Storage & Streaming solutions

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thelead

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Hey everyone,

I'm currently running a server that streams everything via cat6 to my entire house. It's working flawlessly but I can't stand the noise/heat that my i7 950 cpu server is pushing. The reason I went with such a strong processor was because I was having dropped frames and audio sync problems when running my intel e5200 cpu server (high bit rate 1080p).

I am considering 2 options currently:

1) Use a Sans Digital 4bay esata enclosure and just connect it to my main rig (which is much more powerful, yet nearly silent)

or

2) Buy a 4bay NAS box. Am I going to run into the same issues I had with my intel e5200 server though?

What would you guys do?
 
thelead said:
I am considering 2 options currently:

1) Use a Sans Digital 4bay esata enclosure and just connect it to my main rig (which is much more powerful, yet nearly silent)

or

2) Buy a 4bay NAS box. Am I going to run into the same issues I had with my intel e5200 server though?

What would you guys do?
Click to expand...

About option 1: Eek.. I wouldn't. Those port multiplier enclosures aren't the best things in the world, plus they've got a noisy little 80mm fan in the back.

Honestly, it'd probably be cheaper to just quiet down the existing server. Aka: get some quiet 120mm fans to replace any existing ones and look at something like a 212. (plus or evo)
 
FnordMan said:
About option 1: Eek.. I wouldn't. Those port multiplier enclosures aren't the best things in the world, plus they've got a noisy little 80mm fan in the back.

Honestly, it'd probably be cheaper to just quiet down the existing server. Aka: get some quiet 120mm fans to replace any existing ones and look at something like a 212. (plus or evo)
Click to expand...

The downside to that is the space that the full atx beast is taking up.
 
Personally I didn't have any issues with my Sans Digital 4bay eSATA enclosure... once I got the right drives. I would make sure you use the card that came with it unless you're looking to do JBOD.

I also didn't have any issues with the 80mm fan either, those can always be changed as well if need be - the only thing I didn't like about the fan was the blue leds... seemed silly to put that on a eSATA raid enclosure.

Also I would also say make sure you're using codecs and media files that don't need transcoded by your processor - e.g. make sure your source format is natively supported via whatever receiving unit you're using to play your media. This will cut down on pretty much all processing needed to stream files.

If you're using something like Plex, make sure to allow it to cache transcoded files and set the cache to indefinitely store and map the cache directory to a large drive... if you're on windows you can use the mklink command to remap a directory on C:\ to another drive.
 
I started out several years ago trying to do several functions in my Main workstation box but it became painfully obvious this did not work well for me.

As the numbers of drives increased, I quickly ran out of room and had not addressed my backup issues. I tried going to separate full tower cases and added a separate backup server to mirror the primary server drive for drive. Large desktop towers are awkward to work on and do not make the best use of space. I had a large Thermaltake Armor case and another large case that also held 12 drives.

I did what the data pro's do. I got a pair of rack cases from Newegg on sale for $80 each including shipping:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147164
I actually have 2 of the 15 bay rack cases and another pair of these for workstations: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147155

My primary server is based on an Intel i3-3220 CPU (3.3GHz) in a SuperMicro workstation board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182717

I currently have 16gig Non-ECC DDR3-1600 RAM running Windows Server 2012r2. I intend to get an Intel Xeon E3-1230V2 CPU and 16gig Kingston ECC Ram this year for the primary server when funds allow. This is a gem of a CPU with 4 full cores and 8 threads and no heat producing onboard video. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117286

I currently have 12 drives in each rack case that are a mix of 2, 3 and 4TB drives totaling 34TB per case.
I have 2 media center PC's in my home that connect to the primary server. The bulk of my equipment is in my home office in a home made rack against a wall fed by UPS batteries. The servers slide out on drawer platforms supported by 100lb bearing drawer rails. My main switch is a gigabit TP-Link 24 port gigabit switch model TL-SG1024. Every bit of wiring in my office is done with Cat7 Shielded cable. I may have 8 to 14 complete systems running in my office with lots of power wires so the Cat7 shielding helps keep data transfers speedy. I currently max out at 115MB/second across the switch to and from servers and workstations. My second server (Z87 socket 1150) only serves to mirror the primary server and runs Win 8.1 Pro using StartMenu8 GUI add-on to return the START button and desktop interface as the primary GUI. Each server has a pair of Dell Perc H310 hardware based RAID controllers that have been flashed for use as a HBA (host bus adapter) for 8 additional SATA ports per card. These are 8 lane PCI Express cards rated at 6Gbit per port. There are some tricks to get them to work on any motherboard but I picked mine up for about $50 each including shipping. Including motherboard SATA, I can connect at least 22 drives inside each box if the box held that many drives.

There is no lag at all on either of my theater PC's. One PC is an i5-750 and the other is an i7-920. Both systems have dual GPU video cards that were handed down from previous builds just like the rest of the parts. I am facing the same noise and heat issues. My bedroom Theater PC is based on the eVGA Classified socket 1366 board with an eVGA 295 video card and PC Power and Cooling 1KWatt power supply. These were leftover parts from upgrades and are overkill for sure. The other Theater PC has an ATI 4870x2 card and it and makes for tons of fan noise. I run Windows 7 x64 on both theater PC's with both using Win media center and XBMC. I use Logitech K400r wireless keyboards w/touchpads and Adesso Media Center remotes as well.

My router is also has a Intel i3-3230 CPU and runs pfSense open source firewall/routing/intrusion prevention. http://www.pfsense.org/ I use Intel gigabit NICs in the servers, router and my main workstation. I just cannot say enough about using good NICs to keep the data moving smoothly.

