Home PLEX, NAS, and NVR

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

Beer_Engineer

Member
Mar 15, 2018
42
5
8
41
Build’s Name: Goodbye QNAP, Goodbye paycheck.. Errr, Hello Freedom and Performance!
Operating System/ Storage Platform: unRAID
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2620 V4
Cooler: NH-U9DXi4
Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X10SRL-F
Chassis: Supermicro 846 w/ 920 SQ's
Drives:

  1. 2x8GB WD Easy Stores Shucked White Labels,
  2. 2x 4TB WD Reds,
  3. 2x 3TB Seagate
  4. 6x3 TB HGST Ultrastar
  5. 128 GB Samsung 830 Pros
INTEL DC S3700 SERIES 100GB
RAM: Samsung DDR4 2133MHzCL15 16GB


Usage Profile: The main use I have for a server today is PLEX. I'd like to increase the size and performance of my Plex Server. In addition, I serve up all of our family NAS functions like pictures and home videos. I'd like to make sure that the server can do that as well as handle some transcoding duties as I move the library from outdated formats to MP4, and eventuall AV1. Finally, I would really like to incorporate an NVR into my system. I'd be open to getting something like UNIFI NVR Appliance and just save to the NAS, it probably makes more sense for me to consolidate onto my new server.

I'm really looking forward to starting this build, and I welcome any feedback from all of you that have done projects like this before.

Thank you!
 
Last edited:

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
If you plan/would like to re-use all those storage drives you've got, you may want to consider something like unRAID. With dual parity you'd get 26TB of usable space out of those drive (8 TB drives as parity, all other drives as data). You can also easily run UniFi video NVR on there in docker along with the rest of your Plex/media services as you can see below:

 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: DaddyGrant

FRPII

Member
Dec 2, 2015
63
26
18
37
I use a single virtualized box for the same thing and a bit more. If you're the type to let your main array spin down consider an SSD for NVR and other constant activity duty. I don't feel it's worth keeping my array spun up all the time so cam footage, downloads, NextCloud, caching, Linux iso sharing, GoPro transcodes, etc. all go on a big SSD with stuff copied out in bulk occasionally. My rust spends most of every day spun down. Saves power, heat, noise, bearings*....


*Plz no #triggered
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
I use a single virtualized box for the same thing and a bit more. If you're the type to let your main array spin down consider an SSD for NVR and other constant activity duty. I don't feel it's worth keeping my array spun up all the time so cam footage, downloads, NextCloud, caching, Linux iso sharing, GoPro transcodes, etc. all go on a big SSD with stuff copied out in bulk occasionally. My rust spends most of every day spun down. Saves power, heat, noise, bearings*....


*Plz no #triggered

I have a single spinner dedicated to my NVR so it is always up, the rest of my array spins down. (another advantage of NSA's). I don't find it very practical to use an SSD for NVR unless you are rotating your footage every few days. The space eats up fast and you'd need a more expensive high write endurance SSD.
 

FRPII

Member
Dec 2, 2015
63
26
18
37
2TB SSDs with significant write endurance are going for pretty reasonable prices over in the deals subforum. I picked up my 1.92TB unit for $340. A spinner works fine too, obviously, however I prefer the quick seeking and smooth accelerated playback while still recording into the same file. TETO
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
2TB SSDs with significant write endurance are going for pretty reasonable prices over in the deals subforum. I picked up my 1.92TB unit for $340. A spinner works fine too, obviously, however I prefer the quick seeking and smooth accelerated playback while still recording into the same file. TETO
It's definitely a personal choice one way or the other. 2TB is not even close to enough storage space for my needs. I have 4 cameras at home and could see the growing. I like to keep at least 2-4 weeks of recordings so I use a 10TB drive for that. UniFi cameras (what the OP is using) only need about 30Mbps per camera so a 250MB/s spinner (I'm using a 10TB WD Golds) is performs great without any performance hit that I've seen.
 

FRPII

Member
Dec 2, 2015
63
26
18
37
Wow, yeah... I keep two weeks worth under 500gb from 4 cameras. You're playing in another league there breh
 

FRPII

Member
Dec 2, 2015
63
26
18
37
Currently 4x @ 1080 motion triggered. Soon it'll be 6x, maybe two constant. Neighborhood going down hill :/
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
Currently 4x @ 1080 motion triggered. Soon it'll be 6x, maybe two constant. Neighborhood going down hill :/
Yea motion triggered is th difference. I tried motion triggered and it was hit and miss for me. A lot of times it wouldn't record the full motion event or it would get triggered too easily. I decided if I'm going to go through the effort to run camerasnI dont want to miss anything.
 

Beer_Engineer

Member
Mar 15, 2018
42
5
8
41
The Rosewill 4412 arrived. I inspected it and spent a little time getting acclimated to it. In the end, I decided to ship it back to Amazon. I think that it would be fine as a chassis for some folks, but the stories of backplane failures and the quality of some of the components in the case turned me off.

I ordered a Previously owned and refurbished Supermicro 846 Barebone kit with a SAS2 Backplane. I'm seriously glad I did. In addition, I ordered two 920SQ power supplies and installed them.

The Fans in my enclosure were oscillating up and down frequently. I used an IPMI configuration tool to reprogram the low fan speed crisis alerts to match the specifications of Noctua's CPU Cooler.

I also added 6x HGST Ultrastar 3 Terabyte Refurbished Drives off of Ebay.

I installed Freenas and spent some time testing it. Now I've installed Unraid and I'm pre-clearing my disks to get a sense for what that is like.

Last night I moved the server from my Office Test Bench down to the Server Rack. I'm looking forward to continuing to test and configure.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaveInTexas