CPU upgrade - worth it or not?

[AVB]

I run a HP Z420 as my back-up "server". The memory is maxed out at 64GB so the only thing I can upgrade is the CPU. Currently running an E5-2650 but I can get an E5-1650 (both V1s) for about $60. Would this be a noticeable upgrade or just a nice to have? I know $60 isn't that much but if I won't see any improvement why spend it. Thanks!

 

[Jessep]

For a FreeNAS storage box only, you wont notice the difference. If you are running several CPU heavy VMs, maybe.

Your average CPU usage should tell the tale.

 

[G8One2]

If your using it for PLEX, then anything with a higher clock speed will benefit you.

 

[AVB]

For a FreeNAS storage box only, you won't notice the difference. If you are running several CPU heavy VMs, maybe.

Your average CPU usage should tell the tale.

Yeah, I'm not maxing the CPU at all but I thought the speed difference (60% faster) might make it worthwhile. Thanks.

 

[Pitfrr]

as my back-up "server"

Since you mention that this is a backup server, I'd say you don't need much CPU or do you do anything specific with that server (which then wouldn't be a "simple" backup server but a bit more)?
I suppose anything else (like PLEX or so) would be running on your main server. So as @Jessep mentions, you won't feel any difference.

 

[Rand]

Well its a 8x2GHz to 6x3.2GHz upgrade
If you are using 1GbE I guess it won't matter, but if you are using 10GbE then this should be noticeable on all single threaded operations including scp & cifs filesharing.

o/c the 1650 will not run as dual CPU in your 2600CP2J so not sure how you'd do that upgrade, but if you're happy with 6 cores and subsequently less PCIE lanes then it might be worth it;)

 

[Elliot Dierksen]

In most cases, FreeNAS doesn't use a ton of cpu. I have hyperthreading turned off on both of mine as that is the best practice as I understand it. I only have the 2nd cpu so I can use more memory slots. I know Samba was single threaded for a long time, so core speed was more important than number of cores.

 

[Rand]

From my understanding its still preferable for FreeNAS to have less higher frequency cores than the other way round as there are still lots of single threaded components (samba, ssh [scp,rsync] and possibly more).
This is less of an issue if you have multiple users/concurrent activities as the combined performance will be good then, but the less threads/users the more important high clock speed becomes to get good performance (>1GbE).