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Takes No Damage posted:We are still trying to use the internal USB slot, since the mobo only has 2 more on the rear panel. But I can't think of what else we would need plugged in back there besides the keyboard so maybe for this next FreeNAS update I'll flash a fresh stick and try one of the back ports. I should elaborate: This could be a lovely port, a lovely usb controller chip, lovely usb device, or all 3.
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Aug 24, 2018 21:41
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Looking for a real cheap way to do redundant storage for videos and stuff for like a PLEX server. Is it better to build yourself or is there something actually good and not overpriced to buy?
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Aug 24, 2018 22:10
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Any good deals on 6 or 8TB drives anywhere right now? I know there was talk a few weeks ago about semi-regular deals. Finally pulled the trigger on the DS1817+ since Amazon has it slightly on sale.
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Aug 24, 2018 22:23
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syllabus posted:Looking for a real cheap way to do redundant storage for videos and stuff for like a PLEX server. Is it better to build yourself or is there something actually good and not overpriced to buy? Any old PC you have will be fine for it and if it has windows on it then you can do software raid. If you're not afraid of Linux then you can slap that on there and do software raid too. And the CPU should be more ham enough for a few encodes if needed. It's probably going to be cheaper than investing in a consumer nas with an anemic CPU. The drawback is it will draw more power and be bigger.
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Aug 24, 2018 22:30
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syllabus posted:Looking for a real cheap way to do redundant storage for videos and stuff for like a PLEX server. Is it better to build yourself or is there something actually good and not overpriced to buy? It depends on how much space you need and what you consider overpriced, I guess. There's a 2-bay Synology NAS that's very entry level, but if all you are doing is serving up files and not doing a ton of streams via Plex it should be fine. https://www.amazon.com/Synology-bay-DiskStation-DS216se-Diskless/dp/B014SKVQR8
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Aug 24, 2018 22:30
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Internet Explorer posted:It depends on how much space you need and what you consider overpriced, I guess. Definitely want to stream via PLEX...have an old PC around but the proc is pretty old and only 4GB RAM. Are the procs in the NAS setups better or worse than like a 5 year old PC?
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Aug 24, 2018 22:35
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syllabus posted:Definitely want to stream via PLEX...have an old PC around but the proc is pretty old and only 4GB RAM. Are the procs in the NAS setups better or worse than like a 5 year old PC? They're pretty much on par with that.
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Aug 24, 2018 22:36
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syllabus posted:Definitely want to stream via PLEX...have an old PC around but the proc is pretty old and only 4GB RAM. Are the procs in the NAS setups better or worse than like a 5 year old PC? Ok, so remember that there is a difference between what is hosting your Plex server (and doing the transcoding) and where the files are sitting. If you just need a place to store the files, that NAS is fine. You could use something else as your Plex server. If you want one box to do both tasks, building your own is the better route.
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Aug 24, 2018 23:39
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If you want a couple of drive bays and enough processing power to do trans/encoding for cheap, you can pay about the same amount for a microserver as you would for a small NAS. Dell sells a refurb Poweredge T30 with a Skylake E3 Xeon for ~$300 after coupon right now, and I've seen similarly-priced deals for new ones in the past. The only real hitch is that the cases are a little cramped and have proprietary PSUs, but there are enough SATA connections to fill every bay and long term you can get a PSU adapter if you need to replace it. You can also go back a few generations like I did and get a X8SIL-F, a Xeon X3440, and 8GB ECC DDR3 for under $100 from eBay, then add your own case and PSU. Power consumption is a little worse, but not enough to make the cost difference back inside of a decade; I see around 45-50W when idling with 4 3.5" disks spinning and just going from their spec sheet the disks are probably 2/3 of that. Eletriarnation fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Aug 25, 2018 |
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Aug 25, 2018 01:30
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I just wanted to write up my build as thanks for the thread guiding me. I wanted a NAS to consolidate my storage which was just a bunch of windows shares hanging off my main computer. The forcing function was Crashplan family mode going away--they started charging per computer and I didn't want to pay for 5 or whatever computers so I consolidate to one. Here is the build:
