Help with first FreeNAS hardware selection

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Irish1986

Cadet
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Sep 10, 2011
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Hi everyone,

First post on the FreeNAS forum. I have been having lots of issue with storage in the last couple of years. It seems that I always runs out of storage space and at the worst time. I have been researching a little bit and reading/watching lots of good guide on the web regarding FreeNAS.

I have an HTPC that I think to repurpose as a FreeNAS and just upgrade my HTPC for an ATOM based board with Nvidia chipset.

The setup I am currently looking at is the following:

CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Motherboard : Intel DG965WH
RAM : 4 GB
OS : FreeNAS 8.0 on CF with IDE conversion
HDD : Probably 4 to 6 Western Digital Green 2 TB (target is around 8 TB with RAID)

I am a noob so I don't know or understand everything about RAID and RAID card. I understand its add redundancy and I believe that RAID 5 is the best compromise. I am not sure what RAID controller would be the best due to the big price difference and huge offer.

Also I don't know which case and power supply I should select. I would like to use a rack form since I am also building a virtual farm running EXSI and hook up everything in a rackmount would be easier for power, support and everthing else.

Finally, I am on a budget. I already own the CPU, Motherboard, RAM and a few HDD to start with but the power supply, case, RAID card and extra HDD won't come cheap. Also that EXSI farm that I am building is pretty expensive. I am not sure if it is a good idea to separate the storage and EXSI farm as the farm is intended for application, web host and firewall. I think it would simplify my EXSI farm as I won't have to manage storage space, only purchase a few large HDD for OS and application installation and use share drive from the FreeNAS for all the large files.

Irish1986
 

joeschmuck

Old Man
Moderator
Joined
May 28, 2011
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10,994
Don't buy a cheap power supply. More power isn't always better, quality of the power is what counts.
 
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