Can i?

[duttytd]

I have an old pc just sitting there and want to use it but not sure if I can.

Its a Q6600 processor, P5NE SLI mb, 4GB Ram & 1TB seagate drive... Can I use freenas with it?

I know 8gb is recommended but I only have 4.

 

[DifferentStrokes]

You *might* be able to load FreeNAS on it just to play around, but you will not have any luck running on this hardware in production.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Worst case scenario is, it will work just fine for a while, and you'll come to rely on it and end up with a bunch of important stuff on it that you 'forgot' to backup elsewhere. Then one day the pool won't mount and you'll be in a deep hole.

 

[Darren Myers]

Worst case scenario is, it will work just fine for a while, and you'll come to rely on it and end up with a bunch of important stuff on it that you 'forgot' to backup elsewhere. Then one day the pool won't mount and you'll be in a deep hole.

This right here, is what happens...and if youre lucky you get the proper hardware and can revive your pool...or, you dont revive the pool and youre SOL

 

[SweetAndLow]

I have an old pc just sitting there and want to use it but not sure if I can.

Its a Q6600 processor, P5NE SLI mb, 4GB Ram & 1TB seagate drive... Can I use freenas with it?

I know 8gb is recommended but I only have 4.

No

 

[DifferentStrokes]

No

I like it. Short and Sweet('n Low). :p Corny, I know.

 

[duttytd]

Ok thanks for the reply people.

What is it about this machine that isn't up to standards other then the ram being 4gb?

 

[SweetAndLow]

Ever piece is inadequate. Motherboard chipset has problems, not enough memory which you know and ignore, processor is way to slow and one drive doesn't make sense. Have you read the stickies? They will cover acceptable hardware and lots more good information you can learn.

 

[duttytd]

Ever piece is inadequate. Motherboard chipset has problems, not enough memory which you know and ignore, processor is way to slow and one drive doesn't make sense. Have you read the stickies? They will cover acceptable hardware and lots more good information you can learn.

It isn't that I choose to ignore the fact it has 4gb it's that I didn't see a point in upgrading it if I wasn't sure I could run it with everything else. As for the processor being too slow, I was under the understanding that they didn't need huge processors, so I thought a quad core processor would be OK. I guess I was wrong.

 

[Darren Myers]

quad core is nice yes, but the motherboard has a chipset that will give you issues, the RAM is certainly too low and not really worth investing in more of, having only 1 hdd doesnt really work to your advantage what so ever either.

 

[danb35]

FreeNAS is not, and was never, designed to reuse castoff hardware as a NAS. It's designed to work on reasonably modern, server-grade hardware with multiple disks in a redundant arrangement to provide the best protection for your data. Could you run it on your hardware? Probably. Would it be safe? No, it wouldn't. If you were wanting to build up a test system on that hardware, that wouldn't be a problem. But if you're wanting to use that hardware as a production server, you'd be better off looking at different NAS software. There are lots to choose from.

 

[duttytd]

I do have more hard drives that's not a problem. If I got a new motherboard and more ram would that be worth it? I want to use it to store music production samples on, stream some films to plex and that's about it.

 

[gpsguy]

You'd really need a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM with ECC support. See the suggestions in this thread - https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

If you are on a budget and don't want to build one, consider a Dell T20 or Lenova TS140. If you bought a 4GB version of them, for example: http://search.serversdirect.co.uk/search?w=t20, you'd still need to add at least 8GB RAM to a budget model.

 

[duttytd]

I'm now confused even more as someone said earlier that a quad core cpu is good and that's what I've got so why can't that be used in conjunction with a new motherboard with ECC support and ram?

 

[pirateghost]

I'm now confused even more as someone said earlier that a quad core cpu is good and that's what I've got so why can't that be used in conjunction with a new motherboard with ECC support and ram?

Because the Q6600 doesn't support ECC RAM.

 

[duttytd]

B

Because the Q6600 doesn't support ECC RAM.

but isn't that not necessary if I'm not raiding the Hdd's?

 

[pirateghost]

B

but isn't that not necessary if I'm not raiding the Hdd's?

If you don't use raidz(#), then freenas isn't for you. Period.

Check out any of the other nas projects. Nas4free, open media vault, xpenology

 

[Darren Myers]

i stated a quad core is good, but YOUR quad core is not , at one time the Q6600 was awesome. For this project it is not, as others stated you need ECC support, which means new motherboard,CPU, and RAM. If you look into all the threads of those who use improper hardware youll soon realize why your current hardware is lacking and isnt the right fit. You'll want to give the many build threads, take this one for an example. All recommended hardware, that has been thoroughly vented by both staff and other members here, and the gentleman there has a successful, fully function build

 

[sremick]

Just because you have a "quad core" CPU doesn't mean much. There are as much differences in "quad core" CPUs as there is in 4-cylinder engines.

And you mentioned Plex, which means you'll be needing even more CPU power and more RAM (16GB minimum) than if you were just running FreeNAS.

 

[danb35]

If you don't use raidz(#), then freenas isn't for you. Period.

Certainly FreeNAS is appropriate for using mirrors, which aren't classified as RAIDZn. I can even imagine use cases where other characteristics of ZFS (snapshots, for example) are more important than data integrity, where you wouldn't want or need redundancy (though I expect those use cases would be rare). In such a case, FreeNAS may still be appropriate.

@duttytd, people here (including me) are going to assume that you care about your data and want to store it in a secure, redundant manner. That really requires, for any OS, using server-grade hardware and ECC RAM, and really using a next-generation filesystem like ZFS or btrfs. This need not be terribly expensive--you can buy a prebuilt server that's suitable for under $300US, not including drives. ECC is somewhat more important for ZFS than for some other filesystems due to the way it scrubs your volume to ensure consistency, but a RAM error with any filesystem will hose your data. This also means using some sort of RAID arrangement for your volumes, whether a simple two-disk mirror or something more advanced.

If those are not your goals, you're better off looking at a different NAS OS. You may be able to do what you want in FreeNAS, but you'll be fighting the design of the system. There are lots of free NAS OSs available, and FreeNAS isn't for everyone.