New to TrueNAS and had a few questions

[MrCaspan]

Hi everyone, this is my first post here so please go easy if I ask some newbie questions!

I have a tower running the following Specs:
Core i7-6700K
ASUSTeK Z170-A motherboard
16 GB DDR4 RAM (2 Sticks)

I also have 2 GPUs:
AMD Radeon HD6950
NVIDIA GTX 1080

Can i have both these GPUs installed or should I chose one over the other?

I am looking to run Emby Media server and do some security camera video ingestion and maybe run Home Assistant off this. Im just curious if this hardware is good, bad, throw it in the trash!!

Any help would be appreciated!!

 

[jgreco]

It's not ideal. Your system appears to be a gaming board, which may lack ECC memory support and also likely has evil overclocking features. There are reasons not to use a gaming board as a server just like there are reasons you shouldn't tow a camper with a Ford Fiesta.

As far as the add-ons, 16GB is a bit tight. The base system takes up a lot of memory due to the way that ZFS works, and memory-intensive stuff like media servers or network video recorders may cut into your memory and significantly impact performance. It doesn't hurt to try, but it is good that DDR4 is pretty cheap nowadays because you'll be a bit tight, I think.

 

[MrCaspan]

Yeah it was a gaming setup. there's no overclocking done to it, but has 6 SATA ports on the board with an m.2 space for a system drive. Do you feel like if I put 32GB of ram in this that it would be fine?

 

[chuck32]

I don't use GPUs in my builds, so I can't help you there. Just to expand on @jgreco with my personal opinion: yes he absolutely right, usually enterprise grade hardware is recommended, or at least consumer grade hardware with ECC support.

Im just curious if this hardware is good, bad, throw it in the trash!!

However for your usecase: Home Assistant and some streaming, given that you have backups of your data, I see nothing wrong starting out with your current build. If this is hardware you already own, go for it and once you grow out of it you can upgrade appropriately. No need to throw it out from the start ;)

As he already pointed out, 16Gb is cutting it close.

 

[JNG]

Hi
I too am new to this. I have a Hackintosh
Corsair HX1200 Platinum Modular PSU.
18-core Intel i9-10980XE CPU. 18 x 3GHz
ASUS X299-A ii Mainboard
128GB (4 x 32GB) 3600MHz DDR4 RAM.
2TB Samsung EVO Plus nvme SSD.
16GB AMD Radeon Vii Video card. 3 x Display-port, 1 x HDMI.
MacOS 11.7.10
This machine was built in Melbourne Australia and I live in Perth (about same distance from London to Moscow).
The person that built it is now no longer available. I want to upgrade OS as various programs (Adobe, Microsoft) are reporting I need to update OS. This is totally beyond my ability and wonder if there is anyone in Perth area that could hep me wit this por put me in touch with someone who could help.

 

[MrCaspan]

TrueNAS does not like dual booting so are you looking to use this hard ware only for TrueNAS or are you looking to fix the OS currently on it. your post is confusing. Also you will probably get more answers if you create your own thread.

 

[joeschmuck]

I want to upgrade OS as various programs (Adobe, Microsoft) are reporting I need to update OS. This is totally beyond my ability and wonder if there is anyone in Perth area that could hep me wit this por put me in touch with someone who could help.

Exactly what does this have to do with TrueNAS?

 

[MrCaspan]

It's not ideal. Your system appears to be a gaming board, which may lack ECC memory support and also likely has evil overclocking features. There are reasons not to use a gaming board as a server just like there are reasons you shouldn't tow a camper with a Ford Fiesta.

As far as the add-ons, 16GB is a bit tight. The base system takes up a lot of memory due to the way that ZFS works, and memory-intensive stuff like media servers or network video recorders may cut into your memory and significantly impact performance. It doesn't hurt to try, but it is good that DDR4 is pretty cheap nowadays because you'll be a bit tight, I think.

So for $50 I added another 32GB of RAM for a total of 48.. I know it's paired wrong and I might pull out the 16GB (2x8GB and just leave it 32 GB.. But looks like I have some spare RAM now where as before it was 100% using the 16GB. We'll see how well it does. SAS controller card is next :)

 

[Etorix]

This machine was built in Melbourne Australia and I live in Perth (about same distance from London to Moscow).
The person that built it is now no longer available. I want to upgrade OS as various programs (Adobe, Microsoft) are reporting I need to update OS. This is totally beyond my ability and wonder if there is anyone in Perth area that could hep me wit this por put me in touch with someone who could help.

As already said, this is the wrong forum to ask.
Open an account on Tonymacx86 or InsanelyMac (read their forum rules!) and seek help there. Be aware there are few users with X299 systems, and that long-term maintenance will essentially require that you grow the skills to hack the machine anew by yourself…