# Home server build advice



## bohrz (Jun 6, 2022)

Hello everyone!

I'm looking for advice on building a home server. What I need is a simple server for saving some family photos and some work related files, and I would also like to have a Plex (or equivalent) system. From what I searched, TrueNAS is a good solution, am I correct?

Hardware wise, what should I be looking for? My network is nothing fancy, only my main PC has a Gigabit port, so no 10Gb for me for the time being. I also aiming for 8TB storage for starters. What CPU, mortherboard, RAM would you suggest? Should I use an SSD for caching or running the OS?

Thank you all in advance.


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## cvaldes (Jun 6, 2022)

For consumer content archiving, simple file sharing, and Plex serving, I would probably look at Raspberry Pi 4 solutions before anything else since I could allocate more budget to storage rather than the host system hardware itself.

While I do not have that same usage case, I am running LibreElec/Kodi on a RPi4 (a $100 Canakit starter kit purchased a couple of years ago) and there's an 8TB external HDD hanging off one USB port and it works fine.

It dual boots Raspbian from a microSD card and I'm sure Linux geeks have written all sorts of fine (and some perhaps not so fine) software for these usages.

Brand new PC hardware for these now-mundane tasks seems a bit like overkill in 2022 and for sure the RPi4 consumes far less electricity than your typical x64-based PC. If you had old PC hardware lying around, it might be worth trying to get Linux running on it for such purposes but it will still use far more electricity than an RPi4.


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## bohrz (Jun 6, 2022)

Would I be able to edit files directly from the raspberry? I mean opening and working on the files with VS Code without the need for copying it.
Does Plex need transcoding? Is the raspberry enough?

Thank you for the response.


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## Toothless (Jun 6, 2022)

Can always do some older V2/V3/V4 Xeons. They have quite a bit of bandwidth and options if you need some power over a Pi or Atom.


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## Mussels (Jun 6, 2022)

You just need a PC. Get the software side sorted, THEN throw money at storage.
With the exception of transcoding, a file server has really, REALLY low hardware needs - hence the RPi suggestion above

If you arent transcoding anything, you can just use a regular NAS or even a boring old windows PC with file sharing.

I use what was meant to be a thin client with a 3rd gen i5, with a USB 3.0 4TB drive.


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## bohrz (Jun 6, 2022)

I'll take a look into the Xeons, but living in Brazil, I kinda doubt it will be affordable. Prices here rarely go down .
My first thought was to go with some Ryzen 3 with integrated video



Mussels said:


> You just need a PC. Get the software side sorted, THEN throw money at storage.
> With the exception of transcoding, a file server has really, REALLY low hardware needs - hence the RPi suggestion above
> 
> If you arent transcoding anything, you can just use a regular NAS or even a boring old windows PC with file sharing.
> ...


Sorry if I'm asking something stupid, but using Plex wouldn't I need some transcoding power? I also think a NAS would be more expensive here in Brazil, compared to a low end PC. Also, I enjoy the learning and DIY part of building your own.


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## Mussels (Jun 6, 2022)

bohrz said:


> I'll take a look into the Xeons, but living in Brazil, I kinda doubt it will be affordable. Prices here rarely go down .
> My first thought was to go with some Ryzen 3 with integrated video
> 
> 
> Sorry if I'm asking something stupid, but using Plex wouldn't I need some transcoding power? I also think a NAS would be more expensive here in Brazil, compared to a low end PC. Also, I enjoy the learning and DIY part of building your own.


Plex can send the files as-is with no encoding, that's upto you and what you store in the first place.

If you store everything in H264 with stereo audio, everything can play it natively and nothing would need transcoding.

Keep 50GB HEVC HDR files with 7.1 dolby atmos, and you're gunna need a high core count system to transcode that for older hardware to play it back.


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## bohrz (Jun 6, 2022)

Mussels said:


> Plex can send the files as-is with no encoding, that's upto you and what you store in the first place.
> 
> If you store everything in H264 with stereo audio, everything can play it natively and nothing would need transcoding.
> 
> Keep 50GB HEVC HDR files with 7.1 dolby atmos, and you're gunna need a high core count system to transcode that for older hardware to play it back.


I just bought an LG C1, from what I could gather it is able to handle HEVC, is that right? If so, I think I'll be fine with a raspberry.


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## cvaldes (Jun 6, 2022)

While I have not tried it myself on my own LG C1, this TV receiver has a pretty capable CPU so having the Plex server stream the original content without transcoding will probably work fine for almost all 4K content.

Transcoding on the Plex server is primarily for weaker/older client hardware which the LG C1 family is decidedly not.


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## 1freedude (Jun 6, 2022)

RPi nB are vaporware right now.  I did find a Extreme kit on Cana for $149.  Kinda defeats the purpose...

Repurpose an old laptop from (CL) your local used computer site


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## bohrz (Jun 6, 2022)

Well guys, I appreciate the answers. If I'm able to find a Raspberry Pi 4 here in Brazil for a good price I'll got for it, but it seems it has low availability world wide as of now. Nevertheless, I think I got the idea and requirements for a simple home server. Thank you everyone.


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## claes (Jun 6, 2022)

Just FYI, you can’t run truenas on a Pi or any ARM based system.






