I am coming from WHS. What would you do?

[JamrD]

As this is my first post here, I would like to say Hi.
I am hoping the knowledgeable people here can give me some direction.

My WHS 2011 had a drive go out and am kicking around the idea of going to FreeNAS on the box which is a HP Proliant Micro server N40L with 2 gigs of ram. It has been a great server and has done me well over the last 5 years. I have been able to run 4 clients on the same movie at the same time, so I have never had any problems with the server. I also love that it only uses <60 watts at idle with all 5 drives spinning.
We use the server for storing DVD's and various file storage of videos and pics and everything else you would expect from a family.
I was thinking of ditching WHS and moving to FreeNAS and taking the clients running Windows Media Center / My Movies out and going with Plex and something like a Pie at each client location for watching movies.

Since one of my drives went out I am currently trying to pick up the pieces and replace it with a new drive. I would like to keep the HP PL MS and just install FreeNAS on it. Move my data over to it and then work on the movie and client issues later.

Q. I guess my first questions is. If I keep the HP PL MS, will have any known problems with this older hardware?
I read the min req's and a few threads here about doing this but they are very old, I am a little concerned with the processor being a AMD DC PCU and the less than 2 gigs of ram accessible. But as I stated earlier, it has worked great with my current set up.

Q. If Yes, what kind of problems? Are these problems digestable? Or am I asking for a huge pain, versus getting new equipment I will not have.

Q. Will I be losing any functionality going with free NAS v WHS? Keep in mind that I do not use the WHS client monitoring any more in WHS, It is just a server.

Q. Since this drive failed, I am pondering why I did not receive any notification of pending drive failure. Does FN have any way to tell me a drive is becoming a problem before it is actually a problem?

Q. Are there any new cool features that FN has that WHS did not? I mean, it has been 5 years.

Any insight will be helpful.
Thanks a lot for your time.

 

[Mirfster]

Welcome!

1. Off the top of my head, you want to get to a minimal of 8GB RAM. If that is a "deal-breaker" then FreeNAS is not for you. I have not looked at the full specs of the system for any other possible "gotchas"; but if you post a link that contains the hardware specs more feedback can be provided.
2. No, in fact you will be gaining more functionality. Not that you may be using it though since you mentioned that you are just using it to serve data. *** Keep in mind that there is a learning curve for FreeNAS (steepness depends on the individual) so take that into consideration.
3. Yes, FreeNAS can/will e-mail you on various things (even Drive Temp Warnings) as long as it is configured properly.
4. Would depend on what you are looking to do

Take a look at the items in my sig under "Recommended Reading" and it will help inform you so you can make an educated decision.

 

[JamrD]

Welcome!

1. Off the top of my head, you want to get to a minimal of 8GB RAM. If that is a "deal-breaker" then FreeNAS is not for you. I have not looked at the full specs of the system for any other possible "gotchas"; but if you post a link that contains the hardware specs more feedback can be provided.
2. No, in fact you will be gaining more functionality. Not that you may be using it though since you mentioned that you are just using it to serve data. *** Keep in mind that there is a learning curve for FreeNAS (steepness depends on the individual) so take that into consideration.
3. Yes, FreeNAS can/will e-mail you on various things (even Drive Temp Warnings) as long as it is configured properly.
4. Would depend on what you are looking to do

Take a look at the items in my sig under "Recommended Reading" and it will help inform you so you can make an educated decision.

Thank you for the response.
I will look on ways to get 8 gigs in there. The few posts I have read so far say it is doable.

 

[Mlovelace]

Plex on an AMD Turion II Neo will be okay only if the clients are direct streaming, if you have to transcode to the clients you're probably not going to be happy. Also, if you're going to run Plex in a jail/plugin you'll want 16GB of ram for the HP Proliant MS. That platform will support 16GB but you'll be buying non-ECC dimms which is frowned upon by most in the forums.

 

[JamrD]

Plex on an AMD Turion II Neo will be okay only if the clients are direct streaming, if you have to transcode to the clients you're probably not going to be happy. Also, if you're going to run Plex in a jail/plugin you'll want 16Gb of ram for the HP Proliant MS. That platform will support 16Gb but you'll be buying non-ECC dimms which is frowned upon by most in the forums.

Buzzkill. Bummer. Thanks for the info. So this pretty much puts a stake in my N40L' s heart. I definitely do not want stuttering when streaming and trans coding. I am assuming this is what you mean with "I will not be happy". If not please elaborate.
I do not know what "Also, if you're going to run Plex in a jail/plugin" this is. Can you elaborate? If not I will look up what the jail plugin is and does.
Also I am a bit confused as to what ECC v Other is. I am assuming there is a newer better version and ECC is the older version like DDR3 is better than DDR2. Can someone quickly elaborate.
Thanks.

 

[pirateghost]

Buzzkill. Bummer. Thanks for the info. So this pretty much puts a stake in my N40L' s heart. I definitely do not want stuttering when streaming and trans coding. I am assuming this is what you mean with "I will not be happy". If not please elaborate.
I do not know what "Also, if you're going to run Plex in a jail/plugin" this is. Can you elaborate? If not I will look up what the jail plugin is and does.
Also I am a bit confused as to what ECC v Other is. I am assuming there is a newer better version and ECC is the older version like DDR3 is better than DDR2. Can someone quickly elaborate.
Thanks.

There's a lot for you to catch up on.

In FreeNAS you don't run applications directly on the OS. You use jails or plugins(which are technically just preconfigured jails). Think of them like a virtual machine of sorts.

As far as ECC vs non-ecc, there's too much info out there to go into the differences but no, they are not "one is a next/better version of the other". There are tons of threads located on these forums focusing the merits of ECC RAM, and gobs of info available via your favorite search engine, with what ECC entails.

 

[Mlovelace]

Buzzkill. Bummer. Thanks for the info. So this pretty much puts a stake in my N40L' s heart. I definitely do not want stuttering when streaming and trans coding. I am assuming this is what you mean with "I will not be happy". If not please elaborate.
I do not know what "Also, if you're going to run Plex in a jail/plugin" this is. Can you elaborate? If not I will look up what the jail plugin is and does.
Also I am a bit confused as to what ECC v Other is. I am assuming there is a newer better version and ECC is the older version like DDR3 is better than DDR2. Can someone quickly elaborate.
Thanks.

Generic overview = ECC is error correcting ram, used in server and some work station computers. It requires specific CPU/Motherboard combinations to implement.

You don't have to put a stake in the heart of your N40L, it will happily server files with 8GB of RAM and freeNAS. You can install Plex Media Server on your PC and use the N40L as the network share for the Plex library. By doing this you put the Plex workload on the PC and the N40L only has to support file service.

 

[JamrD]

Thanks for the information guys. I do appreciate it.