SharkDance Posted January 28 Share #1 Posted January 28 Hello experts! I've got a many years old xpenology setup going right now in the same case running DSM6. Very happy with it, but it's time for a better CPU and some new drives. This one ideally would be using DSM7. Hopefully hardware transcoding with the integrated gpu would work in emby and plex. 1-3 streams at a time. SSD for cache if it makes sense. Maybe another SSD to host the OS, but not sure if that's possible? PSU I'll figure out later. Hoping the 2.5gbe on the motherboard will work. My network isn't 10gbe, so I don't need it, but definitely not opposed to moving to it. Intel Core i9-14900T ASRock Z790M-ITX WIFI Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive Western Digital Gold 22 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive x8 Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case LSI Broadcom SAS 9300-8i 8-port 12Gb/s SATA+SAS PCI-Express 3.0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj_nsk Posted January 28 Share #2 Posted January 28 (edited) 2 часа назад, SharkDance сказал: I've got a many years old xpenology setup going right now in the same case running DSM6. Very happy with it, but it's time for a better CPU and some new drives. This one ideally would be using DSM7. Yes, it's quite time to move on: DSM7 works stably, there are many useful innovations, and there are well-functioning bootloaders. But let's look at your needs and the chosen hardware: 1. "Hopefully hardware transcoding with the integrated gpu would work in emby and plex": 1.1. iGPU hardware transcoding only works for models DS918+ and DS920+ - remember it 1.2. Standard Synology drivers only support iGPUs up to the 9th generation Intel CPU 1.3. But for some new CPU models, it is possible to install the i915 patch. You can check, for example, by mentioning the Arc Loader in the Addon: 1.3.1. find your Device ID by CPU - for 14900T it's 0xA780. 1.3.2. check if this code is mentioned in the Addon 915 list? (look for "8086A780" there) - if the ID is found, the driver may be patched 2. "SSD for cache if it makes sense" - the cache is useful in cases where your DSM will use frequent access to the same small files. It is unlikely that you will need it for simple video viewing. But if you still want to, then choose NVME (not SATA SSD which are slower), and better install DS920+ 3. "Maybe another SSD to host the OS, but not sure if that's possible?" - in DSM the operating system is placed on all disks at the same time - you will not get any winnings here. But you can place the data of some packages or virtual machines on a separate SSD volume - think about it later, if necessary. 4. "Hoping the 2.5gbe on the motherboard will work. My network isn't 10gbe, so I don't need it, but definitely not opposed to moving to it" - the drivers available today support a limited list of 2.5GbE and 10GbE models (it is much smaller than for 1Gb) - you need to carefully check compatibility before choosing (search on this forum). 5. Efficiency. The hardware you choose will exceed your stated needs ("emby and plex. 1-3 streams at a time") many times: - in DS918+/DS920+ only 8 CPU threads will be used (the remaining in i9-14900T will be idle) [Updated:] not even that - most likely on i9-14900T, which has 24 cores, neither DS918+ nor DS920+ will start at all! - WiFi does not work in DSM - 64Gb RAM will never be fully used - 4Tb for the cache is too much (but you can, if it's not a pity) if you do not plan to load the server with any additional heavy tasks (for example, virtual machines), then I would recommend that you choose a less powerful configuration that will also save on electricity consumption). Edited January 28 by dj_nsk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharkDance Posted January 28 Author Share #3 Posted January 28 Thank you so so much! Yeah I have 32gb ram in my current NAS and it is not well-utilized. You'd think at some point they'd do more caching of files in RAM I neglected to mention I will also be running sonarr, radarr, sabnzbd, etc. Decompressing large files hits the CPU super hard to the point where I spend more time decompressing than downloading now. That's where the interest in a faster CPU comes from, also proofing against unknown future needs. With such limited ability to use cores, I wonder how it decides whether to use the P or E cores. Bummer the i9 is a no-go. i5-14500t is 6 p cores and 8 e cores. i3-14100t is 4 cores, but the GPU is a 730 instead of a 770 770 would be nice to future proof transcoding to future standards or some AI thing that comes up. Probably I'll have the NAS for 6 or 7 years. Is there something you'd recommend? I guess I could always do OpenMediaVault or something but the interface does not seem remotely as nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj_nsk Posted January 28 Share #4 Posted January 28 52 минуты назад, SharkDance сказал: Decompressing large files hits the CPU super hard to the point where I spend more time decompressing than downloading now. That's where the interest in a faster CPU comes from, also proofing against unknown future needs. ... Probably I'll have the NAS for 6 or 7 years. Is there something you'd recommend? look at older generations of Intel CPUs, for example, like mine - the maximum performance of the 9th generation i9-9900K (the DS918/920 till works with it, because there are 8 cores). However, they will require an old motherboard, but the performance of the processors will be quite enough for a long time. Or use another option to fully load the hardware (I have it done that way now) - virtualization: 1) install ESXi (or Proxmox) on NVME disk 2) create virtual DS920+ with 8 vCores, passthrough to it SATA/SAS controller and iGPU - you will get a fully functional working DSM 3) the remaining resources (memory, NVME space, CPU cores) can be loaded with additional virtual machines (test DSM, Linux, Windows, etc.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharkDance Posted January 28 Author Share #5 Posted January 28 Thank you! i9-9900K is 5 years old though Right now I have an i7-7700T and it can't handle real-time transcoding of even 1 stream (depending on input and output types). i9-9900K is 2 years newer, so some chance it'd be OK, but not sure if it could handle more than 1 stream, and that's not much future proofing. Decompression performance is also too slow for my needs on my current chip. Since it's no longer produced it also costs the same as a CPU built this year. It's sounding more and more like I should give up on xpenology and maybe go to OpenMediaVault, Rockstor, EasyNAS, Unraid or similar. New UI to learn which would be a bummer, and I doubt any of them are quite as nice as DSM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj_nsk Posted January 29 Share #6 Posted January 29 6 часов назад, SharkDance сказал: Right now I have an i7-7700T and it can't handle real-time transcoding of even 1 stream (depending on input and output types). - are you sure hardware transcoding is working/enabled? It should be able to handle it! 6 часов назад, SharkDance сказал: It's sounding more and more like I should give up on xpenology and maybe go to OpenMediaVault, Rockstor, EasyNAS, Unraid or similar. New UI to learn which would be a bummer, and I doubt any of them are quite as nice as DSM. Than think about the proposed option with virtual machines running ESXi - there you can continue to use DSM and install whatever you want on the same server. And use the newest and most powerful hardware for this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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