Upgrade recommendation

[N Bates]

I am currently running the below NAS system and would like to upgrade file transfer speed between my PC and the NAS, the NAS in mainly used for home media storage:

Abit ix38 Quad GT motherboard
Intel Q6600
8 gb ram
PCI 1 graphics (yes, this is correct not PCIE)
M1015 hba adaptor flashed to it LSI mode
HP SAS Expander (the 3.0 gb version HB 468406-B21)
Intel X540 T2 (directly connected to the PC, no switch)
Corsair 850w psu
24 old 2tb hdd
Norco 24 bay case
OmniOS and Nappp

I am aware that the system is pretty old and would at some point uprage the whole system.

What would be more cost effective and sensible upgrade to achieve faster file transfer between the PC and the NAS:

An upgraded version of the HP expander card 12 gb model, I don't have enough PCIE slots to connect 3 x M1015 as this would be the most cost effective.

Or a new adaptor like the Adaptec ASR-72405 24 port 6.0 gb or the LSI 9305-24i.

Or a new vga motherboard, cpu and ram and a furter 2 x M1015.

Whatever I buy, I need it to last to complement further upgrades down the line.

Many thanks for all your help.

 

[Blue Fox]

As you have a near 13 year old CPU, I would just get a newer board/CPU for the power savings alone. I would expect you to be able to saturate 10GbE from something that old however. What kind of speeds are you getting?

 

[notarat]

I am currently running the below NAS system and would like to upgrade file transfer speed between my PC and the NAS, the NAS in mainly used for home media storage:

Abit ix38 Quad GT motherboard
Intel Q6600
8 gb ram
PCI 1 graphics (yes, this is correct not PCIE)
M1015 hba adaptor flashed to it LSI mode
HP SAS Expander (the 3.0 gb version HB 468406-B21)
Intel X540 T2 (directly connected to the PC, no switch)
Corsair 850w psu
24 old 2tb hdd
Norco 24 bay case
OmniOS and Nappp

I am aware that the system is pretty old and would at some point uprage the whole system.

What would be more cost effective and sensible upgrade to achieve faster file transfer between the PC and the NAS:

An upgraded version of the HP expander card 12 gb model, I don't have enough PCIE slots to connect 3 x M1015 as this would be the most cost effective.

Or a new adaptor like the Adaptec ASR-72405 24 port 6.0 gb or the LSI 9305-24i.

Or a new vga motherboard, cpu and ram and a furter 2 x M1015.

Whatever I buy, I need it to last to complement further upgrades down the line.

Many thanks for all your help.

Honestly, I'd get a QNAP NAS like the TVS-951X. It's integrated GPU is capable of fulfilling your transcoding needs, it's far more modern than your current setup, and can be expanded down the line, and it comes standard with the Aquantia AQ107 10GB NIC. (and you buy a 10GB NIC to install in your workstation to push/pull from the NAS, while the rest of the devices on your network can access it via the 1GB NIC)

Transfer speeds are nice (In the screenshot below I'm pushing a 21GB render from my workstation to the NAS)

In the screenshot below I'm pulling that 21GB file from the NAS to my workstation

 

[N Bates]

As you have a near 13 year old CPU, I would just get a newer board/CPU for the power savings alone. I would expect you to be able to saturate 10GbE from something that old however. What kind of speeds are you getting?

I am getting between 250 and 260 which is not too bad for an old system but I'd like to try and get maybe 500+ and I to acheive that my bottle neck currently is the HP SAS Expander Card as it only able to do 3 gb with HDD's and 6 gb with SAS drives.

 

[N Bates]

Honestly, I'd get a QNAP NAS like the TVS-951X. It's integrated GPU is capable of fulfilling your transcoding needs, it's far more modern than your current setup, and can be expanded down the line, and it comes standard with the Aquantia AQ107 10GB NIC. (and you buy a 10GB NIC to install in your workstation to push/pull from the NAS, while the rest of the devices on your network can access it via the 1GB NIC)

Transfer speeds are nice (In the screenshot below I'm pushing a 21GB render from my workstation to the NAS)

View attachment 165719


In the screenshot below I'm pulling that 21GB file from the NAS to my workstation


View attachment 165720

I have never liked the Qnap or Synology NAS as they don't offer many bays, they're not as flexible as a system that you build yourself, besides I have already got the 2 x 10 gb intel X540 and the norco 24 bay case which I don't want to retire.

 

[Joust]

Do you use it for just storage or does it pull any transcode duty?

 

[N Bates]

No transcoding, just serving media files to 2 tv's, I use plex and emby without any transcoding required.

 

[Blue Fox]

Why do you need 10GbE then?

 

[N Bates]

I do rip my Blu-ray's and dvd on my main pc, then transfer to the NAS, the transfer speed usually is about 10 or 11 mbs which is pretty slow and I am an impatient man.

 

[notarat]

I do rip my Blu-ray's and dvd on my main pc, then transfer to the NAS, the transfer speed usually is about 10 or 11 mbs which is pretty slow and I am an impatient man.

Then whatever solution you decide on, pick up a couple 10GB cards. (one for your PC and one for your NAS)

That'll really help the Xfer speed, especially if you currently rip your BluRays/DVDs to a SSD on your main PC and then xfer to the NAS (I also recommend SSD Caching or NVME caching on the NAS to improve read/write speeds)

When I'm moving files from my 2700X in my sig below to my 1600X in my sig below, which used to serve as my file server, I'm getting 1.14GB/sec across the 10GB cards.

(Test file is 21GB render moved from my 2700x to my 1600x)

 

[Blue Fox]

I do rip my Blu-ray's and dvd on my main pc, then transfer to the NAS, the transfer speed usually is about 10 or 11 mbs which is pretty slow and I am an impatient man.

Sounds like you had 100mbit, not 1GbE before. A full DVD should take under a minute at 1GbE and a blu-ray ~5 minutes if you're not reencoding. 10GbE is likely going to be completely wasted on your setup and just use extra electricity.

 

[N Bates]

Sounds like you had 100mbit, not 1GbE before. A full DVD should take under a minute at 1GbE and a blu-ray ~5 minutes if you're not reencoding. 10GbE is likely going to be completely wasted on your setup and just use extra electricity.

I am looking to upgrade my setup to improve transfer speeds but not sure of the right upgrade solution, I am kind of leaning towards a new motherboard, cpu, ram, and a 24 HBA, not sure which ones though, I have so far been loking at the at the below motherborad:

Gigabyte C246-WU4 Express Chipset/ATX/DDR4/Dual Intel Server GbE LAN/10xSATA3/2xM.2/Server Motherboard

and maybe a petium 5400