						Docs Hub | CORE Hardware Guide
					

CORE Hardware Guide




					www.truenas.com
				




If you’re planning on ZFS I’d consider a Xeon and ECC memory. It’s expensive, and a lot of people have no issues with consumer hardware/unregistered memory, but generally the way to go.


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## Mussels (Jun 6, 2022)

bohrz said:


> I just bought an LG C1, from what I could gather it is able to handle HEVC, is that right? If so, I think I'll be fine with a raspberry.


If you're only playing files back on the one device, all you need is a USB hard drive and play them locally


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## bohrz (Jun 6, 2022)

That's an option, but I want a central file location for my family photos and files, the Plex part is a bonus, as it allows me to use larger/more quality files for movies. I do not have a large flash drive, and it's pretty slow to move larger files. And I like the challenge and learning path to do such a build.


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## Mussels (Jun 7, 2022)

bohrz said:


> That's an option, but I want a central file location for my family photos and files, the Plex part is a bonus, as it allows me to use larger/more quality files for movies. I do not have a large flash drive, and it's pretty slow to move larger files. And I like the challenge and learning path to do such a build.


In that case, grab whatever old PC or laptop you can get your hands on, choose an OS and install it.
Set up some shared folders with user and password access (certain users have write access, everyone else is read) as a practice run

Once thats working, add in a second drive and set it up so you have read/write access and no one else, and let plex access the videos there and transcode if needed - but do your best to get universally compatible files in the first place, if you dont want to see 100% CPU usage for potato quality


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## Valantar (Jun 7, 2022)

I'm running TrueNAS on my old Ryzen 5 1600X, with ECC RAM in a crappy Biostar X370GTN. It's massive overkill (I don't do transcoding and haven't really bothered making use of most of the advanced functions in TrueNAS), but I had most of the hardware already, so it was much cheaper than a NAS for me - and it's flexible and configurable. Very happy with it so far, sitting at 6 months uptime with no hiccups, will be taking it down for a storage upgrade soon. Got my ECC RAM cheap off Ebay from a seller in the EU, which was relatively affordable for 32GB and worked perfectly even on a consumer Ryzen board (ECC options showed up in BIOS, ran a few tests to confirm). That's a nice advantage of Ryzen, even if the platform isn't officially supported by IXSystems. Still, I would only recommend this if you have spare hardware lying around or can find cheap used hardware, as it gets expensive quickly.

For TrueNAS, an SSD for caching isn't really a thing. You can set an SSD as L2ARC, but that isn't the same as a cache for speeding up user access - it mostly caches ZFS data, so it's more of a second layer of RAM, though not quite that either. I run my OS off of an old 128GB SSD as I had it around and IXSystems advises against running the OS off of flash drives. I also got a used LSI HBA for more drives since the four on my motherboard was insufficient, but using the built-in ports is perfectly fine.

Still,for your use case, unless you need a lot of transcoding (that can't be handled in hardware by a pi or target device), I would go for something simpler and more affordable.


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## Count von Schwalbe (Jun 7, 2022)

Valantar said:


> I'm running TrueNAS on my old Ryzen 5 1600X ...
> 
> For TrueNAS, an SSD for caching isn't really a thing. You can set an SSD as L2ARC, but that isn't the same as a cache for speeding up user access - it mostly caches ZFS data, so it's more of a second layer of RAM, though not quite that either.


Is StoreMI at the OS level or BIOS? That could be an option for SSD caching, if your OS is compatible.


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## bohrz (Jun 7, 2022)

Thank you all for the suggestions!
I'm setting and old (very old) laptop so I can test the file sharing side of things (Plex is a bonus, I'll work on it later). If I get the hang of it, I'll invest some money on a dedicated machine.
RPi is kinda difficult to find, like commented, and here in Brazil Intel motherboards are a little too expensive and the AMD side, the CPUs are a bit too much.

If I go for an AMD it must have a GPU, right? Integrated or dedicated, one is necessary to boot, I believe, am I correct?

Edit: I also could buy some cheap GPU for a Ryzen system. What would suffice? GT 710 or should I go for a 1030, maybe?


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## Valantar (Jun 7, 2022)

Count von Schwalbe said:


> Is StoreMI at the OS level or BIOS? That could be an option for SSD caching, if your OS is compatible.


AFAIK StoreMI is driver/software dependent and won't work outside of Windows.


bohrz said:


> Thank you all for the suggestions!
> I'm setting and old (very old) laptop so I can test the file sharing side of things (Plex is a bonus, I'll work on it later). If I get the hang of it, I'll invest some money on a dedicated machine.
> RPi is kinda difficult to find, like commented, and here in Brazil Intel motherboards are a little too expensive and the AMD side, the CPUs are a bit too much.
> 
> ...


You don't need a GPU to boot into TrueNAS - my system runs headless on a Ryzen 1600X, and TrueNAS doesn't have a local GUI, just a command line and web interface. I guess it's possible that some motherboards will refuse to boot without a GPU, but mine definitely works fine without one. I have an old Radeon HD 6450 that I use for BIOS access and stuff like that if I need it, but that then replaces either my 2.5GbE NIC or my HBA. AFAIK FreeBSD (which TrueNAS is built on) even supports DisplayLink adapters for video output, but I haven't had a chance to test that out.


