FreeNAS inquiry

B

BlackDragon1971

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 24, 2012
Messages
177
Just sourced a cheap Chinese mITX motherboard (used & tested - being shipped). It seems to be a SOYO H91-FS (Intel H81 chipset). I'm thinking of dropping a Intel Haswell Core i5 in it and about 16 GB of DDR3 RAM when I get it. And this has a PCIe x16 slot for future expansion.
How much RAM should be used for FreeNAS? I have 4x 6TB HGST Deskstar NAS drives to play with.
Previously I used an Intel DQ45EK mITX motherboard running Windows Home Server 2011. That hardware and OS is dated, hence going for a Haswell mITX motherboard.
So, what's a good range for RAM to use for FreeNAS?

SOYO H91 FS.jpg


I don't expect spectacular results. Just something to play with to get used to FreeNAS and handle basic NAS tasks.... get my feet wet.
Also thinking of a future Build using a Pioneer Home Theatre receiver and gutting it for a compact home NAS system... been a while since I picked up a Dremel.
 
Epos7 said:
One recommendation - save yourself some hassle and install FreeNAS on an SSD, not a thumb drive.
Click to expand...

OP's board only has four SATA ports, already taken up by the pool drives. OS has to go onto a USB drive of some sort.

USB flash drives are fine, so long as you get quality ones. don't get the tiny little ones like the SanDisk Fit. Those will fail (as they did for me repeatedly). I moved my box to using the SanDisk Ultra USB3 16 GB (happened to have them on-hand) and it's been fine since. Get two, and install the OS to a mirrored pair for resiliency.
 
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don't get the tiny little ones like the SanDisk Fit
Click to expand...

I like the fit drives (have several dozen of them between home and work) but they are not good for 24/7 operation. The USB3 versions get way too hot.
 
Epos7 said:
One recommendation - save yourself some hassle and install FreeNAS on an SSD, not a thumb drive.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I was considering that. This project is a few months away. Just in the planning stages now. And the one thing this board coming has is a PCIe x16 slot that my Intel DQ45EK board doesn't ( just a x1 slot on that). Future expansion at a cheap price, in a small form factor. If the ITX board becomes a hassle to use, I can always play with my outdated Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9650 and DP45SG system... It's collecting dust and has ample room for drives. Last thing I used that for was SETI@Home.
 
Last edited:
Soyo! I haven't heard that name in ages!

I agree with advice here. I haven't used FreeNAS, but I've used FreeBSD/ZFS as a file server for a long time. You plan with 16GB RAM will be plenty!
 
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