Recommended Budget Hardware

[eleibzon]

Hi All,
I have searched and read many many posts and articles about the recommended hardware for FreeNAS and did not find an answer to my "problem". Therefore, decided to post my question here.

For the last 6 years a have used Synology 713+ 2-bay (6TB in total) station that mainly stored photos, videos, misc backups and 1080p video streaming. Specs below:

• CPU Frequency: Dual Core 2.13GHz
• Hardware Encryption Engine
• Memory: DDR3 1GB
• Internal drive: EXT4
• External HDD Interface: USB 2.0 port X1, USB 3.0 port X2, eSATA port X1
• LAN: Gigabit X2
• Fan: X1
• Power Consumption: 30.72W (Access); 17.88W (HDD Hibernation)
• 2 Hot-swappable SATA Bays

It served me well all these years and I had almost no performance issue during the year. The device has died last week and I decided to move to FreeNAS and make a custom build server. I'm slightly lost in all the different models:

Supermicro mobos are mainly recommended (most with Xeon CPU), but I feel that it is an overkill for my needs and I can get away with Pentium Processor (perhaps a mobo with integrated Atom CPU). May someone please recommend a mobo (Micro form factor) that is compatible with FreeNAS and the CPU Requirements) that will suit my needs.

Your help is highly appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[eleibzon]

Just to add that memory requirement is DDR3 1600 16GB

 

[tfran1990]

Check out the build guides.

 

[blanchet]

For a newbie, I would recommend

• a FreeNAS Mini E. It is probably the best choice, but it is expensive. ($749). Prefer a new models with the new ATOM C3xxx processor. Basically, it lets only the FreeNAS Mini E.
• a used HPE Microserver Gen8. It was a very popular platform for FreeNAS.
• a HPE Microserver Gen10 ($310). The Gen10 is not as popular as the Gen8 because it lacks of IPMI and the processor is soldered, nevertheless, but it is still well-built, even quieter and easier to find. Note that there is a trick to install FreeNAS on Gen10.