Is an I5 7400 enough for a home server?

Tuubi

Cadet
Joined
Jul 12, 2019
Messages
3
Okay so, I'm going to upgrade my main pc soon, but I was wondering if my current I5 7400 with 8GB of RAM would be enough to run a home FreeNAS server for a daily backup system, a Pi-hole adblock system, and I'm not sure yet but maybe a Plex media server. For me at least, this sounds like a lot because I'm new to the FreeNAS/Home server scene. I would appreciate if I could get a couple of actual opinions. Thanks in advance :)

Motherboard: Asus Prime B250M-A
CPU: Intel I5-7400
RAM: HyperX 2x4GB 2400MHz (Will get another 8GB if really needed)
Storage: Haven't bought yet, but going to buy a 120GB M.2 drive for boot and at least a 4tb drive for storage and backups
PSU: Corsair 500w (as of writing I am not home so I don't know the exact model)
GPU: None, going to move my current GPU to the new build

Edit: Added all possible details as requested
 
Last edited:

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
The system board and hardware on it is as important as the processor is. Please post all the detail you can. Here is a guide:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/forum-guidelines.45124

PS. The CPU you have is not ideal and the memory is at the very bottom of the range to just run FreeNAS with no additional plugins.
You should do some reading in the forum to see what others have already advised because this type of question comes up almost daily.

FreeNAS Hardware Requirements
https://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/
 

Tuubi

Cadet
Joined
Jul 12, 2019
Messages
3
The system board and hardware on it is as important as the processor is. Please post all the detail you can. Here is a guide:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/forum-guidelines.45124

PS. The CPU you have is not ideal and the memory is at the very bottom of the range to just run FreeNAS with no additional plugins.
You should do some reading in the forum to see what others have already advised because this type of question comes up almost daily.

FreeNAS Hardware Requirements
https://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/
Edited original post
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Edit: Added all possible details as requested
Thanks.
Motherboard: Asus Prime B250M-A
This system board is not a good choice. It has an integrated Realtek® RTL8111H, 1 Gigabit LAN Controller, which is fine for Windows, but doesn't work well with FreeNAS.
Also, it has an x16 PCIe slot which is great for video cards, but largely useless for FreeNAS and because the PCIe lanes were dedicated to that slot, there are only enough for two x1 PCIe slots on the remainder of the board. Again, these x1 slots are largely useless for FreeNAS.
Then there is the audio ports, also useless in FreeNAS.
All taken together, I would suggest selling this hardware and picking up some quality used gear that is more compatible to the task.

In the US, that is an easy task, but it may be more difficult in Europe. I would suggest hardware like this as it is more server oriented:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/specific-build-components-list-up-to-32gb-ram.109/

FreeNAS does not need a M.2 drive for anything you wanted to do. There is no point in spending the money for that and used hardware is fine as long as it is compatible.
Here are some links to lists that have been compiled in the forum of hardware that is known to work well with FreeNAS:

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev. 1e) 2017-05-06
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Hardware Recommendations by @cyberjock - from 26 Aug 2014 - and still valid
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Note, you can use the system you have, but it will perform poorly. Also, you should configure your storage with a mirrored pair of drives as a minimum. A single drive is a single point of failure and can easily result in catastrophic data loss. It also does not provide some of the data protection that ZFS is known for because there is no redundancy.

Please read these primers:

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://www.ixsystems.com/community...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Overview of ZFS Pools in FreeNAS from the iXsystems blog:
https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/zfs-pools-in-freenas/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/
 

Tuubi

Cadet
Joined
Jul 12, 2019
Messages
3
Thanks.

This system board is not a good choice. It has an integrated Realtek® RTL8111H, 1 Gigabit LAN Controller, which is fine for Windows, but doesn't work well with FreeNAS.
Also, it has an x16 PCIe slot which is great for video cards, but largely useless for FreeNAS and because the PCIe lanes were dedicated to that slot, there are only enough for two x1 PCIe slots on the remainder of the board. Again, these x1 slots are largely useless for FreeNAS.
Then there is the audio ports, also useless in FreeNAS.
All taken together, I would suggest selling this hardware and picking up some quality used gear that is more compatible to the task.

In the US, that is an easy task, but it may be more difficult in Europe. I would suggest hardware like this as it is more server oriented:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/specific-build-components-list-up-to-32gb-ram.109/

FreeNAS does not need a M.2 drive for anything you wanted to do. There is no point in spending the money for that and used hardware is fine as long as it is compatible.
Here are some links to lists that have been compiled in the forum of hardware that is known to work well with FreeNAS:

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev. 1e) 2017-05-06
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Hardware Recommendations by @cyberjock - from 26 Aug 2014 - and still valid
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

Thank you for the detailed response. After reading it, I have decided to sell the hardware and buy hardware meant for small home servers when I have the money (Note that I am only 15 at the time and living in Finland where it's hard to get hardware for the same price as in the US). But again, thanks!

Edit: spelling
 
Top