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## bohrz (Jun 7, 2022)

Valantar said:


> AFAIK StoreMI is driver/software dependent and won't work outside of Windows.
> 
> You don't need a GPU to boot into TrueNAS - my system runs headless on a Ryzen 1600X, and TrueNAS doesn't have a local GUI, just a command line and web interface. I guess it's possible that some motherboards will refuse to boot without a GPU, but mine definitely works fine without one. I have an old Radeon HD 6450 that I use for BIOS access and stuff like that if I need it, but that then replaces either my 2.5GbE NIC or my HBA. AFAIK FreeBSD (which TrueNAS is built on) even supports DisplayLink adapters for video output, but I haven't had a chance to test that out.


Is there any way for me to know if the MB boots without video? Some specification I should check?


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## Valantar (Jun 7, 2022)

bohrz said:


> Is there any way for me to know if the MB boots without video? Some specification I should check?


Not that I know of, unfortunately.


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## bohrz (Jun 7, 2022)

So I have been searching for the parts here in Brazil and Paraguay (cheaper parts and accessible for me) and came to some options. A RPi here in Brazil is costing almost the same as a Intel Pentium or Celeron system, should I still consider it or the Intel processors are better suited for the task?

AMD apu's are either not available or too expensive, that's why I opted for Intel.

I do not have an older system to repurpose, just my 2700X, which I assume is really overkill by the comments in this thread.

So I came out with the system below:

Intel Pentium Gold G6405/G6400
Gigabyte H410M H V3 (confusing name as it's a H510 chipset)
Some Kingston, Sandisk, whatever is cheaper 120GB SSD for the OS
RAM I'm going for some cheap DDR4, but got confused. The TrueNAS site specs lists 16GB as recommended, 8GB minimum (I was hoping for 4GB, is 8/16 really necessary?)
The least powerful PSU from brands I know and found here is a Cooler Master Elite V3 400W, if anyone can suggest a better suited PSU I appreciate
A case, to be decided, not relevant to the discussion
And one 8TB HDD for starters (is there any specifc feature I should be aware of? Like rpm, cache or some 5400 rpm drive is enough?)

Depending on your suggestions/replies I could go for an i3, even if it's overkill, but because it's available and buying in Paraguay it's about the same cost as the Pentium in Brazil. I really appreciate some suggestions, but availability here is really bad, specially nowadays.


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## Jetster (Jun 7, 2022)

bohrz said:


> Hello everyone!
> 
> I'm looking for advice on building a home server. What I need is a simple server for saving some family photos and some work related files, and I would also like to have a Plex (or equivalent) system. From what I searched, TrueNAS is a good solution, am I correct?
> 
> ...



Here's mine, TrueNAS   Its been running for 4 years now

NAS build | TechPowerUp Forums

You can use a small SSD for the system, you can even use a thumb drive for the OS but it's not recommended any longer. You don't need cashing
You need 1 Gb ram for every Tb of space if I remember right 

i3 CPU
16 Gb ddr3
LSI SAS 9211-8i HBA
ZFS file system
RAID-Z2 (RAID6)
5-6Tb drives, which I end up with 15.6 Tb of usable space

Plex add on for TrueNAS has a learning curve. At least I struggled with it for some time. But after the set up it work great.








Valantar said:


> AFAIK StoreMI is driver/software dependent and won't work outside of Windows.
> 
> You don't need a GPU to boot into TrueNAS - my system runs headless on a Ryzen 1600X, and TrueNAS doesn't have a local GUI, just a command line and web interface. I guess it's possible that some motherboards will refuse to boot without a GPU, but mine definitely works fine without one. I have an old Radeon HD 6450 that I use for BIOS access and stuff like that if I need it, but that then replaces either my 2.5GbE NIC or my HBA. AFAIK FreeBSD (which TrueNAS is built on) even supports DisplayLink adapters for video output, but I haven't had a chance to test that out.



You need video to set up the system, make the boot drive and get the local ip. After the set up you can remove the GPU and it will work fine headless. But it takes like 6 min to boot so keep that in mind. Also if you need to reset the password you will need to command line access. So in the beginning its nice to have a monitor.

Another thing you might look at is UNRaid. It has the ability to use drives that are of different sizes. Very low cost system


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## Valantar (Jun 7, 2022)

bohrz said:


> So I have been searching for the parts here in Brazil and Paraguay (cheaper parts and accessible for me) and came to some options. A RPi here in Brazil is costing almost the same as a Intel Pentium or Celeron system, should I still consider it or the Intel processors are better suited for the task?
> 
> AMD apu's are either not available or too expensive, that's why I opted for Intel.
> 
> ...


The rule of thumb for RAM for any ZFS system is 1GB of RAM per TB of raw (not accessible, raw) storage capacity. So for a single 8TB drive, that means a minimum of 8GB, and if you want any room to add storage later on you're going to need more RAM. This isn't a cut-and-dried rule - AFAIK it will _work_ with less, but it will hurt performance (significantly, from what I understand), as ZFS actively manages its caches in RAM (i.e. what tells your system where files are accessible etc.). Pushing that to a swap file will make file accesses chug. Every build recommendation I've ever seen starts out with that 1GB per 1TB line. Here's the current RAM usage on my 32GB RAM TrueNAS system, which has 14.5TB of installed storage and is not currently being used in any meaningful way. As you can see it will use more than 1GB/TB if it can too.




The only services I'm running are UPS monitoring, SMB shares, scheduled SMART checks and an OpenVPN server - everything else in that 'services' is the OS. So if I were to guess, 4GB would be enough to run the system and a bit more, but I doubt it's anywhere near enough to get decent performance with 8TB of storage.

