Intel D-1520 with FreeNAS and BHYVE

[icsy7867]

I currently have some old equipment running my freenas server at home in a huge case:

FreeNAS
AMD FX-8120
16GB DDR3 ECC
4x1.5TB WD Green

I also have an old desktop that I turned into an ESXi server:
i5 - 4440
12GB DDR3
500GB Rapter 10K Drive

And in the next few months I want to rebuild my NAS. I also want to build it into something much smaller, a Node 304 with an Mini ITX board. I am thinking that I might be able to combine my FreeNAS and ESXi boxes, but I am thinking that a D1520 wont be able to supported 3-4 VM's, 2-3 Plex Transcodes and an Owncloud Server
https://www.amazon.com/ASRock-Rack-D1520D4I-Motherboard/dp/B01B9627DQ

So I am thinking that something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/ASRock-Rack-Motherboard-C236-WSI/dp/B01B96248O
With a Xeon E3 -1230
https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Corp-BX80662E31220V5-Xeon-Processor/dp/B01740QQHE

Would be a better fit, but at a much higher TDP. I was curious if anyone had any experience with running VM's with the D-1520 or if this sounds like a bad idea. I found some posts on the D-1520 but not in reference to everything that I want to run.

 

[m0nkey_]

The Xeon-D should be able to deal with a couple of VMs. If anything, you would want to throw as much RAM on that board that you can afford.

 

[icsy7867]

Thanks for the reply! I am actually thinking about the 6-core addition now:
https://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-X10SDV-6C-TLN4F-Mini-ITX-Motherboard/dp/B01FEMW2JK/

I was originally thinking about having 2 mini-ITX builds, but if BHYVE can handle everything i need, i'll just build a slightly more powerful single machine.

Its much cheaper on wiredzone.com but I know amazon and newegg links are preferable. I probably wont be able to build it until this July, I am just hoping there will be a stable Freenas 10 released by that point. I'd rather start and rebuild with Freenas 10, then start with 9.10 and upgrade later.