Upgrading an Atom 330

[GrendelJapan]

My ancient Atom 330 build w/ 4 GB non ECC ram and 4x 2TB WD Greens (z2) running FreeNas 9.2 has been hovering at 87% capacity for a while now and seems ready for an upgrade.

This is a home use backup and media server, which has all of our DVD collection, digitized home movies, digital comics, etc. I'm also running an Emby server on a separate zbox nano running Ubuntu, so my MIL and parents can access our video library remotely. Running that server in a jail was more than the old gal could handle, but it'd be nice to get that working along with a newer version of FreeNAS on the new box.

I picked up a Fractal Design Node 304 (mini ITX) at a huge discount more than a year ago, so I was hoping to use that. Obviously, that impacts my options for motherboards and the rest, but I'm not sure the tradeoffs are as bad as I first worried. I'm trying to keep the budget down, so I'm planning on going with 4x 4TB drives in z2, basically doubling my existing capacity.

Here's what I have so far:

• Case: Fractal Design Node 304 (mini ITX)
• Mobo: ASRock E3C236D2I (32 ecc ram support, 6 sata, 2x intel lan, ipmi (via Realtek LAN)
• CPU: Pentium G4400 3.3 Dual Core (stock cooling)
• RAM: Probably a single 16 GB stick of DDR4 ECC UDIMM (scanning reviews, someone mentioned that E3C236D2I worked and looks tolerably priced right now)
• HDD: WD Red 4 TB x4
• Boot: a pair of the standard recommended thumb drives - I'm pretty sure I have two already. mobo looks like it has an internal usb, which is pretty neat)
• PSU: A gold 550-650W, like the Corsair TXM 650 or something that's solid and has a decent rebate running

Many thanks in advance for thoughts or suggestions.

Cheers!

 

[Evertb1]

Here's what I have so far:

• Case: Fractal Design Node 304 (mini ITX)
• Mobo: ASRock E3C236D2I (32 ecc ram support, 6 sata, 2x intel lan, ipmi (via Realtek LAN)
• CPU: Pentium G4400 3.3 Dual Core (stock cooling)
• RAM: Probably a single 16 GB stick of DDR4 ECC UDIMM (scanning reviews, someone mentioned that E3C236D2I worked and looks tolerably priced right now)
• HDD: WD Red 4 TB x4
• Boot: a pair of the standard recommended thumb drives - I'm pretty sure I have two already. mobo looks like it has an internal usb, which is pretty neat)
• PSU: A gold 550-650W, like the Corsair TXM 650 or something that's solid and has a decent rebate running

Can't see much wrong with your choises. Personaly I don't like to be limited in my choise for a motherboard by my case. But the Node 304 is a nice one. Generally I love the good build quality and no nonsense appearence of Fractal Design cases. I own several of them my self.

The CPU is not the most powerfull available but it delivers a lot of bang for the buck, won't break the bank and it is sufficient for many use-cases.

Starting with a single 16 GB stick is smart. That way you have a slot free and can expand your memory when the need is there. Dual channel memory is not important for the performance of FreeNAS as far as I know.

I don't need to say much about your drives. WD Red drives are a well appriciated for home NAS applications.

If I would have to say anything "bad" about your choises it's the USB sticks as boot device. I have A FreeNAS box, an OMV box and an experimental ESXi box and they are all booting from a small SSD. I lost several USB sticks in the past years and while (especilally with FreeNAS) loosing a boot device should not be fatal it can be annoying. I haven't lost an SSD yet.