As for storage: if you care about the data you're storing, I'd strongly recommend something more robust than a single drive. Essentially, using TrueNAS for a single drive is just _massive_ overkill, and you'll be losing out on its main advantages, as you won't have any redundancy and won't be able to really make use of ZFS. I run my backups/important files storage on two mirrored drives, which is kind of a minimum if you are concerned about data loss. After all, a single drive can die and will take everything stored on it with it when it goes. ZFS really shines for larger arrays as an alternative to more complicated RAID setups, but that's way out of my budget and needs - and yours, I would assume. But I would strongly recommend doubling up that 8TB drive even if it's a significant cost to you.

One thing this is starting to demonstrate: TrueNAS might be free, but running it is _expensive_. As I said, the only reason I got into it was that I already had the hardware and it would be cheaper than buying an off-the-shelf NAS. For your use, I honestly think you'd be better off looking at an affordable 2-bay or 4-bay NAS instead, as you're not starting out with spare hardware on hand and don't need tons of drives.



Jetster said:


> ou need video to set up the system, make the boot drive and get the local ip. After the set up you can remove the GPU and it will work fine headless. But it takes like 6 min to boot so keep that in mind. Also if you need to reset the password you will need to command line access. So in the beginning its nice to have a monitor.


Yep, that's the disadvantage of not running server hardware with IPMI - if the web UI stops working, the only recourse is to connect a monitor to see what's happening. I've only had that happen once, and it was pure PEBKAC, but it's still not fun. Definitely need _some_ kind of acces to a GPU - though as I said Displaylink adapters are reportedly supported (but likely require some kind of tuning for TrueNAS to recognize them).


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## Jetster (Jun 7, 2022)

I have 5 - 6Tb drives so 30 Tb Z2 which is 15.6 Tb of usable space


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## bohrz (Jun 6, 2022)

Hello everyone!

I'm looking for advice on building a home server. What I need is a simple server for saving some family photos and some work related files, and I would also like to have a Plex (or equivalent) system. From what I searched, TrueNAS is a good solution, am I correct?

Hardware wise, what should I be looking for? My network is nothing fancy, only my main PC has a Gigabit port, so no 10Gb for me for the time being. I also aiming for 8TB storage for starters. What CPU, mortherboard, RAM would you suggest? Should I use an SSD for caching or running the OS?

Thank you all in advance.


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## Valantar (Jun 7, 2022)

Jetster said:


> I have 5 - 6Tb drives so 30 Tb Z2 which is 15.6 Tb of usable space
> 
> View attachment 250234


That's not a lot of ZFS cache for that capacity  What does your swap usage look like?

Edit: it's also worth noting that ZFS's caching is ... I don't know whether to say opportunistic or expansive; i.e. it uses what RAM it can get to keep its data acecssible, more or less. That means high RAM use that is likely mostly inactive but kept at the ready.


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## bohrz (Jun 7, 2022)

Yeah, I know it's expensive. As far as I can tell, off-the-shelf NASes (excluding disks) cost more than the system I'm looking into (again, excluding disks) and offer no upgradabilty (at least the way I see it). Another point for building it myself is I like the experience and learning path.

Regarding the hardware, not including the disks, would it be enough? I can purchase 16GB, no problem, it just surprised me.

About the disks, can I add the second one for mirroring at a later point? The wife is not gonna like the initial cost, but if it is crucial or can't be added later, I'll convince her

Edit: all the points I'm making is regarding to the reality here in Brazil.


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## Jetster (Jun 7, 2022)

This is with 1, 1080 stream running.  It says 0






This system has been running for 4 years 24/7

Two of my kids stream Plex from their houses, No more than two at a time. Never had an issue

I was going to put 32 in it. But it works so well I never did







bohrz said:


> Yeah, I know it's expensive. As far as I can tell, off-the-shelf NASes (excluding disks) cost more than the system I'm looking into (again, excluding disks) and offer no upgradabilty (at least the way I see it). Another point for building it myself is I like the experience and learning path.
> 
> Regarding the hardware, not including the disks, would it be enough? I can purchase 16GB, no problem, it just surprised me.
> 
> ...



To add a drive in TrueNAS you have to rebuild the array. So to add a second mirror drive you have to copy everything off. Rebuild the array and copy it back
When I started out, I just bought a bunch of refurbished 3 Tb enterprise drives for cheap. Like $25 each. luckily it worked. Then when I had the $ I bought the big drives.
Plus I got better and working with TrueNAS with all the practice


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## Mussels (Jun 8, 2022)

bohrz said:


> Thank you all for the suggestions!
> I'm setting and old (very old) laptop so I can test the file sharing side of things (Plex is a bonus, I'll work on it later). If I get the hang of it, I'll invest some money on a dedicated machine.
> RPi is kinda difficult to find, like commented, and here in Brazil Intel motherboards are a little too expensive and the AMD side, the CPUs are a bit too much.
> 
> ...


