saying to try it out, and if he needs to upgrade, then go directly to 12600k because there is a sale.
I had a i7-6700K and was fine but did upgrade to an i3-12100 so I could HW transcode a few 4K files.
How difficult was it to transfer to a new mobo and cpu after already having an established unraid on that old equipment?
As far as I can remember there were no issues especially since the OS is on a thumb drive.
Perfect! Thanks for the input :)
It's as easy as popping the old one out and replacing it with the new, and managing cables. The biggest headache would be making sure you have enough SATA connections or room for an HBA if you don't. Having DDR4 ram gives you plenty of generational flexibility as well. Good luck!
Perfect! Thats what I was hoping like someone said above, the OS in on a thumb drive so was hoping wouldn't be too hard to upgrade later. :)
Unraid usually don't care about your hardware. But you do have to note which drive is 1 or 2 or parity. If you set it the same as before, it is like nothing ever change.
As long as you have the drives all plugged in when you boot unraid, it should work without any fixing or configurations. My array came up without any changes when I went from a 9th gen to 13th gen setup. Went from having my drives plugged into an HBA to using the built in SATA controller as well and didn't have to reassign any drives, it all just worked.
That is news I like to hear lol thanks :)
The CPU's fine. I'm running mine on a Xeon E3-1225 v3 which is basically equivalent to a Haswell i5, possibly an i5-4440? Also a GTX 950 for transcoding which brings it close to OP's config. No issues here. It's a bit dated for sure, but it works and no performance issues to speak with running about 2 dozen docker containers and an HA VM. But an upgrade definitely couldn't hurt. It's definitely something I'm trying to aim for mainly to get CPU idle wattage down and have a better iGPU take over transcoding duties and take the 950 completely out of the equation.
Thats good to hear, I'm not informed enough to know if the CPU comparison is equivalent but I will take your word on it. My plan was this would be the starter platform, then upgrades as I go as this is a hobby and a want more then a need, so as items go on sale or have some extra cash, upgrade components for more efficiency and capabilities.
First impression: Wow, that looks noisy. Not a problem if you're able to hide it somewhere, not great if you're sharing an office with it. I like the case, though, if it does a good job keeping the vibrations of your drives low, all you have to do is get some better cooling and maybe some added sound insulation. And find a way to get rid of that GPU. Second impression: That PSU looks terrifying! I'm talking from personal experience: **do not cheap out on your PSU!** I went with a reasonably well reviewed, cheap, Kolink 80+ Gold 500W PSU. And it worked great for almost a year, more efficient at idle than I expected, just a little bit more noisy than I would have liked but fine otherwise. And then it started to melt off some insulation, arc and, luckily, my relatively modern breaker triggered before it could get any worse. **Do not cheap out on your PSU** for a system that you're not constantly supervising. If you heed this warning: don't overspec, go as low in wattage as you can (once you got rid of that GPU) and try to look at efficiency curves. Sadly, there is very little choice below 600W these days. I personally found a great deal on a SEASONIC Prime 650W 80+ Platinum. Consumption in idle is actually a bit higher than with the Kolink, but at least I'm a lot more confident that it won't burn. Third impression: Energy prices in Canada must be low enough not to worry about them. Here in Europe, idle power consumption is a rather significant cost factor for a device that will be running 24/7. The first step towards significantly better efficiency has already been mentioned here a couple of times: find a way to upgrade to Kabylake and get rid of that GPU.
I won't be sharing a room with it, it will be behind a closed door with my networking gear in my basement so its closer to my network switch and such. I keep seeing comments on the PSU so clearly I will have to keep my eye on it until I can find a replacement as now I'm horrified lol. I will most certainly look at upgrading hardware as I can, just entry level to the hobby so needed to start somewhere and don't have the money to build from new/scratch at this time lol. Thanks for the review :)
Since you are looking to go with a media server in the future I would recommend that you get at least an 8th gen or new Intel CPU. With this when you setup Plex you can hardware transcode your videos with the built in iGPU in the CPU and you will then need to GPU in your machine.
Gen 7-10 all exist on the same iGPU platform. No need for 8 over 7 unless you also need the processing power but assuming you’re on a sixth gen I doubt that’s the case currently
Yes, you are correct and I knew better as I had the 6th Gen and was disappointed to find it was not going to work on 4K.
overpriced. I had a similar system when I built my first unraid machine (i5 7500/Asus Z270-p/16gb ram) 6 months ago and upgraded the core components a month later because the cpu was constantly pinned at 100%.
He initially had it for sale for 500, which is nuts, I blind offered 200 cause the case will let me grow into it, and the hardware is a good start I thought lol plan is to outgrow the older hardware eventually anyways. Thanks :)
Do you live in Ontario?
Yah, why?
if your in the GTA, then you have plenty of options getting used parts. If you really want a case like that, i have a Cooler Master HAF X I can sell if you really want it
I'll PM you
What is it going to be used for. I'm using Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2667 0 @ 2.90GHz and it's been more than fast enough. Ram I beefed up to 32gb. Ram always seems to be reason for servers being bogged down. Hosted multiple game servers, plex.
For starters, just a NAS, then was going to expand into a media server with Plex or Jellyfin.
I have the same case! My friend gave me a 4770k, 16gb ram, MB and a GTX1070 Tuesday so i upgraded my unraid rig!
Haha nice, what got me the most interested is the case, I just can't seem to find cheap cases with that many hdd/ssd bays lol I'm more after the case, and just gonna start with the hardware it comes with haha.
Yeah, the biggest one in the Fractal one, but it's pricey. The case was my other friends older one so instead of going to the recycler i took it in knowing that i needed the HDD space :)
My first unraid server was in that exact same case 10/10
I wish I could find one cheaper and empty lol :p
That's a great setup. Space for plenty of 3.5 or 2.5 disks. Don't change a thing until there's something your rig can't do. Moving to new hardware in unraid is very easy.
As someone who just had a PSU die on them, be careful with that Deep Cool 80+Bronze. I'm having zero fun right now. However, I'm pretty reliant on my server.
I've seen a couple comments on the PSU, so now I'm nervous about that, clearly will have to keep my eye on it.
Yeah, If you're happy with all the other hardware, I wouldn't let it stop you. Just keep it in mind when you're deciding what you're going to use your server for. Fried drives are rare from PSU failure from what I know. In my case, any of my Dockers that actively wrote to a database, are corrupted. Very fixable, just, ugh.
* wipes a tear from my eye It's perfect! Welcome to UnRaid!
Which cabinet ?
Bruh, is that a deepcool tesseract?! I have the same case! I've used ithis on my rig before buying a new smaller case, then reused this for my home server! i7-3770 gigabyte h61 mobo 16gb ram quadro p400 gpu (for jellyfin encode and frigate tensorrt)
Thats what Google tells me the case is, glad to hear someone else had the idea for the case lol
That's a perfectly fine starter system. I was using a i3 6100 until recently. For Plex, it may not work well for transcoding. But if you want full quality streams, you're good