will i have enough power?

[chopsui101]

I bought a tower wanting to convert to a NAS. The motherboard is a 2B18 when I was researching it it said it took max of 95W power source. The tower doesn't have a internal power brick instead its a external one. I am hoping to run 4 hard drives, not sure if i should start looking for a new mother board and power source?
I attached a picture of what the motherboard looks like and the lack of a internal power brick.

 

[Tsaukpaetra]

Well, first of all it appears you only have 2 SATA ports, so 4 drives is probably an instant no-go since it appears you only have a mini pci-e slot for expansion so you wouldn't find a suitable HBA adapter to add more ports.
Your case itself seems to support alternative motherboards, but I can't tell if there's an actual PSU mount area, and I also cannot determine if you even have four mounting slots for drives. Based on the "HP" logo though, I don't expect there to be.
I also anticipate it's going to have very little RAM (looks like 2 GB max), which is not sufficient for FreeNAS.

In summary, repurposing this computer is probably not going to work. Unfortunately you're going to need a new motherboard, which means new CPU and RAM and power supply. The case itself might be usable but that might be a wash too.

If you're set on using that and not needing to replace basically everything out of that system, you're going to want a lighter NAS software at the very minimum regardless. Not sure recommending competitors is allowed here, so that's all I'll say about that.

 

[jgreco]

If you're set on using that and not needing to replace basically everything out of that system, you're going to want a lighter NAS software at the very minimum regardless. Not sure recommending competitors is allowed here, so that's all I'll say about that.

It is fine to make reasonable mention of "competitors" where that is the most sensible course of action. We all know FreeNAS isn't the perfect fit for every situation, and the goal is to help forum participants solve their problems.

The power supply is probably insufficient; a typical hard drive takes a fair amount of power to spin up, and trying to do several simultaneously can cook a little power supply.

We do have a resource here somewhere, "Proper Power Supply Sizing" which discusses all the factors.

 

[chopsui101]

Well, first of all it appears you only have 2 SATA ports, so 4 drives is probably an instant no-go since it appears you only have a mini pci-e slot for expansion so you wouldn't find a suitable HBA adapter to add more ports.
Your case itself seems to support alternative motherboards, but I can't tell if there's an actual PSU mount area, and I also cannot determine if you even have four mounting slots for drives. Based on the "HP" logo though, I don't expect there to be.
I also anticipate it's going to have very little RAM (looks like 2 GB max), which is not sufficient for FreeNAS.

In summary, repurposing this computer is probably not going to work. Unfortunately you're going to need a new motherboard, which means new CPU and RAM and power supply. The case itself might be usable but that might be a wash too.

If you're set on using that and not needing to replace basically everything out of that system, you're going to want a lighter NAS software at the very minimum regardless. Not sure recommending competitors is allowed here, so that's all I'll say about that.

Thanks, im not set on this. I'll do my research more indepth. What would be your reccomendations for the basic ram for freenas?

 

[Tsaukpaetra]

What would be your reccomendations for the basic ram for freenas?

8gb bare minimum, preferred ECC (this does mean you need to match motherboard and CPU to support it!), and as much RAM as possible. If you're in the fence choosing more RAM over faster RAM, go with more RAM and fill your motherboard's slots to capacity (the actual likelihood you'll be able to successfully upgrade to fill missing slots later is rather slim in my experience, so just go for broke on your build).

If you want to do anything extra with your system (plugins, VMs, etc) then pretend the first 8gb doesn't exist and add up from there. In the case of FreeNAS, it really can't be stressed enough how important RAM is, actually.

Personal anecdote from years ago, when the installer let you continue with less than 8gb of RAM: it's horrible and quite slow. If you're used to low power systems (i. E. Early raspberry Pi) it might not be noticeable, but for me it was very obvious when I finally caved and specced out my system properly and stopped trying to hobble on 2 gigs.

 

[jgreco]

The 8GB thing isn't a recommendation, it's really the floor. Years ago we had lots of people running with ... well I'll just say "less" ... and it was a real problem. If you can't manage 8GB, be warned that FreeNAS really isn't for you, sorry. :-/

 

[Tsaukpaetra]

The 8GB thing isn't a recommendation, it's really the floor. Years ago we had lots of people running with ... well I'll just say "less" ... and it was a real problem. If you can't manage 8GB, be warned that FreeNAS really isn't for you, sorry. :-/

I was one of them!

Needless to say, I'm glad I left that camp years ago. Never went back.

 

[jgreco]

I was one of them!

Needless to say, I'm glad I left that camp years ago. Never went back.

I'm glad this isn't the massive problem it once was. AMD APU systems were incredibly popular at the time, and we had so many people who came and wanted to use their 4GB systems with ZFS. No one liked to hear that they needed to stick with UFS. And of course some people would do ZFS anyways, and often it worked. The most frustrating thing about that era was that we never did nail down the exact issue that was causing corruption, but so many things have changed, it's likely not an actual catastrophic problem anymore. Still, FreeNAS has been sized for larger RAM systems and between the RAM demands of ZFS and the middleware, it is pretty awful if you don't give it the memory it needs.