On the AMD side, ryzen chips without G dont have onboard graphics
Nvidia 1050 or above would be great, since plex can use their hardware encoding instead of the CPU for transcoding (same with intel graphics, although CPU tends to give better quality at lower res and bitrates)

900 series can do H264, 1050 and up can do H265
Various entry level cards are misleading and from previous generations, so the 1030 for example cant do harwdare encoding/transcoding at all
nVidia Hardware Transcoding Calculator for Plex

Ryzen 2000 or 3000 (i forget which, damn) had a unique bug with the nvidia 600 and 700 cards where you had to lock the PCI-E lanes to 2.0 to get them working, however i think newer BIOSes fixed that as my GT610 worked fine in my 2700x system recently Worth knowing if you run into any black screen issues.


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## Marstg (Jun 8, 2022)

I would say the same thing and repurpose an old corporate machine with 16 GB ram and integrated graphics like a core i7-3770, non k or a Xeon from that era. Dell/HP workstation are aplenty on ebay in US already well configured like with Xeon E5-26xx V2/V3/V4. Add a Quadro K620 or M2000 card for hardware transcode and you should be good to go. Hdd wise I would use Seagate Ironwolf only.


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## Dr. Dro (Jun 8, 2022)

I agree with the idea of repurposing an old computer, an old 775 or AM2 system should be cheap to refurbish for this purpose. Personally, I went with an old socket 775 PC, bought a cheap Q9505 to upgrade the processor, some new RAM sticks just for good measure and installed Fedora Server on it. It runs completely headless and can be administered through the Windows terminal and/or a web GUI frontend, so a GPU was not needed. I only need to buy a larger HDD for it down the road, as it is currently running on a single 1 TB drive.

Since it is for personal use with capable devices, instead of Plex, I went with a Samba share configuration, it is fast enough to watch raw Blu-ray files straight from the network drive and is just as versatile as your common USB stick 

If you want to run Plex/direct video streaming or have beefier storage configurations, an Ivy Bridge or Haswell-era machine with an entry level GPU that has hardware encoding capabilities is a good pick and the fine folks here have you covered pretty well. Good luck


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## bohrz (Jun 8, 2022)

Thank you all for the replies.
Unfortunately I don't have an older system to repurpose.
So I'm going with a 10th generation i3 and 16gb of RAM. Based on the comments on the thread I think it will be enough.


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## Chrispy_ (Jun 8, 2022)

TrueNAS is good but skimming this thread it looks like a prebuilt NAS from Synology or QNAP will do what you want too, and for things that are 24/7 they have lower power consumption and are generally very quiet.

The Synology DS420j or QNAP TR-004 are worth looking at on a budget. Neither are powerful but your project sounds like it's budget-sensitive and if you have to buy most of a PC from scratch, the entry-level NAS solutions will be much cheaper and are pretty user-friendly IMO.


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## Valantar (Jun 8, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> TrueNAS is good but skimming this thread it looks like a prebuilt NAS from Synology or QNAP will do what you want too, and for things that are 24/7 they have lower power consumption and are generally very quiet.
> 
> The Synology DS420j or QNAP TR-004 are worth looking at on a budget. Neither are powerful but your project sounds like it's budget-sensitive and if you have to buy most of a PC from scratch, the entry-level NAS solutions will be much cheaper and are pretty user-friendly IMO.


Yep, that's my recommendation too. TrueNAS is only budget friendly if you don't have to build the system from scratch, either by having parts on hand or by getting a good deal on used parts (a refurbished enterprise desktop can also be a good solution if you can find it cheap). If not, an off-the-shelf NAS is typically a better solution all around - smaller, more power efficient, easier to set up and use, and they often have useful features that TrueNAS lacks.


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## Mussels (Jun 9, 2022)

bohrz said:


> Thank you all for the replies.
> Unfortunately I don't have an older system to repurpose.
> So I'm going with a 10th generation i3 and 16gb of RAM. Based on the comments on the thread I think it will be enough.


That'll work well, and the modern intel graphics will be able to do a lot of transcoding tasks too (intel quicksync is genuinely quite good)


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## bohrz (Jun 11, 2022)

Hey guys, one last question.

I've been doing some tests with Plex and my LG C1. When I try to play an mkv file (HEVC and Tru-HD 7.1 audio) Plex needs to transcode the file because the TV does not support the audio part. The issue I'm having is that the stream keeps buffering and just couple of seconds get played at time. I can solve the issue by changing the audio track to a supported format and then the TV does all the work. 

My question is, how come I can't transcode the file with a R7 2700X and a 1050Ti? Is it a hardware or network issue? I'm guessing it's the network, since my CPU should be more than able to transcode the file.

My issue is not impeditive I'm just trying to understand the system better.

Thank you once more!


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## Jetster (Jun 11, 2022)

Are you using the free version of Plex?


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## bohrz (Jun 11, 2022)

Jetster said:


> Are you using the free version of Plex?


Yes, I am


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## Jetster (Jun 11, 2022)

The free version does not do hardware transcoding

Plex: Free vs Paid | Plex Support

Using Hardware-Accelerated Streaming | Plex Support


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## bohrz (Jun 11, 2022)

Oh... so even though it starts streaming, it is not supported? Strage way to implement the limitation, but understood!

If I want hardware transcoding, other than paid Plex, is there any free solution? Even if I have to set it up. Just point me in the right direction and I''l give it a try.

Thanks Jester!


