I'm having a tough time with a build decision, and after much thought and forum reading, hope this is the best place to spread it out and ask for guidance.
I'm preparing to build my first FreeNAS system - hence the reason I'm here. I've got budgetary and space (12" tall max) constraints, so had initially been researching mini-ITX boards and cases, and was going to wait for Black Friday. These were generally Microstar X11 series, and low-power, which seemed ideal.
When I told a friend, who works in IT, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse: he gave me a Xeon 2670 and 128GB Samsung DDR3 memory. That saved my budget $1,500, meaning I could spend a lot more on hard drives.
However, that also means my only motherboard options are the old X9 boards (I'm currently eyeing the X9SRH-7TF). So I have to use a board with older technology (SAS2, USB2) in a larger form factor (ATX), that will use more power (115W) and generate more heat.
I'm a home user, and plan to use the new NAS as a personal file server, PLEX server for 2tb music/media, 6 security cameras and a couple of virtual machines. At most, there will be four users on at any given time.
So my question: is the older hardware going to work for my needs (including future uses that I won't realize until I install FreeNAS 11), or am I going to start out at a disadvantage and only go down from there?
This is a gift-horse, and I know it.
I'm preparing to build my first FreeNAS system - hence the reason I'm here. I've got budgetary and space (12" tall max) constraints, so had initially been researching mini-ITX boards and cases, and was going to wait for Black Friday. These were generally Microstar X11 series, and low-power, which seemed ideal.
When I told a friend, who works in IT, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse: he gave me a Xeon 2670 and 128GB Samsung DDR3 memory. That saved my budget $1,500, meaning I could spend a lot more on hard drives.
However, that also means my only motherboard options are the old X9 boards (I'm currently eyeing the X9SRH-7TF). So I have to use a board with older technology (SAS2, USB2) in a larger form factor (ATX), that will use more power (115W) and generate more heat.
I'm a home user, and plan to use the new NAS as a personal file server, PLEX server for 2tb music/media, 6 security cameras and a couple of virtual machines. At most, there will be four users on at any given time.
So my question: is the older hardware going to work for my needs (including future uses that I won't realize until I install FreeNAS 11), or am I going to start out at a disadvantage and only go down from there?
This is a gift-horse, and I know it.