I wanted the 2x16GB RAM so that I had two slots to bump up to 64 GB ram in the future. I normally would have gotten WD Reds but the Ironwolfs were really cheap during Prime day. The physical build went together really easily. I didn't really have any noise or size constraints but kind of wish after I assembled it that I got a smaller case that was actually ITX like perhaps the Node 304. I just have a ton of freaking empty room in there! Software wise, I installed Proxmox as a hypervisor because I am really comfortable with Debian and the thread recommended it. I wanted to run ZFS in FreeNAS though, so I'm passing through my SATA drives to the FreeBSD VM which was relatively simple. I also built another Debian VM for media management, but after getting terrible performance from Plex, I put it into an LXC container. The ultimate issue with Plex was I was trying to put all its library and configuration data on an NFS share from FreeNAS and it didn't really care for that. Now I am storing all of that on the SSD and backing it up and it's much happier  After practicing with the LXC containerization I probably would lift more into the containers if I were starting from scratch. My only disappointments there are it seems like Proxmox's debian images don't work so I end up using Ubuntu, and the configuration files get rewritten. Since I can't figure out how to set up container file mounts through the web interface, this seems to clobber my mounts at random. Not good. Also the Proxmox documentation / Wiki appear really outdated, I wouldn't pay them for the premium edition because of this. All in all I'm happy with the build; now I have a dedicated system that has plenty of processing to throw at whatever, and I have decoupled my main computer from providing print and file sharing services. Finally, I have a huge data store for photos and my other computers' backups and can back that up using the Crashplan desktop as before just fine, running in a container. A NAS was one of those projects I would spec out every few years and never end up building, now I'm glad I did.
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Aug 25, 2018 20:54
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Violator posted:Any good deals on 6 or 8TB drives anywhere right now? I know there was talk a few weeks ago about semi-regular deals. Finally pulled the trigger on the DS1817+ since Amazon has it slightly on sale. Sheep posted:generally every 4 months or so someone (generally Best Buy?) has them on sale for 160-170. From a few pages back, hot drat that's a huge price drop from their usual $275. I think I'll get four 6TB Seagate Ironwolves (non pro) to get me going and then pick up four of those WD 8TB Reds when they next go on sale. Any suggestions for price tracking to find these deals? Is there a site like CamelCamelCamel for more tech related stuff? Or just bookmark and check stuff periodically?
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Aug 26, 2018 16:18
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Violator posted:From a few pages back, hot drat that's a huge price drop from their usual $275. I think I'll get four 6TB Seagate Ironwolves (non pro) to get me going and then pick up four of those WD 8TB Reds when they next go on sale. You need to shuck these and possibly disable a 3.3v pin but this is what folks are loading up on. Currently $159, has been as low as $129 but not often. Check the last 10 pages or so for lots of guides and talk about these disks. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-8tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401
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Aug 27, 2018 00:57
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Rexxed posted:You need to shuck these and possibly disable a 3.3v pin but this is what folks are loading up on. Currently $159, has been as low as $129 but not often. Check the last 10 pages or so for lots of guides and talk about these disks. Ah, that's what folks were talking about. I should have paid closer attention. Looks like the white labels work with the 1817+ so I think I'll cancel my original order of Iron Wolves from Amazon and try some of these first. Thanks very much, looks like you've saved me a bunch of money.
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Aug 27, 2018 03:29
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Violator posted:Ah, that's what folks were talking about. I should have paid closer attention. Looks like the white labels work with the 1817+ so I think I'll cancel my original order of Iron Wolves from Amazon and try some of these first. Thanks very much, looks like you've saved me a bunch of money. No problem. Since Best Buy also has an ebay store and there's been a lot of ebay discounts over the last few months it's often a good way to get an extra 15% or whatever off those disks, although the price still depends on the current price BB has set. I think $199 is usually about as high as it goes, despite them claiming $299 as the msrp. I've got three of them and they're all in good shape so far, although I won't be shucking them to put in my NAS until I can get a couple more to have five.
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Aug 27, 2018 04:54
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I have 4 of them, it looks like the ones made in Thailand have a 256MB cache. Also if you're into electronics or Arduino at all, you get some decent 12V power supplies with them.
