Hey folks - n00b to the forum here. Been reading around a bit and wanted to toss out my newest build for any feedback. This machine is strictly for home use for data backup and storage. We had a baby 7 months ago and I need a place to store the zillions of pictures and videos I take, plus back up the laptops.
I started with a retired Acer machine that my office was going to chuck - Celeron processor, 2GB ram, 400w psu, hard drive removed and destroyed. I added 2 x WD Red 1TB hdds, and installed x86 version onto a Patriot flash drive, using ZFS - begin chastising me for doing this with well under recommended amount of ram in 3...2...1...
. The machine got me by and actually ran fine - the GUI was slow and transfers in my network were slow, in part due to the on-board 10/100 adapter, and probably due to the shortage of ram as well.
For speed and energy efficiency's sake I decided it was time to upgrade it. I saved the case, psu, and of course my hard drives and the flash drive. The new stuff:
- MSI 880GMS-E41 mobo (got it for 29.99 after all rebates) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130652
- AMD Sempron 145 cpu - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888
- 1 x 8GB CORSAIR DDR3 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233269
Set it up last night and spent a few minutes tinkering with the bios on the new mobo. Set it to boot from the usb flash drive and rebooted. Man, it FLEW through startup. That cpu has a 2nd unlockable core, and the mobo supports unlocking it - I gave it a shot, and while it recognized the unlocked core, boot into freenas would hang so I had to reverse it. Worked fine after I did that.
I think I've got a pretty solid machine considering I only spent $125 on the new parts. Not much you can do about the cost of HDDs, but you can't beat a free case and PSU.
The next thing on my list is to upgrade to the x64 version so I can actually utilize all of the ram I installed. Can't wait.
Any thoughts? I'd love any feedback, positive or negative.
Thanks,
Aaron
I started with a retired Acer machine that my office was going to chuck - Celeron processor, 2GB ram, 400w psu, hard drive removed and destroyed. I added 2 x WD Red 1TB hdds, and installed x86 version onto a Patriot flash drive, using ZFS - begin chastising me for doing this with well under recommended amount of ram in 3...2...1...
. The machine got me by and actually ran fine - the GUI was slow and transfers in my network were slow, in part due to the on-board 10/100 adapter, and probably due to the shortage of ram as well.For speed and energy efficiency's sake I decided it was time to upgrade it. I saved the case, psu, and of course my hard drives and the flash drive. The new stuff:
- MSI 880GMS-E41 mobo (got it for 29.99 after all rebates) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130652
- AMD Sempron 145 cpu - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888
- 1 x 8GB CORSAIR DDR3 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233269
Set it up last night and spent a few minutes tinkering with the bios on the new mobo. Set it to boot from the usb flash drive and rebooted. Man, it FLEW through startup. That cpu has a 2nd unlockable core, and the mobo supports unlocking it - I gave it a shot, and while it recognized the unlocked core, boot into freenas would hang so I had to reverse it. Worked fine after I did that.
I think I've got a pretty solid machine considering I only spent $125 on the new parts. Not much you can do about the cost of HDDs, but you can't beat a free case and PSU.
The next thing on my list is to upgrade to the x64 version so I can actually utilize all of the ram I installed. Can't wait.
Any thoughts? I'd love any feedback, positive or negative.
Thanks,
Aaron