The new Haswell based CPU's are wonderful with their power conserving features. I currently only serve files and the Intel i3 CPU's mostly sit idle. I have not gotten into the drive pooling features of server 2012r2 yet. I have also seen other products such as FlexRAID that allow drive pools with or without redundancy in a single box. So far I have kept is simple with single individual drive volumes and another exact matching drive in the backup server to match it. The server syncs to the backup server every night using Second Copy only copying the changes to the backup server.

Some weak points I have seen in the growth of my own setup was using PCI or PCI Express x1 SATA cards to gain 2 or 4 SATA ports. These cards have horrible performance severely limiting throughput. Also for me using shielded Cat 6a or Cat 7 cable increased throughput. Things were definitely sluggish before I got my 24 port switch. Before I was daisy chaining hubs off my old DD-WRT based gigabit router. This creates extra data hops over switches and hubs decreasing performance. All 24 ports are currently occupied now so my next step is a 48 port switch. I will likely build Haswell based Intel i5 Media center PC's with something like an ATI 7770 GPU and dual fan GPU cooling solutions this year.

I hope some of my ramblings help someone.
 
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^ I do too much of that kinda stuff at work lol. Great info though. I want a very simple solution at home...

Here's what I do on my HTPC's:

1) Watch tv from my HDHomerun Prime on WMC.
2) Watch Movies, from my home server, on XBMC.

They are currently Q6600 cpu, HD4670 gpu rigs that I will eventually upgrade to NUC's when I can spare the funds (and when the Iris Pro options becomes less expensive).

I think I'm going to try my Sans Digital 4bay eSATA enclosure (since I already have it) and leave it connected to my secondary rig.

So, no one is having success streaming high bit rate 1080p from a NAS box (like Synology, etc)?
 
I was wondering:

Are you trying to rid yourself of the i7-950 server altogether?

Is the current server in the same room with one of the Theater PC's making tons of noise and heat?

Are you speaking of attaching external storage to one of the Q6600 HTPC's and placing movie content on the Theater PC itself?

or.... just attaching a storage box to the network switch?
 
i7-950 server is in my office along with two other rigs. I'm thinking of getting rid of the server and using one of my two rigs to attach a 4bay esata enclosure to. Another option would be to get a 4bay network enclosure but I'm unsure if it can handle my streaming needs. Basically I'm trying to downsize and simplify what I currently have going on.
 
thelead said:
How well does it handle streaming uncompressed Bluray rips?
Click to expand...
This seems to be the popular High Performance unit:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108113

At $600 for only 4 drives, it is not cost effective for me. I would fill 6 of them to start with and need to buy more to add more drives. I built my entire server for $800 and can run 15 drives now and 22+ drives with a larger bare chassis.

Synology does make 12 bay high performance desktop units: $1700
Synology bare 12 bay rack systems start at $2400, also too pricey for me.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108125
 
^ Those prices seem ridiculous for what you get. Maybe I'll just switch to mATX (keep the rest of the hardware), get a smaller case and buy quieter fans...
 
thelead said:
^ Those prices seem ridiculous for what you get. Maybe I'll just switch to mATX (keep the rest of the hardware), get a smaller case and buy quieter fans...
Click to expand...

Agreed. Very pricey.

The newer 22nm CPU's run very cool (Stock Intel coolers) and have no problems keeping up with disk I/O demands that I can see.

I have a pair of Cat 7 Ethernet cables running to my primary Server from the switch. The servers Supermicro motherboard uses a pair of on-board Intel Ethernet NICs. I do NIC teaming (channel bonding) to provide greater bandwidth to the switch so when multiple people access the media server it isn't noticeable.

There are some really quiet fans out there. Just read as much as you can (customer reviews) about the various ones. I have noticed that what some consider quiet may not be to me. I opt for mostly 120mm 140mm and 200mm sized fans and lots of them.
 
That 4-bay unit you linked can be expanded with a Synology expander unit.

I have an 8-bay DS1812+ with a DX513 5-bay expander unit for example.

Synology is well worth the investment. Do some research if your not convinced.
 
Any of these NAS boxes allow for expansion through esata (port multiplier)?
 
Do you want to buy something or build something?

Regarding your option 2, why not just use a NAS but still run the applications from one of your computers? I find that a far better solution than option 1. This way you wouldn't need to buy an expensive NAS that has a powerful CPU.

Personally I built a NAS using a Fractal Node 304 case. I'm running an Ivy bridge e3 1245v2 and it idles at 30w (drives spun down) and is practically silent. Haswell would be slightly lower power consumption.

What applications are you running from the server? Dropped frames and audio sync issues (if you are only streaming and not transcoding) sound like a network issue, are you wired or wireless? Any modern CPU (celeron or Pentium) should handle serving files without any issues (they're twice as powerful as your e5200), and are quite cheap.
 
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ptirmal said:
Do you want to buy something or build something?

Regarding your option 2, why not just use a NAS but still run the applications from one of your computers? I find that a far better solution than option 1. This way you wouldn't need to buy an expensive NAS that has a powerful CPU.

Personally I built a NAS using a Fractal Node 304 case. I'm running an Ivy bridge e3 1245v2 and it idles at 30w (drives spun down) and is practically silent. Haswell would be slightly lower power consumption.

What applications are you running from the server? Dropped frames and audio sync issues (if you are only streaming and not transcoding) sound like a network issue, are you wired or wireless? Any modern CPU (celeron or Pentium) should handle serving files without any issues (they're twice as powerful as your e5200), and are quite cheap.
Click to expand...

I have cat6 throughout my house (hooked up through a gigabit switch). Very much doubt it's a network issue. I did upgrade the htpc's video cards as well, so that may have been part of the issue at one point as well.
 
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