need to choose, cpu and raid card

[ixidor]

OK on the raid card, i think i have it narrowed down to four choices:
1. HighPoint RocketRAID 2680 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115096 $99, just not 100% on bsd drivers.
2. Intel RAID SASUC8I http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117157&Tpk=Intel SASUC8I http://www.servethehome.com/intel-sasuc8i-lsi-lsi-sas3081er-lsi-1068e-based-raid-controller-review/ $150 due to the second link, it looks like this card would work well with freenas, and give future expansion if i choose to go with the hp sas expander.
3. SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 $109 or some other raid card
4. no raid card at all, lose hot-swap capability, but drives are not currently in a hot-swap case atm anyway.
option 1 is cheapest now, and if i get a mobo with 2-3 pci-e 16 slots, i could add more later relatively cheap. option 2 ir pretty much guaranteed to work, plus allows the most future expansion, also most expensive. option 3 i'm 99% sure that card will work/has bsd drivers. option 4 i have a 4 port pcie-1 card already, so is cheapest.

what cpu to use? i have looked at an i3 combo, board + chip is around $250 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128502). a AMD llano combo is around $160 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157278) is similar to the i3. but the big question is, could i get away with something cheaper like a celeron or pentium chip? something like Intel Celeron G440 $56 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116409 has built-in crappy vidoe so no need for a add in card, and is low power, 35w tdp. question is is there enough ooomp to run a 7 or 8 2TB raid array?

 

[b1ghen]

I assume you are going to use Freenas with ZFS? Then stay away from any form of "hardware" RAID all together, get a motherboard with 6 x onboard SATA and then a 2 port SATA PCIE card and you have 8 ports for your needs, or if you can find a motherboard with 8+ SATA even, usually they come at a premium price though.
If needed in the future you could easily add an 8-port card like some of the ones above, I think the Intel and Supermicro controllers can be flashed with IT-mode firmware so it takes away all RAID functions of the card.

Performance wise pretty much any modern CPU will do unless you start using compression, deduplication or encryption. Just be sure to get plenty of RAM, I would say at least 8GB since RAM is extremely cheap right now. And if possible get a motherboard/cpu that can use ECC RAM, that disqualifies all your options you mentioned though since none of them do ECC.

 

[ixidor]

i went cheap, which mostly agrees with you. will be using mobo sata ports + 4 port sata card. ecc ram is a little more than i want to deal with atm. it would include either a amd based system or a xeon based mobo. plus ecc ram is a bit on the high side right now. hopefully lotsa ram plus zfs should be enough.