This is my first crack at a NAS build and my first time ever using FreeNAS as an OS.
Case: NORCO ITX-S8 Black Black Mini-ITX Form Computer Storage Case
Case accessories: NORCO C-SFF8087-4S Discrete to SFF-8087 (Reverse breakout) Cable x2
Case modification: SilenX Effizio EFX-08-12 80mm Quiet Case Fan x2
Board: ASRock C236 WSI Mini ITX Server Motherboard LGA 1151 Intel C236
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 v5 SkyLake 3.4 GHz LGA 1151
RAM: Kingston ValueRAM 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 2133 RAM (Server Memory) ECC DIMM (288-Pin)
PSU: Athena Power AP-MFATX50P8 500W FlexATX
OS drive: SanDisk 64GB Ultra Fit CZ43 USB 3.0 Flash Drive
GPU: EVGA GeForce 8400GS 512MB (had it laying around)
Storage drives: Seagate barracuda 7200RPM 750GB SATA HDD x8 (used drives from our DELL Equallogic iSCSI SANs at work that were replaced with 2TB drives, so they were free :) )
Built this NAS specifically to run Plex Media Server and wanted enough processing power to handle transcoding multiple 1080p streams simultaneously.
I have FreeNAS installed on the flash drive which is plugged into the USB 3.0 slot next to the processor on the motherboard (internal slot)
The drives are running RAID-Z2
Have the storage shared with SMB so I can dump ripped movies to it from my windows laptop and I have Plex Media Server running in a jail.
Storage capacity will eventually be upgraded as funds allow, but for right now it's running on free drives and on RAID Z2 as I had planned. Eventually will swap 1 drive at a time with 5+TB drives until every drive is swapped/rebuilt in the array and theoretically it should expand to the new capacity once the last drive is swapped/rebuilt.
So far everything seems to be running well, though I would like to pull that GPU out and either run without a GPU, or at least run with a GPU that is passively cooled to quiet the thing down some more. That GPU fan is a bit noisy.
So has anyone ever tried running one of these without a GPU? will it work? The processor does not have a GPU on board, and this mobo does not have its own integrated GPU, it relies on the processor having a GPU for integrated graphics to work. So I'm curious if it will boot up if I pulled the video card since it is all set up now and I don't have keyboard/monitor even hooked up to it anymore?
Case: NORCO ITX-S8 Black Black Mini-ITX Form Computer Storage Case
Case accessories: NORCO C-SFF8087-4S Discrete to SFF-8087 (Reverse breakout) Cable x2
Case modification: SilenX Effizio EFX-08-12 80mm Quiet Case Fan x2
Board: ASRock C236 WSI Mini ITX Server Motherboard LGA 1151 Intel C236
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 v5 SkyLake 3.4 GHz LGA 1151
RAM: Kingston ValueRAM 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 2133 RAM (Server Memory) ECC DIMM (288-Pin)
PSU: Athena Power AP-MFATX50P8 500W FlexATX
OS drive: SanDisk 64GB Ultra Fit CZ43 USB 3.0 Flash Drive
GPU: EVGA GeForce 8400GS 512MB (had it laying around)
Storage drives: Seagate barracuda 7200RPM 750GB SATA HDD x8 (used drives from our DELL Equallogic iSCSI SANs at work that were replaced with 2TB drives, so they were free :) )
Built this NAS specifically to run Plex Media Server and wanted enough processing power to handle transcoding multiple 1080p streams simultaneously.
I have FreeNAS installed on the flash drive which is plugged into the USB 3.0 slot next to the processor on the motherboard (internal slot)
The drives are running RAID-Z2
Have the storage shared with SMB so I can dump ripped movies to it from my windows laptop and I have Plex Media Server running in a jail.
Storage capacity will eventually be upgraded as funds allow, but for right now it's running on free drives and on RAID Z2 as I had planned. Eventually will swap 1 drive at a time with 5+TB drives until every drive is swapped/rebuilt in the array and theoretically it should expand to the new capacity once the last drive is swapped/rebuilt.
So far everything seems to be running well, though I would like to pull that GPU out and either run without a GPU, or at least run with a GPU that is passively cooled to quiet the thing down some more. That GPU fan is a bit noisy.
So has anyone ever tried running one of these without a GPU? will it work? The processor does not have a GPU on board, and this mobo does not have its own integrated GPU, it relies on the processor having a GPU for integrated graphics to work. So I'm curious if it will boot up if I pulled the video card since it is all set up now and I don't have keyboard/monitor even hooked up to it anymore?
