Hardware Choices

[chromos33]

Hi, I will be building my own NAS in the coming months so I have two short Questions.
I already looked through some Hardware recommendations in the Forums and picked most of my parts.

CPU: I3-4170T
PSU: EVGA 220-GS-0550-V2
Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X10SLL-F-O
Ram: Kingston 8 GB ECC DDR3
Case: Fractal Design Node 304
SSD: SanDisk 32GB
HDD: currently 5 Western Digital Green 2TB (already own those and am currently using them in a Raid 5 (am sooner or later switch to Red Editions probably 3TB))

a. Does the CPU suffice for a 1 User NAS with mostly Media Files on it.
b. I don't know if the SSD makes sense, that's just something in me that thinks I don't wanna have a USB drive sticking out of the Case all the time.. (I know i will lose it if I place it somewhere else for savekeeping)

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me. (Probably gonna be october at the earliest when I will order the parts most likely november)

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

a. Yes.
b. As a boot device? It's becoming something of a mantra in these forums that you should use an SSD, because USB sticks are almost all crap. I have nothing against using an SSD to boot FreeNAS, but my experience with USB sticks has been trouble-free (mine are Imation). I do think it's important to get your system dataset and reporting database off the boot device. I'm not sure how you would lose the boot device ... how would your system boot if you put it somewhere else? If you don't like the idea of it sticking out of the case, get one of the tiny USB sticks, or attach it to a header on the motherboard with a suitable adapter.

 

[Ericloewe]

CPU: I3-4170T

Very poor choice. Get a non-T i3-4170

Ram: Kingston 8 GB ECC DDR3

You'll probably want something else. See: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ns-for-supermicro-x10-lga1150-motherboards.6/

Case: Fractal Design Node 304

The motherboard won't fit in there.

 

[Nick2253]

I would steer clear of T processors. The T processors are designed by Intel to fit certain thermal envelopes, where peak power use or thermal load are the critical design constraints. If you were to build a fanless case, for example, they would make sense. However, in a Node 304, you won't have any thermal problems. The downside to the T processor is they don't run as fast, which means they can take longer (and use more power overall) to process loads than a non-T processor. Also, T and non-T processors idle the same, so there's really no benefit to the T in your scenario.

I would also recommend going for 16GB of memory to start with. 8GB is the minimum, and a lot of people consider 16GB to be a reasonable floor for working environments. Could you get away with 8GB? Possibly. Would you benefit from 16GB? Probably.

Your motherboard is Micro ATX, and the Node 304 is a Mini ITX case; they are not compatible.

 

[chromos33]

Updated my list:
CPU: .. switched to non-T version
Ram: Samsung (The one inside the list)
Question hereabout the Ram i knew that 16GB is recommended my question now is upgrading Ram later down the line difficult like having to reconfigure the whole NAS and the like or just plug and play? I ask this because when I'm buying this I'm probably a bit budget starved so i wanted start out with 8 GB and upgrade to 16 GB later on.
Case: Shame on me... normaly i check upon that.. any recommendations for a small Case für Micro ATX with at least 5 x 3.5 + 1 x (2.5/3.5) Disk Slots. Only thing I found so far , that fullfills my criteria, would be this.
Probably will go ahead with the SSD if it stays that model i will see still some time until then.

 

[anodos]

Updated my list:
CPU: .. switched to non-T version
Ram: Samsung (The one inside the list)
Question hereabout the Ram i knew that 16GB is recommended my question now is upgrading Ram later down the line difficult like having to reconfigure the whole NAS and the like or just plug and play? I ask this because when I'm buying this I'm probably a bit budget starved so i wanted start out with 8 GB and upgrade to 16 GB later on.
Case: Shame on me... normaly i check upon that.. any recommendations for a small Case für Micro ATX with at least 5 x 3.5 + 1 x (2.5/3.5) Disk Slots. Only thing I found so far , that fullfills my criteria, would be this.
Probably will go ahead with the SSD if it stays that model i will see still some time until then.

What about the fractal design Node 804 or the Define R5?

 

[chromos33]

Right totally forgot those two.. damn filtering of Cases.. probably gonna get the Node 804 ... damn 14 mm shorter in width and it would have fit perfectly into my shelf.. well on top of it it is..

 

[danb35]

is upgrading Ram later down the line difficult like having to reconfigure the whole NAS and the like or just plug and play?

Plug and play. Power down the system, plug in the RAM, turn it back on.