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Aug 28, 2018 02:09
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Violator posted:Ah, that's what folks were talking about. I should have paid closer attention. Looks like the white labels work with the 1817+ so I think I'll cancel my original order of Iron Wolves from Amazon and try some of these first. Thanks very much, looks like you've saved me a bunch of money. I don't see the easystore drives currently on BB's ebay store, but there will be an ebay coupon tomorrow (8/28 from 8am to 10pm PT) in case they put them back up: https://pages.ebay.com/promo/2018/0828/67245.html There's also a lot of folks reselling them because I guess they bought them cheaply during previous deals. Those are an option but I doubt you'll get much in the way of returns beyond ebay standard.
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Aug 28, 2018 04:01
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syllabus posted:Definitely want to stream via PLEX...have an old PC around but the proc is pretty old and only 4GB RAM. Are the procs in the NAS setups better or worse than like a 5 year old PC? About on par, also uses about 10% the energy of your old PC (maybe even less at idle), and if you live in a hot climate, you have to pay money to pump the heat out. For every 100w of heat you put in to your house via your computer, it takes another 25W to pump it out using your A/C.
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Aug 28, 2018 04:18
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Alright, it's time to rebuild. I'm currently using an ancient Athlon X2 240 with 16GB RAM and 5x1TB in SHR-1 running Xpenology. The hard drives are old as dirt, and I'm done messing around with Xpenology. With all of that being said, that old X2 240 pushes 1080p to a Pi B+ no problem, but again, it's time to move on. I already have 4x4TB brand-new, unopened Reds. unRAID is a must for me going forward. My needs are small, as I'm used to Xpenology and that old X2. Basic wants/needs are unRAID, video and music streaming capabilities, and the ability to backup all my work stuff from my office to have an off-site backup. A VM or two would be fun, but completely unneeded. I know I can do this cheap, so what's the recommended hardware these days? Obviously you can tell with my current setup I've been out of the loop for ahwile. Thanks! 
eightysixed fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Aug 29, 2018 |
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Aug 29, 2018 15:22
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eightysixed posted:Alright, it's time to rebuild. Well I use a consumer 2 bay box powered by a dual core ARM processor. That is sufficient for streaming video to multiple devices throughout my house. I even run some docker containers on it. So you do not need a lot of cpu power unless you plan on transcoding (plex). Unraid's hardware requirements are a 1 GHz cpu and 2 gigs of ram. I suspect whatever you build will exceed those requirements significantly. Pick a motherboard with enough sata ports for your drives and pick a cheap bottom end cpu.
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Aug 30, 2018 00:19
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YOU PEOPLE convinced me to go shuck a WD easystore 8tb. I actually walked into a bestbuy and bought it. It worked, which is good because all those tabs are just in the trash now. My Synology added it to my existing array of 4x3tb wd red's in about 16 hours.
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Aug 30, 2018 00:21
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speaking of unraid, they launched their new website and new color scheme and it's all very...Linus
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Aug 30, 2018 01:13
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Photex posted:speaking of unraid, they launched their new website and new color scheme and it's all very...Linus Not surprising because the old site looked like it was stuck in 2001 and Linus has done quite a number of videos showcasing Unraid. One of them being less than a week ago even. Edit: Oh hey, looked a bit further, seems like they're dumping the lime-technology moniker: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/73757-welcome-to-unraidnet/ Edit #2: Hah, if true: 
8-bit Miniboss fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Aug 30, 2018 |
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Aug 30, 2018 01:20
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Photex posted:speaking of unraid, they launched their new website and new color scheme and it's all very...Linus Like Linus Tech Tips guy? Please don’t turn me against unraid  Just kidding doesn’t matter if he likes it/uses it/invests in it, it’s been great. UI interface is interesting but they should really make it skinnable and then people can do whatever. Not that I stare at the webpage or anything anyway.
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Aug 30, 2018 02:39
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priznat posted:Like Linus Tech Tips guy? Yeah linus tech tips has done a handful of builds where they use unraid (the four gamers one pc build j think was with unraid for example) I'm okay with Linus having some stake in the game the UI definitely needed an update and so did the website so if some LTT money provided that then sure.
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Aug 30, 2018 04:26
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Introducing FrogOS, the new NAS operating system endorsed by InfoWars.
