Dedicated PLEX media server - Need Plex Gurus

[Laithan]

 

So for my home network, I'm using some Mellanox Connect-X3 cards with SFP+ ports and picked up a pair of them alongside some 15 feet Direct Attach Copper Cables for only $170 on eBay.

 

Hmm that's not bad at all. So you're not going through a fiber switch?

 

 

 

 

Very nice build-up layout (& motherboard )! ...I am looking forward to the rest of the build-log.

 

Per other threads @ EHW, I plan to try out that win-raid modded bios you had linked for the X79-E WS (NVME; bifurcation) and then see if the MSI Aero card below works. It's PCIe 3, but afaik, PCIe 4 M.2s drives should work, just at PCIe 3 speeds (thinking about future upgrades for these drives into a PCIe 4 environment) ?

 

 

Thank you.

I'm very much looking forward to your results. The card looks amazing. I wonder if you can boot from it also?

[Laithan]

 

No show-stoppers yet however I now have an army of cables to attempt to put somewhere... lol

 

[J7SC_Orion]

 

 

Hmm that's not bad at all. So you're not going through a fiber switch?

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you.

I'm very much looking forward to your results. The card looks amazing. I wonder if you can boot from it also?

 

...MSI has put out some vids for X399 and X299 w/ the Aero Xpander card for RAID and boot setup. However, most of the steps take place in the motherboard bios and I don't know if yet the X79-E WS win-raid modded bios carries NVME through to the relevant option fields...it should, though. Also, I found this <>link

 

...great extra pics above !

[ENTERPRISE]

Looking great ! Those Delta fans will certainly aid in cooling that is for sure, some great pics. Bet you are looking forward to kicking this bad boy on.

[axipher]

 

 

Hmm that's not bad at all. So you're not going through a fiber switch?

 

At first I wasn't, I did upgrade to a Unifi SW-48 with two SFP+ ports so now my Gaming Rig and UnRaid rig have 10 gig to each other and they backup their system files to each other.

 

I'm working on expanding my home network and looking at getting some Networking Certifications to advance my career some more.

[Laithan]

Very close now, just have to replace the CPU cooler fans and a few more items. This was a puzzle for sure as everything had a specific order and so many things barely fit! The good news is that the system booted right up and everything was detected. Woo-hoo.

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2020 by Laithan

[ENTERPRISE]

That is looking sexy, glad that you got it up and running, that first boot is always nerve wracking haha.

[J7SC_Orion]

Very close now, just have to replace the CPU cooler fans and a few more items. This was a puzzle for sure as everything had a specific order and so many things barely fit! The good news is that the system booted right up and everything was detected. Woo-hoo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost at the finish line, very nice presentation ! btw, how close will you be sitting to this system (...wondering about the Delta fans as I have 'experience' with them) ?

 

 

[Laithan]

That is looking sexy, glad that you got it up and running, that first boot is always nerve wracking haha.

 

Ty. It sure is nerve racking More so than ever this time, if I had to troubleshoot, both drive bays would have to come out (they cannot just slide forward) and getting the 10 sata cables plugged in when they are on the bottom of the enclosures wasn't joyful the first time.. I am not looking to ever revisit that again. <No Jynx!>

 

 

 

 

Almost at the finish line, very nice presentation ! btw, how close will you be sitting to this system (...wondering about the Delta fans as I have 'experience' with them) ?

 

 

Ty. Oh I'm not sitting anywhere near this thing . I have a small rack in my basement with my network/server gear (You can see some pics here). These Delta fans wouldn't be the loudest fans I have lol. The rack fans (two on top and two on bottom) are beasts and are running 100% 24/7. I have the Deltas using Q-Fan (which I don't like) so they are not running at full load all the time and should only ramp up when temps get higher. I have to do some experimenting with this however I understand that once in the O/S (windows) I should be able to define a custom fan curve. One of those features I just never paid any attention to but have had it on dozens of boards.

 

One of the interesting things I didn't anticipate is the weight of this server. Without any drives installed in the bays it is easily 40-50lbs (I should actually weight it somehow). The entire case is flexing considerably if I attempt to pick it up. I would think that 60Lbs would be a low estimate when fully loaded. Due to this reason I had to install some additional support on the rack to hold the extra weight lol.

 

EDIT: I weighed it and with only 2 drives installed it is 46Lbs

Edited August 1, 2020 by Laithan

[ENTERPRISE]

That is a heavy boy, but to be expected, not surprised you have to reinforce the rack to accommodate, crumbs you would not want that falling to a heap on the floor !

[Laithan]

That is a heavy boy, but to be expected, not surprised you have to reinforce the rack to accommodate, crumbs you would not want that falling to a heap on the floor !

