Advice for new build based on current hardware...

[Cricket]

Hi all. I've had an older XEON system running with a ton of old Seagate ES drives. I planned to replace it last year and never did. It's time to do it now.... Here is what I have (scraps from past projects):

4x 2GB DDR3 So-Dimm modules
1x 4TB Seagate Hybrid SSHD
1x Intel 2700DC Atom Dual-Core D2700
1x RaidMax ITX case

I need a few things: A quieter (or silent) case, and second hard drive (or two new ones?), and an upgrade path to a better ITX board with ECC ram....

So, big questions: Can/should I use my 4TB Hybrid drive? Can I mix and match SSHD and HDD? What case should I buy?

Thanks!

 

[marbus90]

That board doesn't support ECC and would only support 2 DIMMs anyway. The case would only support 1x3.5" drive native.

Standard ITX builds without much CPU power would look as following:
Fractal Node 304
Seasonic G-360
ASRock E3C224D2I w/ Pentium G3220 or i3-4130 OR ASRock C2550D4I
Either DIMMs from QVL with the extemption of Kingston or Crucial, always 8GB unbuffered ECC DIMMs
HDDs whatever you like. I'm running around 60 of these hybrid drives, not a bad choice. However, HGST NAS or WD Red would be the definitely the better pick.

 

[Cricket]

Thanks! Yes, the board sucks, the case sucks, the ram sucks, but I know that. It's not a list of what I want, it's a list of what I have. :(

So, do I understand you correctly that upgrading to a Fractal Node 304 and Seasonic G-360 will give me a case build that isn't loud or flimsy?

Why do you have 60 of those hybrid drives? Do you run then in a NAS setting, or for desktop drives? Have you mix-and-matched your hybrid drives with non-hybrid drives in a FreeNAS?

 

[marbus90]

Each client (somewhere in the 50ish ballpark... remote admin) got one of these 4TB hybrid drives, then I've got a striped mirror of 4 in my implementation of a ZFS Fileserver and another single drive in an ESXi host.

The Node 304 is the praised silent ITX box. However, if you only plan on max. 4 disks ever, the Lenovo TS140, Dell T20 or HP Microserver Gen8 or ML310e Gen8 may be a better option. You'll find that the Dell T20 may be better organized on the internals than the TS140 and the Microserver is just Micro.

 

[Cricket]

Thanks for the help! I'll probably track down a Node 304 and another 4TB drive. Later on I'll get a new ITX board with ECC ram, but for now I'll cross my fingers and hope for the best with what I have.

Thanks!