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Aug 30, 2018 05:55
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Now that you've said that, it's gonna happen, isn't it?
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Aug 30, 2018 07:55
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System requirements: speakers turned up to 11, and colloidal mineral coolant for the CPU.
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Aug 30, 2018 12:05
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Devian666 posted:Well I use a consumer 2 bay box powered by a dual core ARM processor. That is sufficient for streaming video to multiple devices throughout my house. I even run some docker containers on it. So you do not need a lot of cpu power unless you plan on transcoding (plex). But to be fair, that new consumer box processor is probably more beefy than my Ahtlon X2 240 
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Aug 30, 2018 15:31
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Why are people transcoding in 2018? I haven't had a media box in years that can't play anything i throw at it. Kodi on fire TV, built-in player on my roku, etc. Plex shouldn't be a problem just streaming files as-is.
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Aug 30, 2018 15:47
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4K content? Blu-ray content?
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Aug 30, 2018 15:54
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Dead Goon posted:4K content? Blu-ray content? These but to remote clients over your lovely residential connection upload.
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Aug 30, 2018 16:20
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Harik posted:Why are people transcoding in 2018? I haven't had a media box in years that can't play anything i throw at it. Phone watching, tablet watching. There are all sorts of devices that people may want to use that require transcoding. Not every device can playback content as-is.
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Aug 30, 2018 16:21
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Anyone running a Windows based server can run Bitflock to get a quick reading of your SMART status: https://bitflock.com/ Here is mine: https://bitflock.com/W33WCR9U
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Aug 30, 2018 17:21
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Seems like the thread to ask, the backup thread is closed and I can't seem to find a replacement thread. Where does that chat tend to happen these days?
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Aug 30, 2018 20:02
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You're probably in good hands here. Shoot
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Aug 30, 2018 20:33
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Here or Enterprise Storage thread.
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Aug 30, 2018 20:41
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Zigmidge posted:Seems like the thread to ask, the backup thread is closed and I can't seem to find a replacement thread. Where does that chat tend to happen these days? Backblaze b2 and a synology.
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Aug 30, 2018 20:46
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Harik posted:Why are people transcoding in 2018? I haven't had a media box in years that can't play anything i throw at it. Outside of network is the main reason. I don't want to make a 720p version of every movie /tv show so I can directplay it to my phone. Also it cuts internal Network congestion when multiple people are watching different things. I am not even sure why people are mad at the fact people transcode.
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Aug 30, 2018 20:55
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eightysixed posted:You're probably in good hands here. Shoot Moey posted:Here or Enterprise Storage thread. Great! I'd like to illustrate our current setup, first. Currently our tiny company of 2 workstations, 2 machine controlling computers and 2 laptops that travel are on scheduled backups to local storage in the office managed by CrashPlan's soon to be ending free service. Once a week, physical storage is brought in to update an off-site backup unit. There is never a time when both physical storages are in the building at the same time without supervision. These contain all of our working files - media & mission critical. For a third point of failure we use a dropbox business account to mirror all mission critical files. Here's where I'm at: Crashplan is ending its free subscription service in October, so I've been looking at switching and expanding our solution. First I'd be swapping backup managers to Duplicati 2. Next I'd be picking up a synology DS418j (Can get one for 400CAD at CanadaComputers). I would maintain the two swappable drives as our second and new third point of failure. This lets us have all files backed up at all three points and we no longer have to rely on Dropbox. [sidenote, there are much more affordable solutions than the DS418j that fit the bill but I'd also like to explore using it as a general file server for the office at the same time and this seems ideal] My goals to satisfy are twofold: 1 Other than one-time purchases, try not to increase the monthly bill. 2 Don't saturate our bandwidth. I'm also feeling unclear on the day-to-day practicalities of running Duplicati 2 on a synology and trying to avoid subscription fees. I'm very keen to learn the ins and outs of both but always have cold feet when the time comes to make the purchase. I guess that means I'm more office manager than IT these days.... Walk me through your thoughts on this please.
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Aug 30, 2018 21:37
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Zigmidge posted:Great! I'd like to illustrate our current setup, first. How much total storage for 1 copy of everything? You might be overestimating the cost of using a paid service.
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Aug 30, 2018 22:09
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