 

Nope, that would not be a good day... I weighed it with the drives and NIC installed and it is just about 60lbs total. Of course as soon as I installed the fan for the cards I remember that I didn't plug in the HDD led for the controller lol. The array is initializing now..

 

 

All that remains for the build itself is a single fan, should be in Monday or Tuesday. I managed to brute force the chrome fan guard on to the CPU fan because there is just something about chrome and beige lol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comparison of the old fans and the replacement A9

Edited August 6, 2020 by Laithan

[Laithan]

I cleaned up some of the wires as best as I could and bending some things uncomfortably

 

I've also got both RAID controller batteries installed. The fan for the cards are just an insurance policy as the 10GB nic and especially the LSI controllers get quite toasty.

 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Laithan

[J7SC_Orion]

That is a heavy boy, but to be expected, not surprised you have to reinforce the rack to accommodate, crumbs you would not want that falling to a heap on the floor !

 

 

...components can add weight up quickly ! I have one HEDT workstation_+_fun build that weighs over 90 pounds (a lot of w-cooling equipment with redundancy, dual w-blocked GPUs, some copper tubing, and a seriously heavy PSU...). It keeps temps low though no matter what ...then again, so does a little refurbished AIO retro system I just finished that weighs just over 28 pds... the first has w-cooling to deal with 1170W heat dispersion, the second only around 160W.

 

@Laithan - impressive build - though you finally may be out of room inside that case

 

[ENTERPRISE]

Watercooling components are killer for adding weight. No idea how much my workstation weighs, but its certainly much heavier now with all the WC gear, not to mention a full mobo coverage block.

[Laithan]

The 140mm fan isn't doing a good enough job for the controllers so I am going to add this Delta 60mm fan directly on the spot. LSI 9271 cards (most LSI cards) are really undercooled...they will overheat without some kind of cooling.. but they perform excellent so as long as you're aware they are a great choice. I'll post some benchmarks once I get Winderz installed.

 

https://www.delta-fan.com/AFC0612D-SP07.html

​

 

 

I guess I never really showed the controller so here's a couple pics with the battery backup and the cachecade 2.0 chip installed.

 

http://www.ssdworks.com/MegaRAID-SAS-9271-8i.asp

 

If you have the room, this is a great fan (I use them on all my LSI cards) and is the "proper" one

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Cooling...YAAOSwxu5ZOB81

 

Intel 10GB

https://www.silicom-usa.com/pr/serve...erver-adapter/

 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Laithan

[ENTERPRISE]

The 140mm fan isn't doing a good enough job for the controllers so I am going to add this Delta 60mm fan directly on the spot. LSI 9271 cards (most LSI cards) are really undercooled...they will overheat without some kind of cooling.. but they perform excellent so as long as you're aware they are a great choice. I'll post some benchmarks once I get Winderz installed.

 

https://www.delta-fan.com/AFC0612D-SP07.html

​

 

 

I guess I never really showed the controller or the Intel 10GB (Intel X550-T2) so here's a couple pics with the battery backup and the cachecade 2.0 chip installed.

 

http://www.ssdworks.com/MegaRAID-SAS-9271-8i.asp

 

If you have the room, this is a great fan (I use them on all my LSI cards) and is the "proper" one

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Cooling...YAAOSwxu5ZOB81

 

Intel 10GB

https://www.silicom-usa.com/pr/serve...erver-adapter/

 

 

 

 

LSI controllers...or any controller for that fact that is dealing with the traffic of multiple devices tend to run on the hotter side. It still surprised me that we do not see these more actively cooled, or at the very leas a more capable passive cooling solution.

[Laithan]

 

LSI controllers...or any controller for that fact that is dealing with the traffic of multiple devices tend to run on the hotter side. It still surprised me that we do not see these more actively cooled, or at the very leas a more capable passive cooling solution.

 

Exactly... I mean it is not like they MIGHT overheat, they WILL...

 

[Laithan]

Well, this is an interesting one I didn't see coming...

 

After reviewing driver/hardware compatibility I decided to go with Windows Server 2016 Standard. It is based on Windows 10 and the license was cheap. I loaded the ISO up as a bootable USB drive and away I went.. I got almost all the drivers installed, some disk benchmarks, everything was going great until it came time to install the video drivers.. The drivers were not having it.. I tried standard vs DCM drivers, I tried studio drivers, I tried older drivers... until I finally came a across a post that seemed to say that TURING GPUs require a higher build than 1607... and since we're talking about the Windows 10 "server" flavor, that turned out to translate into "I must have Server 2019".... so in server land the only way to get the latest updates is to pay 2x where on the desktop the same updates are free... gotcha...

