minimum hardware requirement

[rs232]

I wanted to install freenas on an old box for a friend of mine to have his own nas at home. Nothing funky just 500Gb hd.
I was however checking the minimum hw spec required (http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Hardware_Requirements) by freenas. I know freenas 8 does many things but can I say that the RAM requirement is enormous?
I'm planning to use UFS and CIFS only... do I really need 4Gb of ram just to install it?

I seem to remember freens 7 needed 256Mb for a basic installation.

Is there any way to install freenas 8 on a box with 512Mb of ram?

If not I think I'd better install freenas 7 but that's not supported any more (AFAIK) or as a very last option install a basic Linux distro and samba...

Any input?

thanks

 

[wussy]

Hi,
I don´t think you need 4GB RAM. As mentioned in the FAQ they suggest 1 GB Ram for 1TB discspace and this is only for ZFS. If you are using UFS i think the 512MB will be enough but I never tested it.

The question for me is when you are only using one disc and only want to make CIFS why you want to use Freenas?!

It doesn´t make any sense to me and I would suggest to gowith some kind of linux.
But no matter what you are installing be aware of loosing your datas when the hd is crashing.

What is the aim of the build?

 

[rs232]

freenas is the obvious choice when you need to install a nas and you want to configure everything via a webpage. If I go for linux I would have to set it manually, not a big deal at all, but yes, it takes much longer finally in linux there's no single step upgrade like a freenas firmware upgrade would do.
I'm trying to install freenas8 on the box with 512Mb and see what's happening

 

[wussy]

You have to install on a usb stick otherwise it will use the only disc only for freenas.