FreeNAS Mini Good?

[Wenborn]

Hi Guys,

I need to build myself a FreeNAS server for RaidZ2 and have been doing some research for hardware selection but came across this;

http://www.ixsystems.com/storage/freenas/

Is the FreeNAS Mini any good interns of the hardware that's implemented into the unit? as I'm looking to build myself a server on a budget of £1000 and can't help but think this would be a better approach? as these sell in the range from £600 - £1000 depending on the storage capacity.

So my question is would I be better off sticking to my original plan on building a server or investing into one of these?

My original build specs were probably going to be something along the line of this;

Processor: Intel Core I3 or maybe a Intel Xeon E3-1270v3
Motherboard: Asrock E3C226D2I
Ram: 2 X Kingston 8GB 1600Mhz ECC Ram KVR16R11D4/8
HDD: 5 or 6 3TB WD Reds
Case: Lan Li PC-Q18

 

[jgreco]

We are pretty sure the mini is built on the ASRock Avoton platform. It is probably good (I'm testing their 2750 board as we speak) but not super fast per thread (i.e. slow CIFS).