Upgrade old system or start over?

[Joel.S]

I have an old prebuilt PC from 2011, which was running Windows until retired a few years ago. Specs: CPU: Intel Core i3 CPU 550. RAM: 3GB DDR3. No dedicated graphics. This week I installed FreeNAS purely for use as a file server with a couple 2TB HDDs. I began to notice the system becoming sluggish especially when using Plex which I didn't originally intend to do.

Should I upgrade this system or build a new one?
Maybe add a lot more RAM? (MAX 16GB)

 

[danb35]

Well, currently you have less than half the minimum RAM for the base OS, so it's no surprise that performance is poor when using Plex (which is a bit of a memory hog). Upgrading the RAM would definitely help, but proper server hardware would help more.

 

[nightshade00013]

Use what you have to tinker and build another. That i3 is going to cripple Plex it has the minimum passmark for transcoding a 1080p stream but once you start doing the other stuff it will likely stutter and freeze IMHO. And the more ram the better. If you can pick up the ram to max the board out you can make it work for a little while but don't trust your data to it since you are not likely to be using ECC ram with an old desktop board.