Harvesting parts from an old 1U rack server

[RCGrackle]

I've got an old 1U Dell PowerEdge R610 server. I'd like to harvest the two Xeon E5620 processors and 48GB of RAM (12x 4GB Hynix HMT351R7CFR8A) and transplant them into a motherboard that will fit in an ATX tower. My overall goal is to get some hands on experience with FreeNAS and end up with a budget NAS/Plex server. I've done a little bit of research on Newegg for dual socket LGA 1366 motherboards and the most affordable option seems to be Intel S5520SCR SSI EEB Server Motherboard. Will this work for my use case? If not, can anyone suggest a better motherboard?

 

[jayecin]

Honestly, I wouldnt bother with those processors. They are 10 year old processors and extremely weak by todays standard. The motherboard alone cost almost 300 dollars, for that price you could buy a modern CPU, motherboard and RAM which would let you do a lot more with the server.

 

[RCGrackle]

Honestly, I wouldnt bother with those processors. They are 10 year old processors and extremely weak by todays standard. The motherboard alone cost almost 300 dollars, for that price you could buy a modern CPU, motherboard and RAM which would let you do a lot more with the server.

I found an old Asus motherboard on Ebay for ~$90. Would that lower price change your opinion or would you still suggest looking for all new components? I've looked at some of the ASRock Rack boards for modern Xeon processors and the boards are all around $300 with the processors being around $200. I was hoping that I could build something workable for around $500 all in, hence the attempt to use the older components.

 

[jayecin]

For 90 bucks thats not a bad deal, make sure you can find CPU coolers as well, the ones in the R610 are designed to be mounted in that 610 case and wont work in an ATX tower. Why are you putting it in an ATX tower anyways? Is it the noise or the space? The noise can probably be addressed with aftermarket fans for cheaper than rebuilding in an ATX tower. If its the space, I get it. Also keep in mind those CPUs wont be able to transcode movies on the fly. So for example if you have a 4k movie and want to watch it on a 1080p only device, the movie will constantly stutter and buffer unless you pre-transcode or have a 1080p version available. Also just noticed the 90 dollar asus board only supports Sata2, which is 300mb/s compared to Sata3 600mb/s. That motherboard will have very slow read and write speeds, id say its not worth it now.

 

[RCGrackle]

Also just noticed the 90 dollar asus board only supports Sata2, which is 300mb/s compared to Sata3 600mb/s. That motherboard will have very slow read and write speeds, id say its not worth it now.

This is the part that worried me the most. I'm new to building a NAS and wasn't sure how big an impact this would have.