Rebuilding an old box, could use advice.

[Lucien]

I'm looking at rebuilding an old FreeNAS box that I haven't been using in a few years. (Last I looked, it was still called FreeNAS!) I'm trying to catch up with what's changed, primarily going though the FreeNAS TrueNAS community hardware guide, but I still have some questions.

Boot SSDs:
If I understand correct, the current install needs no more than 8 GB of space. This would be a moot point, but is extra space good for anything?

Also, are there any SSDs in particular to avoid? I'm looking at some secondhand Samsung PM871s, or Kingston drives off eBay. (Which are 120/128 GB in size, hence the moot point above.)

HBAs:
I remember that it used to be a thing that the firmware on the HBA had to "match" the version of FreeNAS. Is that still a thing? What firmware version should I have on the card?

Right now I have an IBM M1015 reflashed to IT mode (not sure on FW version). With this build I'm thinking of mounting the drives in an external rack - the casing the system was originaly in was terrible for ventilation and thermals. I'm thinking that gives me two options: Either stick wtih my current card and run the SAS cables out through an unused slot, or I could pick up an 8e HBA. I've seen 9200 and 9207 based cards on eBay, the only difference apparently is that the former is PCIe 2.0 and the latter PCIe 3.0. I should, in theory, be safe running the 9207 in a PCIe 2.0 motherboard, but has anyone heard anything to the contrary?

An 8e card also means I'd pick up a two port SFF-8088 to SFF-8087 adapter off eBay (and a pair of cables to match). I would have thought they're pretty simple things, so they should be safe to use. Again, if anyone has heard otherwise, I'd like to hear your experiences.

The rest of it:
I think I can reuse the rest of the hardware. The motherboard is (I think) an Intel S1200KP, 8 GB ECC RAM, and possibly an ECC supporting i3. I remember trying to be as through as I could in having a working ECC setup back then. Performance isn't an issue for me as I'm not going to use this for anything that would need it. Certainly nothing important. It's more a case of wanting to make use out of what would otherwise continue to be lying around.

One last question: How different is TrueNAS from FreeNAS? Are there any significant changes that I need to take into account?

Also, if there's something I've missed or need to think about, let me know!

 

[NugentS]

I thought boot should be 16Gb and extra space is no use unless you choose to hack the boot partitions. The smallest SSD is fine for this (but not USB). Its not used that much - so really just about anything will do
The only issue with ebay cards is that some are faked, whilst others are real. The question is how to tell the difference - I dunno. You can run PCIe3 on 2 slots its just potentially slower. I would always buy the better card on principle - its useful lifetime is better
8GB RAM is absolute minimum. More is always better. ECC is good. TrueNAS is an ongoing evolution of FreeNAS. Versions change things. Its still basically the same NAS product that has evolved over time.

 

[Lucien]

How do you mean "hack the boot partitions"? I figured it was just plug in, install from a USB stick, and done?

Right now the biggest question I have is what firmware has to be on the HBA, I seem to be drawing a blank on that.

 

[NugentS]

If you have a large boot SSD then you can hack that to allow you to use the extra space as main storage,
If its been flashed to IT mode its probably the right version. the usual number quoted here has a 20 and lots of zeroes in it from memory