Suggestions for new build

[SilverJS]

Hey guys,

Looking at building a FreeNAS server with ZFS. Here's what I've already got :

Athlon X2 250 (w/ Scythe Shuriken cooler)
Seasonic 300W power supply

With that, thinking of going with :

Asus M4A88T-M/USB3
6 X Hitachi 3K5000 3TB hard drives (in RAIDZ2 config)
Some HD for boot (on the board's IDE port)
Hesitating between 4 and 8 gigs of memory, probably the latter
NZXT H2 case

Would that sound about right? 4 data drives, 2 parity? This hardware selection is also based on Memory Express's availability in Edmonton, I'll be going down there this weekend.

Any show stoppers in there?

Cheers!

 

[Bohs Hansen]

Suggestion to your IDE/PATA boot option if you chose that. There are some nifty "IDE to Compact Flash", both internal direct and as slotcover for external switching. You can also get them as dual ones for raid 0/1. They don't cost much and are silent (as its flash cards).
If my board would have had a IDE port I'll prolly gone with one of them. Just try your local ebay site and you'll prolly get a couple hundred hits on them from 2-5$ and up.

Memory is cheap - don't save on that. Get the 8gb

 

[SilverJS]

Good call - but what would a minimum size CF card be for an install of FreeNAS or FreeBSD 8.2?

 

[Bohs Hansen]

Good call - but what would a minimum size CF card be for an install of FreeNAS or FreeBSD 8.2?

FreeNAS 8 requires 1gb (or more), but will use the entire space available on the disk

 

[SilverJS]

But what would be ideal? And what would be the gain, really?

 

[Bohs Hansen]

little update, since the latest beta from today you'll need at least a 2gb bootdrive/stick/flash.