Which pc build should i use? I3-550 or E8400

[DRAGON]

just picked up two options and having a really hard time deciding which to use. Going to load freenas on a 16gb thumb drive and run 4 sata drives mainly for plex to play my blu ray movies. I have a dell inspiron 580s with a core i3-550 and the other is a custom using an asus p5q-e motherboard with a core 2 duo e8400. All the benchmarks i see are mainly for gaming, not as a server base as my intentions so the results seem misleading. What do you recommend for my freenas setup? Any advise would be greatly appreciated!

 

[gpsguy]

Start by reading this post: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

Have you perused the manual yet?

 

[DRAGON]

I have been reading and watching videos for the past month. My mind is mush and was just looking for an opinion/suggestion of which would be better for this. Everything points to the e8400 for proc,,, but the ram on the i3/ddr3 far exceeds the e8400/ddr2. basically, given a choice with the 2 machines...... again, thank you
Starting off with 4x 2tb drives which will at some point be 4x 6tb drives (hopefully)

 

[gpsguy]

If I only had those two machines to choose from, I'd pass on FreeNAS and use another operating system. You might want to look at NAS4free (www.nas4free.org). It was the predecessor to the modern day FreeNAS.

If cost is holding you back, consider the Lenova TS-140. Search the forum to read what others are saying about this server.

 

[DRAGON]

Just to be sure I'm seeing things clearly. I discovered freenas about a year ago watching a video on YouTube. Then utilizing an old PC and putting HDD's with a ton of ram would have worked out great and run PLEX. Am I understanding that now days freenas is really designed for multi core high end cpu's with average ram? Please correct me if I am wrong. Was really planning on installing and being happy with freenas. Actually had already decided it, went to install it on the 4gb thumb drive and discovered I needed more room. But really in the end,,, until I get better equipment I should run the I3 with windows 7 and load plex on it? Thanks for any and all responses

 

[gpsguy]

In a nutshell yes. Those videos referred to FreeNAS 0.7 which became NAS4free, hence my suggestion to look at that product.

Can't write any more now - had composed a longer message and lost the reply.


Sent from my phone

 

[diedrichg]

You don't need redundant data protection for a DVD collection. FreeNAS is not what you should be running. You can easily run a HTPC with any flavor of Linux or windows running SAB, Sickrage, Couchpotato, Plex, Mediabrowser, etc.