High End Hardware for FreeNAS or Moderate?

[AVTechMan]

I am currently reading more on FreeNAS and the ZFS filesystem. i pretty much have a handle on the requirements, and more RAM the better it works. My question is, if I plan to build a system to test and eventually put into production (home use), I only plan to use it for purely a file server. I have other virtualization hosts with VM's running.

I don't think high end hardware would be needed for just a pure file server, would it, other than having enough RAM....considering 32 or 64GB of it?

 

[Chris Moore]

Hello,
Welcome to the forum.

Here are some documents to review that may help you understand the things that would be appropriate to a 'low end' server as opposed to a higher standard.

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev 1e) 2017-05-06
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

 

[tvsjr]

You would be fine with 32GB (even 16GB, if you're not doing anything insane). However, more memory means better caching. So, if 64GB is affordable for you, go for it.