Compatibility with professional IBM server solution ?

[dedek603]

Hi Guys,

I"m looking for some update of my existing HW set-up and I found somw second hand ware from company which selling used IBM workstations. For example Server IBM System x3655 AMD Quad-Core Opteron 2356 4x 2.3GHz 7943.

Is it possible to run FreeNAS on this HW ? I think that should be benefit to have HW combination which is really based on server solution.... RAID, disks bays, etc. or not?

I will be gratefull for any advice.

THX.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, there's some limitations with it.

1. It uses DDR2, which means getting large amount of RAM will get quite expensive very quickly. It does have 16 RAM slots though so its a tradeoff.
2. I don't see anything proving that >2TB drives are supported.
3. The NIC is Broadcom. It may or may not work. Intel NICs are about the best.
4. Dual processor often means much more power usage. For a system that is expected to be on 24x7, you may find buying a new system based on an Intel e3-1230v2 to be far far more energy efficient(mine clocks in at 35 watts without disks... I doubt you could even get double that from your system).

Personally, I wouldn't spend the money on one.

 

[jgreco]

The 2356 was nice four years ago, some of our early gen ESXi stuff used those. A bit slow and power hungry now though.

The Broadcom ethernets are pretty good, server-grade but maybe less well-supported than Intel (who has their own team write a FreeBSD driver). Have seen them develop problems more often than Intels.

 

[dedek603]

Ok, good information,

they have also something like Server IBM System x3650 M2 2x Intel Quad-Core Xeon E5540 4x 2.53GHz 7947.

But I suppose that is with same level of problems.... right ?

 

[jgreco]

What are you actually seeking in terms of a solution for?

 

[dedek603]

Mainly for home usage.. back-ups +using plugins (Couchpotato, and related stuff)

 

[jgreco]

How much storage do you need?

 

[dedek603]

4 - 6 TB

 

[jgreco]

If you don't need the best performance, HP makes the MicroServer N54L which can be outfitted with 16GB RAM and four 3TB drives in RAIDZ2 for a very reasonable price (wait for a sale on the N54L). Plugins won't run quickly but it is low power and affordable.

The hardware forum sticky gives great advice for a much more powerful (and expensive) build that will be about as efficient in terms of horsepower per watt as anything else you can do.