building my first freenas (my spec list) is this upto the job?

[popUP]

Hi everyone

iv messed round with freenas on my main pc (gaming rig) and decided to build a permanent freenas.

first ov all i will be using the freenas to save files to it (films/music) and stream films to pc's and xboxes on the network. there will be only 2 pc's streaming a video file from the nas at any one time.

my specs so far are.

motherboard
Abit SG-80DC

CPU
Intel Celeron D 3.06GHz

Ram
Crucial 1 GB DDR SDRAM, 400 MHz, DIMM 184pi

harddrive
500gb western digital green

power supply
150w (not yet purchased but this should be ok to use?)

im just wondering weather this spec is ok for what i want to do and is freenas compatable and will work with the onboard lan

the onboard lan on the motherboard is
On board 10/100M PHY

and moterboard chipset is
SIS 661FX/ 964


i dont no if the motherboard supports boot to usb as i dont have cpu at the minute to see if the setting is in bios. but if it does not support boot to usb i can simply use a cf card to sata cant i ? :)

if you need any more info on the motherboard here is it>

CPU

LGA775 Socket for Intel® Pentium D/Pentium 4/Celeron D Processors with 800/ 533 MHz FSB
Compatible with Intel P4-05A processors
Supports Intel® Hyper-Threading / XD-bit / EM64T Technology
Chipset

SIS 661FX/ 964
Memory

2 X 184-pin DIMM sockets support max. memory capacity 2GB
Supports DDR 400 Un-buffered Non-ECC memory
Graphics

Integrated SIS Mirage Graphics GPU high performance 256-bit 3D engine and 2D Accelerator
LAN

On board 10/100M PHY
Audio

On board 5.1 CH Audio CODEC
Expansion Slots

1 x AGP 8X, 3 x PCI
Internal I/O

1 x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88 MB
2 x Ultra DMA 133/100/66/33 IDE connector
2 x SATA 1.5Gb/s connector
2 x USB header (support 4 ports)
1 x FP-Audio, 1 x CD-In
Back Panel I/O

1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x Serial Port, 1 x Parallel Port, 1 x VGA connector
Audio connector (Line-out, Line-in, MIC-in)
4 x USB 2.0, 1 x RJ-45 LAN connector
Serial ATA

2 x SATA 1.5Gb/s (RAID)
Supports SATA RAID 0/1
Form Factor

Micro ATX form factor 244 x 244mm
PCB Color: Orange

 

[jgreco]

"the onboard lan on the motherboard is
On board 10/100M PHY"

No, that's not useful, that just tells you that it's cheap. So here's my comments:

1) The board is limited to 2GB RAM. That's not really enough for FreeNAS 8, unless you use UFS, in which case it might be just fine. 1GB may be problematic either way, just be warned.

2) A 150W PSU is probably all right if the rest of the system doesn't consume too much power, but don't plan to go adding lots of other hard drives.

3) The LAN actually looks to be SIS900, which seems like it's probably supported by FreeBSD's sis driver.

 

[codenamezero]

I'd get something that consume less energy... get some ITX board that has built in CPU and enough SATA connectors. Plan out how many HDD you want to run in your NAS, 2? 3? 4? 8? Most newer mobos have at least 4 SATA connectors... so if you plan to have 8 HDDs, just make sure there is some expansion slot that allow you to throw in more SATA controller card...

Unless you plan on turning on and off your NAS everyday, otherwise you may want something that don't consume much power and leave it on 24/7.
I'm running MSI E350IA mobo, and it uses ~11W, running 3 green drives and a CF card for OS... i estimate my NAS won't take more than 40w/hr. You will also want to have a minimum of 4GB of ram, they are fairly cheap nowadays.

All other stuff such as audio and video, you don't really care much, so anything onboard is fine... as for LAN, you must absolutely make sure it comes with Gigabit LAN... otherwise it will be pretty uselessly slow! If your router don't support 1000M, invest on a cheap TP-Link gigabit switch.

You could see my build here to give you an idea.

 

[popUP]

I'd get something that consume less energy... get some ITX board that has built in CPU and enough SATA connectors. Plan out how many HDD you want to run in your NAS, 2? 3? 4? 8? Most newer mobos have at least 4 SATA connectors... so if you plan to have 8 HDDs, just make sure there is some expansion slot that allow you to throw in more SATA controller card...

Unless you plan on turning on and off your NAS everyday, otherwise you may want something that don't consume much power and leave it on 24/7.
I'm running MSI E350IA mobo, and it uses ~11W, running 3 green drives and a CF card for OS... i estimate my NAS won't take more than 40w/hr. You will also want to have a minimum of 4GB of ram, they are fairly cheap nowadays.

All other stuff such as audio and video, you don't really care much, so anything onboard is fine... as for LAN, you must absolutely make sure it comes with Gigabit LAN... otherwise it will be pretty uselessly slow! If your router don't support 1000M, invest on a cheap TP-Link gigabit switch.

You could see my build here to give you an idea.

thanks for everyone's replys i really appreciate the help.

i plan on putting freenas on a 4gb usb sandisk usb stick.
also i only want to use 1 hdd (500gb) will upgrade to a 1tb drive soon.

i have freenas 7 up and running.because i want to stream video to xbox 360 and freenas 8 dont support this :(anyway i can access the gui so lan is working. if i purchase a gigabit pci card for the nas will this be faster? also will i have to put a gigabit pci card in all pc's to get faster speeds as well.? i have a 3com 48port switch that distributes the internet to all pc's xbox's in the home. (cabled rj45) im not sure if the switch is gigabit or not its the 3com 4400 model

i plan on running the nas 24/7

 

[popUP]

it takes just under 3 minutes to transfer a 1.30gb avi file which i can more than live with
and streaming a video of the nas to a laptop is ok. video starts more or less instantly with no issues

 

[jgreco]

I'm running MSI E350IA mobo, and it uses ~11W, running 3 green drives and a CF card for OS...

The motherboard or the entire system?

 

[codenamezero]

My system minus the hdd. The whole thing with system fans and all is about 45 to 50.

 

[jgreco]

Your average green drive really only ought to consume about 7 watts, 3*7=21, plus 11 = 32, not bad, just trying to picture what the overhead is that drives that up to almost 50. Hm. Not bad though.