BUILD Looking at Older Hardware for FreeNAS and Plex

[razmspiele]

I was hoping some of the more experienced members here could elaborate on what "older" hardware might look like in early 2019. I read a similar thread that was posted almost a year ago and Chris was talking to another Plex poster about how he frequently suggests Supermicro X9 boards paired with an 8 core Xeon E5 and 64GB of registered DDR3 memory.

I currently have x5 10TB drives that I'm ready to build a NAS with using a RAIDZ2 configuration. Very little trans-coding will be necessary as I generally download if I travel. I only have a handful of 4K remux files as the majority of my server consists of 1080p content and FLAC files that can be direct played on the LAN. I'd like to keep the hardware reasonably priced and if I can get more for my needs with older hardware, I'm fine with that. Any suggestions or should I just stick with what's on the hardware list here?

 

[Chris Moore]

I was hoping some of the more experienced members here could elaborate on what "older" hardware might look like in early 2019. I read a similar thread that was posted almost a year ago and Chris was talking to another Plex poster about how he frequently suggests Supermicro X9 boards paired with an 8 core Xeon E5 and 64GB of registered DDR3 memory.

Still works. You might want to take a look at the older version of the "Hardware Recommendations Guide". Much of that hardware is still perfectly good and even less expensive now:
https://forums.freenas.org/threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

Here is a quick list of parts for you. I used the same model parts for one of my previous builds:

Intel Xeon E3-1230V2 SR0P4 3.30GHz Processor
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SR0P4-Inte...d-Core-CM8063701098101-Processor/202572624908
US $74.00

Super Micro X9SCM-F, LGA 1155, Intel C204, Micro ATX server motherboard
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-SuperM...rd-Accessoreis-are-not-included-/352358089215
US $77.77

16GB 2X8GB Memory RAM Intel Xeon E3 ONLY DDR3, 1600MHz, ECC, CL11, 2R, X8, 1.5V, Unbuffered, DIMM, 240-pin
https://www.ebay.com/itm/16GB-2X8GB...-CMT-SFF-Intel-Xeon-E3-ONLY-B89-/301855376261
US $126.00

Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA LSI 9211-8i P20 IT Mode
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-...-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID-/162834659601
US $56.55

1M Mini SAS 4i SFF-8087 36-Pin Male to 4 SATA 7-Pin Splitter Adapter Cable NEW
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1M-Mini-SA...7-Pin-Splitter-Adapter-Cable-NEW/272098511869
US $7.39

 

[razmspiele]

Thanks a bunch Chris! This is super helpful. I just have a couple follow up questions:

Should I pick up two of those 16GB memory kits or is 16GB sufficient for my storage amount?
Do you have a case preference? The Fractal Design Node 804 is my top choice at the moment.