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## Jetster (Jun 11, 2022)

It will still work just slower. The only work around is not to do HD audio files, that I know of

And keep in mind Plex will always downgrade the audio, not much and it's barely noticeable. I only use Plex to watch on my Tablet or phone away from home, or in my bedroom. If I'm watching in the living room, I use Kodi. Mostly out of habit, really Plex quality is fine. But without it my system will say HD DTS or HD DD

Hope that makes sense


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## bohrz (Jun 11, 2022)

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. I'll do some research, get to know more about video streaming and such. Using 5.1 is fine for me, as I have no dedicated audio setup, just the TV speakers. Thank you again for the explanations!


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## Jetster (Jun 11, 2022)

Yeah I paid for one month, to make sue it worked for me. Than I bought the lifetime Plex Pass for $100 at the time. It might be more now

And if you want to get the app for Android it's $5


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## Mussels (Jun 12, 2022)

Next up, see if your TV can play the file locally off a USB stick.

My sony android TV can play almost anything off its native player, with MX Player and VLC filling in any blanks (such as fancy subtitles or dolby codecs)


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## bohrz (Jun 12, 2022)

I can't test that. The file is 90GB, I don't have any flash drive that large. Everything I read about the C1 says it can't play True HD. I just set the audio as 5.1 aac or something like that and everything ran smoothly.

Anyway, so far I'm pretty excited with the quality and the challenge of building the server myself.

Thank you all for the help!


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## Mussels (Jun 12, 2022)

bohrz said:


> I can't test that. The file is 90GB, I don't have any flash drive that large. Everything I read about the C1 says it can't play True HD. I just set the audio as 5.1 aac or something like that and everything ran smoothly.
> 
> Anyway, so far I'm pretty excited with the quality and the challenge of building the server myself.
> 
> Thank you all for the help!


Yeah i have a 1TB NVME in ExFAT, i'm spoiled on that side.
I also only have a 2.1 soundbar on the TV, so i dont worry about the high end audio formats


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## bohrz (Jun 12, 2022)

Mussels said:


> Yeah i have a 1TB NVME in ExFAT, i'm spoiled on that side.
> I also only have a 2.1 soundbar on the TV, so i dont worry about the high end audio formats


Don't give me more ideas man, the wife is gonna kill me!


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## Mussels (Jun 12, 2022)

bohrz said:


> Don't give me more ideas man, the wife is gonna kill me!


Oh please, it's not like you NEED a 10Gb/s USB 3.1 external drive, i could never trick you into investigating the idea


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## bohrz (Jun 12, 2022)

Thank god that one specifically is out of stock. Would be a shame if I happened to find others like it. Really appreciate the tips!


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## Jetster (Jun 12, 2022)

Mussels said:


> Yeah i have a 1TB NVME in ExFAT, i'm spoiled on that side.
> I also only have a 2.1 soundbar on the TV, so i dont worry about the high end audio formats


Tell me you at least have a 3.1. That center channel is important.


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## bohrz (Jun 6, 2022)

Hello everyone!

I'm looking for advice on building a home server. What I need is a simple server for saving some family photos and some work related files, and I would also like to have a Plex (or equivalent) system. From what I searched, TrueNAS is a good solution, am I correct?

Hardware wise, what should I be looking for? My network is nothing fancy, only my main PC has a Gigabit port, so no 10Gb for me for the time being. I also aiming for 8TB storage for starters. What CPU, mortherboard, RAM would you suggest? Should I use an SSD for caching or running the OS?

Thank you all in advance.


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## Mussels (Jun 12, 2022)

Jetster said:


> Tell me you at least have a 3.1. That center channel is important.


Of course not, it's Razer fake 5.1
Sound Bar Bluetooth Speaker - Razer Leviathan 5.1 Channel Surround


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## Wirko (Jun 12, 2022)

bohrz said:


> So I'm going with a 10th generation i3 and 16gb of RAM. Based on the comments on the thread I think it will be enough.


Nice ... and it looks like you can achieve very low idle power consumption with it. (W1zzard measured 48 watts but his test PC is pretty fat, except for the modest i3-10100 inside.)

Choose the PSU carefully, though. I could recommend my Seasonic G-360 but it's a 10 year old model at this point. Other good options may be the FSP Flexguru FSP250 or FSP300. If Cooler Master availability is good where you buy PC stuff, there's also the Elite v3 300W to look for, and v4 300W with better efficiency exists too.

You also mentioned an old notebook ... it's going to be a temporary solution only, right? While you could run a notebook 24/7, there are issues with that, like fan lifespan and dust, so it's better to avoid it altogether.


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## bohrz (Jun 12, 2022)

Wirko said:


> Nice ... and it looks like you can achieve very low idle power consumption with it. (W1zzard measured 48 watts but his test PC is pretty fat, except for the modest i3-10100 inside.)
> 
> Choose the PSU carefully, though. I could recommend my Seasonic G-360 but it's a 10 year old model at this point. Other good options may be the FSP Flexguru FSP250 or FSP300. If Cooler Master availability is good where you buy PC stuff, there's also the Elite v3 300W to look for, and v4 300W with better efficiency exists too.
> 
> You also mentioned an old notebook ... it's going to be a temporary solution only, right? While you could run a notebook 24/7, there are issues with that, like fan lifespan and dust, so it's better to avoid it altogether.


I'll check the availability of the PSUs you suggested, I think Cooler Master is available, but only the 400W one. I'll check it out and I'll post here, mentioning you.

About the laptop, was just a thought. It's too old, too weak, simply impossible. I'll wait for the parts and then I'll start playing.

