Unraid media server on the cheap(ish)

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

TedStriker

New Member
Dec 23, 2023
2
1
3
Build’s Name: MediaBox
Operating System/ Storage Platform: Unraid
CPU: Xeon E5-2690 v4
Motherboard: MACHINIST X99-MR9D PLUS
Chassis: Cooler Master Centurion 590
Drives: 4TB TeamGroup MP34 NVMe SSD, 4x10TB Seagate ST10000DM0004 HDD, 6x14TB WD WDC WUH721414ALE6L4 HDD
RAM: 128GB Micron DDR4-2400 ECC
Add-in Cards: GeForce RTX 2070, LSI 9211-8i SAS/SATA HBA, Hauppauge WinTV-quadHD, Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE NIC
Power Supply: Corsair RM750i

Usage Profile: Media server (Plex/Jellyfin)
 

Attachments

Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: CyklonDX

CyklonDX

Well-Known Member
Nov 8, 2022
848
279
63
Really nice build,

I would upgrade following in your position
Not unraid storage, but get zfs going (2 pools -- in your place i would rather replace 10&14T disks with 8x 20T ones)
9211-8i to 9300-16i (get at least 2-4 sas ssd's - either get unraid boot on them, or use them as cache or transcode whatever appdata)
2070 to OEM 3090/A4000 (or as additional gpu's) - finally enjoy comfyui, and some AI work, maybe a kvm for games with parsec.
Intel X550 (10Gig)
Another set of 128G of ram
Better psu, and ups.
 

TedStriker

New Member
Dec 23, 2023
2
1
3
Really nice build,

I would upgrade following in your position
Not unraid storage, but get zfs going (2 pools -- in your place i would rather replace 10&14T disks with 8x 20T ones)
9211-8i to 9300-16i (get at least 2-4 sas ssd's - either get unraid boot on them, or use them as cache or transcode whatever appdata)
2070 to OEM 3090/A4000 (or as additional gpu's) - finally enjoy comfyui, and some AI work, maybe a kvm for games with parsec.
Intel X550 (10Gig)
Another set of 128G of ram
Better psu, and ups.
All I really want from this machine is for it to ingest, process, and serve media to my Plex users (family and friends) reliably (which, for the most part, it has for almost two years, in this general configuration); I'm not really wanting or needing more than that from it. Also, as my (edited) thread title says, it's being done to a cost; everything commodity (CPU, MB, RAM, drives) that is in this server is the best bang for the buck I could find at the time I needed it (and, even now, are still pretty good values), everything else is either reusing stuff I already had (the case and PSU) or is specialized (the HBA and TV cards).

I'd love to go hog wild on hardware like what you listed, but it's just not in my budget; for three out of the four 10TBs (all of them are about four years old), Unraid itself isn't throwing any showstopping SMART errors (they're still showing healthy in the array), but I also have Scrutiny installed and it's started showing spin-up time and/or command timeout issues on them (and high fly writes on one), so I'm fixing to start replacing those. RAM-wise, even with everything running full-tilt in Unraid, usage rarely breaks more than 55%, so I have plenty there. The 2070, I just got it several months ago to replace a 4GB 1050 Ti; as soon as Unraid has full official kernel support and the Handbrake and Plex dockers have full support, I'm seriously thinking about moving to an Arc card for transcoding. I do have a 1500VA UPS on this, serving everything in that network "closet" (pic posted below; the Google Fiber ONT and Comcast gateway [GF's the primary, Comcast is the failover], my OPNSense router box, my Ethernet switches, and the Unraid server).

After I get through replacing the 10TB drives, I'd be open to possibly moving to 2nd-gen Epyc if the price is right and it's not just a lateral move, power consumption and performance-wise.
 

Attachments

Last edited:

CyklonDX

Well-Known Member
Nov 8, 2022
848
279
63
very nice, I'd say -> wait until upscale becomes more common, and easy to do
// Half of my media-center load is now ai upscaling older shows, and movies.
(At the moment you can do it really well on ComfyUI-Magic docker, and its easy to blow through a lot of everything - space/disk throughput, ram, vram | i mainly recommended 9300 since its cheap, and has full support for ssd's - and can drive proper 12gbps sas ssd.)



(i run on 2x e5-2697v2's), and zfs. (I easily chew through ram, and disk throughput in certain scenarios)