discussion New Media Server.

[bojangles]

What are you planning on running on this media server?
If you're doing multimedia transcoding, make sure the CPU (if not running dedicated GPU) has codec support for what you need. The 13700 is probably satisfactory. For RAM, you have quite a bit if this is your first run.

Another option would be to run OpenMediaVault. It is designed for NAS applications, and you can run Docker applications on top of it.
TrueNAS Scale is what you would want to run if you want access to Docker and other items because it runs off Linux. TrueNAS Core runs FreeBSD.

You could also run everything in Proxmox Virtual Environment. This is what I do.

1. Install ProxMox on bare metal
2. Enable IOMMU to allow PCI-E passthrough
3. Install OMV in a virtual machine
4. Passthrough any HDD/SSDs to be used for RAID, either directly or through PCI-E interface (depends on your setup)
5. Setup your RAID, folders and shares
6. Install any other VMs you want in ProxMox
   • Pi-hole
   • Docker host
   • Plex
   • Nextcloud
   • HomeAssistant
   • WHATEVER YOU WANT!

You can even install TrueNAS Scale in a VM through ProxMox if you want to do it that way for ZFS. ProxMox also natively support ZFS.

Honestly the possibilities are limitless. If you are exposing any ports to gain access to data from the WAN side, I highly suggest running VLANs on your router if supported.

 

[JD]

But now your comments have me concerned and I'm thinkin that maybe I should just return these ssd's and get some 20tb (maybe 3) and run an array instead. Since I haven't used the 8tb I could return them.

Since it doesn't sound write heavy, likely fine sticking with them. You also will have a silent system being all flash, hard drives are noisy and why I wanted it gone from my gaming PC

 

[Marzipan]

could you not use them to create fast caching?

 

[gingerbee]

Proxmox sounds neat but I have never used it myself and you can do all of that with UNraid, so why switch when you have a pro-license

 

[crazyea]

 

[crazyea]

I bought two Dual SSD Sabrent 2.5" to 3.5" adapters and mounted them to the bottom of the case using two Fractal multibrackets. I bought one more so that I can add two more SSD's to the top of the case at a later date.

I switched out the 980 pro NVME drives for two 870 EVO 2 TB. The reason for this what that the NVME drives were idling at 50c and hitting over 80c under load. I wasnt comfortable with that and I figured SATA SSD's were good enough for a media server. One is for the System cache and the other is for downloads.

The 4x 8TB QVO drives are in a zfs raidz pool.

I'm using 2x Samsung USB keys. One for Unraid and one for the token array drive.

 

[crazyea]

I ended up taking out all four 8TB QVO drives and put in 3 x 18TB WD Red Pro drives instead.

2 on the floor using fan to hdd adapters and one in the top.