Thank you all, once more!


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## phill (Jun 12, 2022)

Great thread to come across as I'm looking for something similar and this thread has given me some great ideas    Thank you


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## bohrz (Jun 12, 2022)

Jetster said:


> The free version does not do hardware transcoding
> 
> Plex: Free vs Paid | Plex Support
> 
> Using Hardware-Accelerated Streaming | Plex Support


Jester, I purchased 1 month o Plex Pass to test and use hardware transcoding. It keeps buffering and stuttering. For tests purposes I'm using a Ryzen 7 2700X and a GTX 1050TI, but that's seems not enough. I'm suspecting my network is not adequate, but even if I upgrade my devices, the TV is limited to 100mpbs wired and whatever it's rated wireless. I'm using the TV wirelessly, because it's faster than wired. Do you have any suggestions?


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## Jetster (Jun 12, 2022)

bohrz said:


> Jester, I purchased 1 month o Plex Pass to test and use hardware transcoding. It keeps buffering and stuttering. For tests purposes I'm using a Ryzen 7 2700X and a GTX 1050TI, but that's seems not enough. I'm suspecting my network is not adequate, but even if I upgrade my devices, the TV is limited to 100mpbs wired and whatever it's rated wireless. I'm using the TV wirelessly, because it's faster than wired. Do you have any suggestions?


It's not your hardware. What's your internet speed? upload do a speed test

Can you transfer files across your network? What speed

Don't use those big HD files try a 1080 for testing

I have a 100Mb network. When I transfer a file from one PC to another it transfers at 110Mb constant

My server is hard wired to the router, my LG TV is wireless


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## bohrz (Jun 12, 2022)

Jetster said:


> It's not your hardware. What's your internet speed? upload do a speed test
> 
> Can you transfer files across your network? What speed
> 
> ...


I tested transfering some 720p files from my Mac Air (wireless) to the testing server (wired to my ISP modem/router). The transfer speeds were between 30 and 40MB/s, with lows of 25. In mbps, it's 240 - 320, with lows of 200.

The testing server (and the new one) is wired to the ISP modem/router and from there it's wired to a router in my living room. I configured them to act like a mesh (at least that's the way I understand). It's a single SSID, one for the 2.4GHz and another for 5GHz band.

The living room router is pretty close to the TV, less than 2m, and the TV is using the 5G band. But when I ran a speed test on speedtest.net, the TV managed only 50mbps, out of my 400mbps connection.

Maybe that's the issue with transcoding?

Thank you for your time and patience!


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## Jetster (Jun 12, 2022)

Switch your TV to 2.4 and see what the speed is

What are your DL/UP speeds from your ISP?

I would run everything wired temp just to diagnose, see if it works. The idea is to make sure your network is correct before you try wireless.


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## bohrz (Jun 12, 2022)

Jetster said:


> Switch your TV to 2.4 and see what the speed is
> 
> What are your DL/UP speeds from your ISP?
> 
> I would run everything wired temp just to diagnose, see if it works. The idea is to make sure your network is correct before you try wireless.


The TV is maxing out at 50mbps with 5G, 2.4G or wired. So I thing I have an issue there, as I believe the stream needs 100mbps, going by the Plex infos.

My ISP is supposed to deliver 400DL/200UL (fiber), but testing from my desktop (the Ryzen one, with Gigabit port) they're delivering 200/100. I'm gonna call them tomorrow and work it out.

Anyway, my internal LAN should be running at least 100mbps, shouldn't it?


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## Jetster (Jun 12, 2022)

So, try playing them across your network natively without Plex. You just have Plex on a Windows PC, right?


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## bohrz (Jun 12, 2022)

Jetster said:


> So, try playing them across your network natively without Plex. You just have Plex on a Windows PC, right?


Yes... How do I do that? I can try the native cast from Windows to my TV, it does not transcode, and then audio does not play.


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## Jetster (Jun 13, 2022)

bohrz said:


> Yes... How do I do that? I can try the native cast from Windows to my TV, it does not transcode, and then audio does not play.


Try from another PC like a laptop. You will have to share the folder

Just trying to troubleshoot by eliminating things. If your network is not right Plex will not work. You PC will need to codex or VLC


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## bohrz (Jun 13, 2022)

Jetster said:


> Try from another PC like a laptop. You will have to share the folder
> 
> Just trying to troubleshoot by eliminating things. If your network is not right Plex will not work. You PC will need to codex or VLC


Well, I opened the file from the network and it played smoothly. I also tried to stream with transcoding from VLC and it also worked, so I think the network is capable. I think the problem is the TV not achieving more than 50mbps.

I watched an HDTVTest video talking about this issue and recommending buying an USB to Rj45 dongle (Link), to alleviate the issue.

What do you think?


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## Jetster (Jun 13, 2022)

Thats a nice TV. Hard to believe it has problems. Maybe there is an update to the firmware or just hard wire it


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## bohrz (Jun 13, 2022)

Jetster said:


> Thats a nice TV. Hard to believe it has problems. Maybe there is an update to the firmware or just hard wire it


Yeah, I'll do some tests this week, try to figure out the low speeds. It should be capable of 100mbps locally at least.

