Hardware Recommendation

[Dae]

I am a mechanical engineering college student whom has never operated a linux machine. I know how to use it to accomplish what I need it to, mainly computer model simulations on the campus's cluster, but I would like expand on my knowledge while also setting up a replacement for the 3 consumer grade NAS devices that I am currently using for storage.

First off, I am on a budget. I am not looking for the ultimate setup, just one that can handle 12tb overall capacity with redundancy. With that in mind, I've come up with the following setup that I would like to get opinions on before I purchase:

-Supermicro SuperChassis 747TQ-R1400B
-Supermicro X8DTG-QF
-Dual Xeon E5530 @ 2.40GHz
-$250, eBay, used.

-32GB DDR3 ECC Registered 1333MHz (4 x 8GB)
-$80, eBay, new

-3 x 3TB SATA Seagate
-2 x 2TB SATA WD Green
-Already own, but intend to upgrade to 6 x 4TB in the future.

My first concern is with purchasing used equipment. I know its always a bit of a gamble, but does server grade equipment generally have a good lifespan or am I purchasing something with a greater than average chance of failing in 2 months?
My second question is can that mother board recognize a 4TB disk?
Lastly, is there any real benefit to searching for a server with an optical drive or can installations be performed just as easily via USB?

Thanks and please forgive my ignorance.

 

[nightshade00013]

The board should support 4TB drives without a problem. I do not know however about the backplane used in the case but I would guess that it would be fine.

The board is Tri-Channel so you would be better suited by getting at least 6 sticks. You can probably find 6 X 4GB sticks of ECC ram for a good amount less than the 8's and then get more later on if you want.

As far as lasting I don't see a problem. Most server grade stuff even ran hard has often sat in an air conditioned room with good filtration and no overclocking by a 15 year old who's parents bought cheap when he wanted a gaming computer. My system and it's sister system were both used and have had few problems. Just do a good burn in of the cpu (throw a copy of windoze on it and this tool has been recommended http://www.ocbase.com/ ) and run Memtest for a couple days to ferret out any possible issues.

If you will eventually upgrade to 6 drives you will have to either pick up another drive at least 2TB and add that to the ones you already have (FreeNAS will likely base the pool off of the smallest drive so the 3TB's will have wasted space.) Otherwise you will have to create another pool and copy the data over, either will work fine though one will just involve resilvering.

As far as install goes you can use another computer to actually install FreeNAS to the USB drive and then move it over. I would just disconnect any drives you don't want to lose data on just in case you pull a Linus and select every drive or something goofy or off the wall. You could also just open the side of the case of the server and attach an optical drive temporarily. Honestly once it is up and running an optical drive is superfluous I don't have one in my system I just connected one for the 20 minutes it took to install then threw it back in my mother in law's computer.

 

[Dae]

Thank you for all your help Nightshade. I've purchased the server and am really looking forward into diving into setting it up when it arrives!

Taking your advice, I purchased 6 x 8Gb sticks for ram for a total of 48Gb