 

<FACEPALM>

 

So, it looks like I'll need to go ahead and load up Windows 10 instead. There I go wanting to make a server a server lol...

 

EDIT: Winderz 10 is installed/updated (and shutup) and all drivers are installed. I've also got the new CPU fan installed. I can start doing some overclocking now

 

Side Note: I am pretty impressed with the rebuild time (initialization). It is a RAID 5 array and the rebuild is just about done, 26-27 hours total... which if you think about it for 10x4TB spinners that's not too bad..

Edited August 3, 2020 by Laithan

[ENTERPRISE]

Well, this is an interesting one I didn't see coming...

 

After reviewing driver/hardware compatibility I decided to go with Windows Server 2016 Standard. It is based on Windows 10 and the license was cheap. I loaded the ISO up as a bootable USB drive and away I went.. I got almost all the drivers installed, some disk benchmarks, everything was going great until it came time to install the video drivers.. The drivers were not having it.. I tried standard vs DCM drivers, I tried studio drivers, I tried older drivers... until I finally came a across a post that seemed to say that TURING GPUs require a higher build than 1607... and since we're talking about the Windows 10 "server" flavor, that turned out to translate into "I must have Server 2019".... so in server land the only way to get the latest updates is to pay 2x where on the desktop the same updates are free... gotcha...

 

<FACEPALM>

 

So, it looks like I'll need to go ahead and load up Windows 10 instead. There I go wanting to make a server a server lol...

 

EDIT: Winderz 10 is installed/updated (and shutup) and all drivers are installed. I've also got the new CPU fan installed. I can start doing some overclocking now

 

Side Note: I am pretty impressed with the rebuild time (initialization). It is a RAID 5 array and the rebuild is just about done, 26-27 hours total... which if you think about it for 10x4TB spinners that's not too bad..

 

Been here before when it comes to Windows and drivers, it is one of the smallest but most annoying snags as it can stop you in your tracks ! Complete plain. That being said I would imagine you can achieve what you need to under client Windows 10 ? That or use Windows 10 to test and bench the system and then you can look into getting server 2019 now...or later when price is more agreeable.

 

 

[Laithan]

 

Been here before when it comes to Windows and drivers, it is one of the smallest but most annoying snags as it can stop you in your tracks ! Complete plain. That being said I would imagine you can achieve what you need to under client Windows 10 ? That or use Windows 10 to test and bench the system and then you can look into getting server 2019 now...or later when price is more agreeable.

 

 

What I also find very interesting is that Windows 7 (released in 2009) drivers are provided for Turing... but there are no compatible drivers for Server 2016... yet apparently Pascal and below will work just fine in Server 2016...

[J7SC_Orion]

 

What I also find very interesting is that Windows 7 (released in 2009) drivers are provided for Turing... but there are no compatible drivers for Server 2016... yet apparently Pascal and below will work just fine in Server 2016...

 

I had a similar experience with MSI X399 re. Win 7 and Win 10 support. I use(d) two different MSI X399 mobos (one as backup)...the X399 Pro Carbon AC ran for a few weeks with my 2950X and dual Turing GPUs on Win 7 until my X399 Creation arrived...I then transferred both the Win 7 M.2 and added a new Win 10 M.2 to the X399 Creation, for dual-booting (that was the plan, at least...).

 

The Win 7 M.2 will boot fine on the X399 Creation, even with full GPU support, however, no USB. I know there is a workaround, but weirdly, on MSI's site, the X399 Pro Carbon AC offers official support drivers for both Win 7 and Win 10 while the X399 Creation only lists Win 10...

[Laithan]

Long live Windows 7!

 

 

Ordered some shorter SFF-8087 cables because there is just way too much cable to put somewhere... These are 9" long so hopefully just right.

 

Ended up using the used Delta, it was practically brand new. Armor installed.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2020 by Laithan

[Laithan]

I've been thinking about which additional roles this "server" could play... I could of course use it as a file server which I will definitely do to some extent but I'm also thinking about possibly using it to control my security cameras using Blue Iris. I understand BI can use the GPU. Just an idea at this point but I figured I would share to see if anyone else has built thier own NVR. My current NVR is not PC based.

 

Edited August 8, 2020 by Laithan

[axipher]

I've been thinking about which additional roles this "server" could play... I could of course use it as a file server which I will definitely do to some extent but I'm also thinking about possibly using it to control my security cameras using Blue Iris. I understand BI can use the GPU. Just an idea at this point but I figured I would share to see if anyone else has built thier own NVR. My current NVR is not PC based.

 

 

I've been thinking of home surveillance options and would be interested if you went down this route in seeing what you do.

[ENTERPRISE]

Oh nice....but now this gets me thinking...Stop giving me ideas that involve money haha.