Thanks for the help


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## Mussels (Jun 13, 2022)

bohrz said:


> I tested transfering some 720p files from my Mac Air (wireless) to the testing server (wired to my ISP modem/router). The transfer speeds were between 30 and 40MB/s, with lows of 25. In mbps, it's 240 - 320, with lows of 200.
> 
> The testing server (and the new one) is wired to the ISP modem/router and from there it's wired to a router in my living room. I configured them to act like a mesh (at least that's the way I understand). It's a single SSID, one for the 2.4GHz and another for 5GHz band.
> 
> ...


my smart TV has wifi AC, and yet it's too slow for 4K streaming - i have to use its wired connection to get full speeds.

I wonder if they internally hooked it up to USB 2.0 or something stupid.


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## claes (Jun 13, 2022)

Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be able to direct play the file. Doesn’t the tv support eac-3/pcm/Dolby?


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## bohrz (Jun 13, 2022)

claes said:


> Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be able to direct play the file. Doesn’t the tv support eac-3/pcm/Dolby?


I confess I don't fully understand how the codec world works. But from what I gathered, my C1 does not support Dolby TrueHD and DTS at all (link). As soon as I have time today I'll do some more testing with my network.


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## Mussels (Jun 14, 2022)

A google search got this answer:

AAC, AC3, aptX, MP3, WMA, AC4, EAC3, HE_AAC, MP2, PCM 
video file formats/codecs are 
3GPP, AVI, H.263, H.264, H.265, MKV, QuickTime, M2TS, MP4, MPEG4, RealVideo, TS, VC-1, VP8, VP9, Xvid

EAC3 is dolby digital plus, AC3 is dolby digital, A-C4 is a plastic explosive

Basically, the TV supports formats likely to be streamed on OTA channels arond the globe and a few commonly used by streaming services - but none of the proprietary dolby stuff that requires high licensing fees, since most users would run an external sound system for that

The key here is that ARC and E-ARC are designed to pass through the audio to external sources, NOT to be played direct from the TV. Therefore, theres no use having a TV that can decode super high bitrate 7.1 audio to play out it's tinny stereo speakers.


Your TV's settings may have options to allow you to pass audio out to the external speakers and disable the internal ones, and if that E-ARC receiver supports the codecs you'll get the sound that way


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## Count von Schwalbe (Jun 14, 2022)

Mussels said:


> EAC3 is dolby digital plus, AC3 is dolby digital, A-C4 is a plastic explosive


Please keep the bass settings turned down when working with C4. It is shock sensitive.


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## Halo3Addict (Jun 14, 2022)

bohrz said:


> Hey guys, one last question.
> 
> I've been doing some tests with Plex and my LG C1. When I try to play an mkv file (HEVC and Tru-HD 7.1 audio) Plex needs to transcode the file because the TV does not support the audio part. The issue I'm having is that the stream keeps buffering and just couple of seconds get played at time. I can solve the issue by changing the audio track to a supported format and then the TV does all the work.
> 
> ...


Maybe I missed it, but what NAS software are you using? If using TrueNAS CORE (based on FreeBSD), hardware acceleration (via gpu) is not supported. So, all your transcoding is happening on the cpu. I believe TrueNAS SCALE (based on Debian) has hardware acceleration working. Just adding my 2 cents.


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## bohrz (Jun 15, 2022)

Halo3Addict said:


> Maybe I missed it, but what NAS software are you using? If using TrueNAS CORE (based on FreeBSD), hardware acceleration (via gpu) is not supported. So, all your transcoding is happening on the cpu. I believe TrueNAS SCALE (based on Debian) has hardware acceleration working. Just adding my 2 cents.


I'm just doing some Plex tests from my ordinary PC. I'm buying some of the parts next week and the hard drives in July. Once I have the parts, I'll decide what to run and how. Maybe I'll go with some Linux machine and I'll reencode (is that a word?) the files to some format my TV fully supports. Once I have the gear I'll play a little before commiting.
All that said, thank you for letting me know about this limitation.


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## Mussels (Jun 16, 2022)

bohrz said:


> I'm just doing some Plex tests from my ordinary PC. I'm buying some of the parts next week and the hard drives in July. Once I have the parts, I'll decide what to run and how. Maybe I'll go with some Linux machine and I'll reencode (is that a word?) the files to some format my TV fully supports. Once I have the gear I'll play a little before commiting.
> All that said, thank you for letting me know about this limitation.


handbrake lets you re-encode in any OS easily, but depending on how you're sourcing the media you may be best getting copies that's already in supported formats


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## bohrz (Jun 16, 2022)

Tomorrow is holiday here in Brazil. I'll try to do some tests and research. It's time to learn more about audio and video.


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## Mussels (Jun 16, 2022)

The most common supported format would be .mp4 container with stereo AAC audio and H264 video


Using H265 as the video codec would greatly reduce the size needed, but older devices (playstations, BD players, older TV's etc etc) may not support it.
At the cost of extra space you can add more than one audio stream, so you could keep a quality stereo audio and choose a 5.1 option that suits your setup


Where it gets annoying is say, apple has shit subtitles support and only supports stereo sound - so if you left plain old DTS 5.1 audio, they get no sound.



> iPhone plays files of H.264 and MPEG-4 with AAC audio in MP4, M4V, and MOV formats, and M-JEPG with stereo audio in AVI format. In details, they are:
> 
> 
> M4V, MP4, MOV file formats encoded with: H.265/H.264 video, up to 4K/60 fps, High Profile level 4.2 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio.
> ...


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