Hardware recommendations

[danb35]

A FreeNAS user could purchase a TS140 for $300, add four hard drives, and install FreeNAS, all with zero knowledge of *nix or any kind of command line. Easy and cheap.

...and by "cheap", we mean comparable in cost to the least-expensive four-bay diskless Synology unit, and simultaneously far more capable. Any system that's going to require an HBA is going to have at least eight drives, which is far more than the mythical "average home user" will need.

@talex, you're right that FreeNAS isn't right for everyone, but wrong in your apparent assumption that anyone is saying otherwise. We have no problem telling people that FreeNAS isn't a good fit for their hardware or for their proposed use case. Sometimes people take offense at being told this, for reasons that I've never understood. But there are lots of NAS distros out there, each with a different focus.

 

[talex]

The LSI 9211-8i is an excellent choice. But note that current versions of FreeNAS require version P20 firmware, not P16. The forum has several threads on the subject of flashing LSI and LSI-compatible boards.

Good luck!

Thanks!

 

[talex]

Nick / Dan - don't be offended - no intention at all and apologies - Like I said above, I did not mean to offend - and it's not really you guys here - you guys here have been great and have the hard facts and are realistic - it's the plethora of other sites out there where they peddle freenas as a platform for people with decommissioned desktop hardware already lying around.

It's those guys I guess I am more making my points to as well as a couple friends who have interest in what I am doing now as I set them up with WHS servers when they first came out and since I am redoing my stuff, they feel it's time for them too so there's your strawmen.

I guess I am kinda speaking out loud when I say I would not recommend it as I am thinking of them and people like them - gamers or casual users who have old hardware lying around from their last incarnation of gaming desktop and want some type of NAS or networked storage using that - many sites push this - even you guys in this thread would not recommend this - pretty much server grade hardware suggestions here.

Once you come here after reading the many sites I speak of and get hit with the facts that type of hardware is not even close to ideal for a freenas box... I think I already said for a power or advanced user they should take a look at freeNas like I am and for people who earn their living as some type of content creator - from all the reading I have done I would DEFINITELY tell them to take a hard look at freenas and even consider the IX Systems products so they would get proper support.

Hopefully that clears it up... still waiting on that darn brown truck... the weekend is coming at the speed of molasses.

 

[talex]

Hi again all - now needing a new recommendation - the MB I got is not going to work. So I have a XEON E3 1245 (I think v1 or v2 not sure) and the 16GB ECC. What motherboard would be good - I would like to spend sub $100 and older models are fine and even something used I could hunt ebay for. It would preferably have nic case front light connection pins but that is not required by any means and it only needs 4 sata ports since I will have 10 hot swap bays and I have that LSI 9211-8i to drive 8 of them.


Thanks again for all your help and putting up with my mini rants, some day I might actually get this thing built.

 

[Nick2253]

All you need is an LGA 1155 motherboard that supports your processor (check the HCL), ECC support, and preferably an Intel NIC (though you could get a PCIe NIC if you really needed).

In your shoes, if I was doing this cheap, I'd check eBay for barebones workstation machines in my price-range. Once I get a sense of what is offered, I'd check those machines for compatibility with my other needs. Going directly to a motherboard is harder, but not impossible. Most sellers include the CPU socket in the description, so you can search on that.

 

[talex]

All you need is an LGA 1155 motherboard that supports your processor (check the HCL), ECC support, and preferably an Intel NIC (though you could get a PCIe NIC if you really needed).

In your shoes, if I was doing this cheap, I'd check eBay for barebones workstation machines in my price-range. Once I get a sense of what is offered, I'd check those machines for compatibility with my other needs. Going directly to a motherboard is harder, but not impossible. Most sellers include the CPU socket in the description, so you can search on that.

Thanks Nick, after looking and reading - I picked up a SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-F-O Motherboard, it just arrived today and thankfully the CPU and Ram were fine so I can finally start to put it together. Through all my searching I did decide I really like Synology stuff - mainly for ease of use and their android and Nexus player apps, been experimenting with Xpenology. What I think I want to do is build this freenas box, then on one of my unused desktop Phenom II setups - do iSCSi or something to present the freeNas files in a way that lets the apps work but first things first.