danb35
Hall of Famer
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2011
- Messages
- 15,504
A Xeon is unnecessary; an i3 would be plenty, and even a G-series Pentium would probably be fine. The X10SL7-F is a fine board, but you're paying a bit extra for the onboard SAS HBA. Sure, that gives you the ability to run 14 (or more) disks, but you're only looking at two so far. If you don't really think you'd expand to more than four or six disks, you could probably do fine with a less-expensive board. The disadvantage of an X10, Socket 1150 board vs. an X11, Socket 1151 board is that the latter supports up to 64 GB of RAM, but it doesn't sound like that's going to be an issue in any event.So a Xeon it is then.
If you want to go the turnkey route, Synology has a lot to recommend it, but it also has some drawbacks. The hardware tends to be expensive, and you just don't have the data integrity and security you'd have with a well-maintained FreeNAS box. OTOH, Synology has a well-designed and attractive UI, as well as some cloud-access features that FreeNAS doesn't offer.
Edit: For what you're looking to do, a small pre-built server (Proliant ML10, PowerEdge T20/T30, ThinkServer TS140) with RAM upgraded to at least 8 GB would really be fine, and quite possibly less expensive than building it yourself.
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