If your data is so important that you worry about single bit errors in memory, then you better have a back up (or two). Even if you have ECC.
Its cuz the people at Freenas avidly try to shoot you down for everything if your not running enterprise.
Not working properly, oh your not running xeons... not handling bandwidth? oh your nic cards arent intel.
Basically you want any tech support from people on freenas forums, you need to comply with hardware standards, or you get called a noob. :T
But ECC is only as good as the entire chain of data is from ECC.
Meaning if your glorified ECC machine is taking data from a laptop which doesnt have ECC, well, your under the mercy of the laptop ram not coughing up bad data, because that ECC wont save you from that.
So i half understand why ECC is needed, and at the same time dont understand why its pushed on others.
I would rather have OP sell his components and use the proceed to fund the Synology/QNAP/Asustor NAS.
There is nothing wrong with FreeNAS.
Yes its a bit overpowered for most NAS purpose, however its reliable.
Its also free, is updated frequently, and never requires you to buy any subscription or services.
unRAID is also great, but you need to pay for it.
OP to answer a few of your questions from someone who has FreeNAS and is running PLEX.
There are also Jails for FreeNAS 11, which support SABNzbd, virtual machines and even Plex.
Here is the config of my FreeNAS Server:
System Information
Hostname AKIHIME.local
Build FreeNAS-11.1-U5
Platform Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5640 @ 2.27GHz
Memory 98257MB
System Time Mon, 19 Nov 2018 09:58:52 -0800
Uptime 9:58AM up 33 days, 19:59, 0 users
Load Average 0.07, 0.07, 0.06
This is on a Supermicro X8DAi board in a 16 drive hotswap supermicro 3U rack chasis.
(yes its old hardware, but for what it does, its great, and DDR3 ECC Ram is CHEAP.
Freenas is very light on processor, very heavy on RAM like most DB are.
I was taught and told to run at least 1GB / 1TB of ECC ram per data on RAID-Z2
I am running 12 x HGST He8's in Raid-Z2 with 2 drives as spare.
This would allow for 2 drives to fail before i hit catastrophic data loss on that server.
I am also running as Jails on the same server
Tranmission
SABnzbd
PlexMediaCenter
It is connected to a 10GB Switch over a SFP+ DAC cable.
I am using this switch.. its great and i recommend it, if you want a 10GBe connection.
https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-QSW-120...TF8&qid=1542652536&sr=8-4&keywords=10g+switch
My data transfer speeds across network is at around 400-650 mb/s on 10GBe on RAID-Z2.
What i like about it:
I love that the basic stuff on it is really basic and easy to use if you have some brain.
You don't need foundation in FreeBSD yet, because the GUI is really easy to navigate though.
I love how its your hardware.
If something breaks, you can service it, and not have to send it anywhere.
You can even take the drive/disk FreeNAS is installed in, plug it into a new machine, and then import your disks onto that machine. In Sort, its your PC, no one will tell you how long something will take to repair, except you on when you get your RMA parts back, if your parts are on warrenty.
What i dont like about it:
It draws more wattage then a Synology for sure... its enterprise board + enterprise Reg ECC Ram + even server fans..... vtec on them fans....
Its Loud as hell because its in a Supermicro 3U case.
Its Heavy as hell, if my house caught on fire, GG, there is no grab and run when you look at server racks, unless it is a synology unit that happens to sit ontop of a server and smiles at you.
As for how it handles streams.
Well i have no issues if the stream is 1080p even with those low wattage Xeons.
If you wanted something to compliment your 4k library...
Well, then i would definitely build a dedicated plex server with a dedicated GPU to help you handle 4k streams, because i certainly cant get my machine to work, even with replacing those low wattage Xeons, to 3.73ghz flagship ones.
Meaning, you will need some beefy hardware if you want to stream 4k files converted and not a direct passthough.
So a dual core? maybe a little under powered, as it will have to run freenas, and then run the jail, and then expect plex to transcribe.... A quadcore would however definitely be able to handle that and then some.
You can pick up some pretty cheap E3's super micro systems, and gut the internals to build it that way as well.