I'm about to try another FreeNAS system with with an ASRock motherboard

[Brewboy]

I first tried building a system with an older HP computer. I could never get it to boot. I have a different computer with an ASRock Q1900 motherboard. Here are the specs:

Has anyone successfully built a FreeNAS system with a computer like this? If so, did you run into any problems and can you offer any suggestions on how to overcome them? Thank you.

 

[John Doe]

yep, had the same board and got freenas stable running on it, after 5 days playing with all the bios settings

 

[Brewboy]

Do you recall the BIOS settings that needed to be changed? When I tried to get it running on that HP machine, I tried every setting possible, but nothing worked.

 

[John Doe]

cannot recall the settings for the AsRock board. It was >7 years or so

but I found some screenshots during that time, which were helpful.
use of legancy, only usb2, deactivating all but crucial things

back in the days i created a matrix with every possible setting in relation to the others to really try them out. it took a while until i got it working but then it ran very well.

btw. I dont know your usecase, that board might suit your needs. But there was a reason for me to change to proper hardware.
you have one of those terrible realtek network adapters. dont expect higher transfer rates then 80mb/s

 

[simplextech]

Has anyone successfully built a FreeNAS system with a computer like this? If so, did you run into any problems and can you offer any suggestions on how to overcome them? Thank you.

Hmm...Umm my first post here :)

I'm thinking of moving from an UnRaid system to FreeNAS or perhaps TrueNAS... anyways. I build a system a couple days ago that's running with an ASRock 760GM-HDV with an AMD FX8350 and it's running fine so far. This is the same config UnRaid was running with as well. I'm going to be replacing the 760GM-HDV in a couple of days with a ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0 so if you're interested I'll let you know how that build goes. Older motherboards to support the older processor because I'm too cheap at the moment to replace the whole system :)

 

[Brewboy]

John Doe, I want to thank you for responding. I was about to throw in the towel on FreeNAS after trying unsuccessfully for about a week on that HP PC. You gave me hope with this system and after a few tries, I got it working. I'm now able to backup files and play music through a file explorer app.

I've been trying to load Plex and now it's kicking my butt. There's just something I'm missing when I add the mounting points.

Anyway, thanks again.

 

[LeDiable]

Not sure where you are with your Plex installation, but the scripted process to install it in a jail instead of using the plugin might be worth trying. It seemed pretty easy for me. Here's a video that walks through it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvM32lWc_r4

Credit to @Yorick who referred me to that & the script

 

[simplextech]

John Doe, I want to thank you for responding. I was about to throw in the towel on FreeNAS after trying unsuccessfully for about a week on that HP PC. You gave me hope with this system and after a few tries, I got it working. I'm now able to backup files and play music through a file explorer app.

I've been trying to load Plex and now it's kicking my butt. There's just something I'm missing when I add the mounting points.

Anyway, thanks again.

I just installed Plex through the plugins. Before or After you add the mounts make sure you setup permissions. There's a good walk through here: Plex Permissions

 

[Brewboy]

I followed these instructions: https://pureinfotech.com/install-plex-freenas/ Everything went well until plex was launched and when I tried to select "media" from the drop down list, it was grayed out. I'm sure this has to do with permissions, but I just can't figure out how to change them. I read that article posted by simpletech, but that didn't help. Major brain fart here.

 

[Brewboy]

Well, I went back and again reviewed the suggested video and the Plex Permissions document and I finally got it working. Thanks to all for helping.

 

[Evertb1]

@Brewboy Just me being curious: but what are you planning to do with this system? I won't bother you with the suitability of your components because the hardware requirements/recommandations are easy to find. But memory and CPU are on a minimum. Especially if you want to let Plex loose on video transcoding. Your CPU will not handle that very wel. A simple 720p transcode (1 stream) needs a CPU wit at least a 1500 passmark score and your CPU has a pasmark score of about 1100 according to cpubenchmark.net. Ofcourse without transcoding your CPU will have more of a chance to do the job.

 

[Brewboy]

I'm using this primarily for backups. This PC is located in another building away from my house. I really can't use a cloud server, because I live in the country and my broadband internet service is too slow. I do use Google drive for very critical data, but those are small files. Up until recently, I had a Western digital 6TB MyCloud. It was my second one to fail, so I decided to try FreeNAS. It is far superior to the WD storage device, IMO, but I have a lot to learn about it. Right now I only have a 330G hard drive in the server to test it, but I just ordered an 8 TB drive. I hope the installation of this new drive goes as smoothly as the initial installation.

I'm only using Plex for music. I was running an app called CX File Explorer to play music and I may actually like that better than Plex. I don't plan on running any video on it.

 

[simplextech]

@Evertb1 I have to follow along with @Brewboy in that I'm running Plex simply for organizing and streaming to direct stream devices. I don't allow outside sharing and I also don't do any transcoding of video. I don't need high end CPU or graphics adapters for a file server which is what I'm looking at FreeNAS/TrueNAS Core for.

The general obsession with torrents and transcoding and the latest doo-dad in a container is for me a real turn off from the UnRAID community which is why I'm looking at FreeNAS for a solid storage solution not just a hobby-home torrent box.