Basic hardware setup??? Is this good enough?

[tableleg]

I have for some time considered buying a NAS to allow all the multiple computers at home shared access plus the possibility of a backup drive in Raid format.
It was whilst researching this that I came across FreeNas. I thought I would give it a go and see if it would meet my needs. I have an old Pc that I wanted to use, an Amd 3200 with 1gb of ram. I plan to use a CF card to install the FreeNas software to for booting and fit either a couple of 512Mb or 1Tb drives in Raid.

The main issue I am concerned about is the amount of Ram I have. I seem to be finding a lot of info on FreeNas where people say 'minimum of 6Gb of Ram'.

This now leaves me with a dilemma, since my motherboard will only take a maximum of 4Gb and that alone will cost me near on £100.

Suddenly my options seem expensive, as that's before I buy 2x new drives as well.

Am I missing something or is it really going to cost me a few hundred pounds to use my old Pc as a FreeNas server?

 

[Trianian]

4GB for £100? Ouch.

I'm a FreeNAS noob, but my read of the forums suggests that a small system like you're building could work reasonably well with 4GB of ram. The thing is, as systems get older and the RAM they use goes out of production, it can be far more expensive to buy old RAM than newer, still-in-production memory.

If your RAM is really that dear and you feel you truly need 6GB, you're certainly best looking for a cheap motherboard that supports the current memory standards. I bought 16GB of very high quality DDR3 1600 quite recently for about $50 US, though prices seem to have gone up a bit since then, today it would probably cost me $70 to $80 US for 16GB of a comparable quality of memory.

As for a CF card, that seems somewhat more complex than simply using an (inexpensive) 4GB USB thumbdrive. Those are available everywhere in the US for under $5. I just splurged on a premium 4GB drive for my build, (Mushkin Mulholland) it cost $8 shipped.

 

[tableleg]

Many thanks for the reply.

The more I read the more I find people saying things like 'im using 4x 2TB drives and 16Gb of ram'.........WOW!

These people must be loaded or have nothing else to spend their money on!

It just seems like to get the kind of performance I would like (and I wouldn't expect the fastest system in the world) it would be a better option to go down the route as you suggest and buy a new motherboard with newer memory. The obvious downside to this is that this incurs its own cost which added to the drives make the whole setup well out of my league for now.

I appreciate you input though. Thanks again.

 

[Trianian]

Just to clarify, the 16GB I bought wasn't for my freenas build, it was for my production machine on which I run VM's.

For my FreeNAS build, I bought 8GB of DDR3 1333. It cost about $35 shipped. Although my planned RAIDZ-1 should be OK with 4GB, the extra $17 to double the RAM seemed a reasonable step.

I've just about assembled all my components to build my system. Including everything, the 4x 2TB seagates, the 2nd slowest current Intel chip (Pentium G620), the aforementioned RAM, a Gigabyte Z68 MB, case and PSU, it will cost me somewhere in the $500 range.

I've been buying components for a few months now, ordering parts when they were heavily discounted, otherwise this build would have easily cost me $300 or $400 more.
I was thinking I wouldn't have my parts gathered for another few months, but I recently found an amazing deal on my hard drives.

I expect hard drive prices to drop precipitously over the next few months, probably reaching last year's lows by mid summer. About the same time Intel's IvyBridge will release and the older SandyBridge components will be heavily discounted. Probably not a bad time to build a FreeNas from new parts.

 

[tableleg]

Thanks again for that additional clarification. I've no idea what VM's are/is but it must need some resources!

I had no idea it would end up being so costly for even a budget build. I presumed having looked at some NAS enclosures (£130 with 256mb ram) that having an old motherboard which still had better specs than the enclosures would benefit me in building my own, but alas this does not appear to be true without considerable additional costs.

I'll have to consider all my options again.

 

[b1ghen]

Like said before the problem is that you have to buy RAM that is not in production anymore, that is always more expensive than current RAM.

In my experience you are fine with any 64 bit CPU and 4GB of RAM. I ran my 6 disk RAIDZ2 on 4GB of RAM for 6 months without any problem.

If I were you I would look into getting some slightly newer hardware, at least here in Sweden you could get a new motherboard, cpu and 8GB of RAM for under £120. That seems like a much better option than buying antiquated RAM for the same amount and you would have a system that could handle almost anything and probably consume less power as well.

 

[b1ghen]

If you are only running a pair of drives in a mirror you could probably get away with less RAM, it's hard to know before you try though. I have a similar system running on only 2GB of RAM for a while now without any problem, it is not very utilized though so I can't say what would happen if I stressed it.

 

[McFly]

IMHO, I think your system will run fine - if you're not worried about amazing file performance - which is fine for any home user - it's a workable solution.

BTW, I "am" one of those people with the big system. I had a system with a E6600/8GB DDR2 (old parts) then when it had stability and USB issues, I cut my losses and threw in a FX-8210, with 16GB of RAM. Yes, it's overkill... but now this system can run for years excellently without me touching hardware other than cleaning. Throw a drive in at work and sync, and I've got a free-esque cloud backup that's secure with the exception of being in a single geographic locale - but if my entire city blows - I'll be more worried about my family than their pictures.

And yes, it's also my hobby - so it's better than than ****s or gambling. lol

 

[tableleg]

Thanks for the replies.

Well I hooked up the old MB with an IDE drive and the system only has 256mb or Ram and it seems to work fine. Could do with being a little bit faster but otherwise it seems to work really well.

So now I wonder how it would compare to me adding perhaps 2 or even 4 Gb of Ram and a sata II drive.

What do you think?