Will this old PC FreeNAS?

[couzin2000]

OK. So I wanna build an offiste PC with FreeNAS. Thing is, I have this old PC at home collecting dust, and I'd like to use it. I'd like to know if anyone can tell me if this config will work.

Here's my setup (ideally):

Acer Aspire X1200
AMD Athlon64x2 (AM2 socket)
3Gb DDR2-800 RAM (would be upgraded to 4GB, which is the max)
Nvidia GeForce 8200 chipset
1x PCI express x16 port and 1x PCI express x1 expansion ports
SATA 6Gb/s 320Gb HD
USB 2.0 ports only (would require a card for upgrade, would not be used in my config)
eSATA port at the back
On-board Gigabit LAN
PCI Express RAID card (not installed yet)
RAID NAS hd box connected via eSATA port (not installed yet) with 4 drives (2 RAID0 volumes)

Question 1: Can this box be placed offsite, run 24/7 and run my backup jobs? Would it be powerful enough to only do that? (I have about 8TB to backup on a regular basis, say once a week)

Question 2: Without doing any on-the-fly conversion, could this box handle becoming a Plex server, with 2 or 3 simultaneous connections? (I'm guessing no, but I'd like to know your opinion)

 

[garm]

you're trolling, right?

 

[m0nkey_]

OK. So I wanna build an offiste PC with FreeNAS. Thing is, I have this old PC at home collecting dust, and I'd like to use it. I'd like to know if anyone can tell me if this config will work.

Here's my setup (ideally):

Acer Aspire X1200
AMD Athlon64x2 (AM2 socket)
3Gb DDR2-800 RAM (would be upgraded to 4GB, which is the max)
Nvidia GeForce 8200 chipset
1x PCI express x16 port and 1x PCI express x1 expansion ports
SATA 6Gb/s 320Gb HD
USB 2.0 ports only (would require a card for upgrade, would not be used in my config)
eSATA port at the back
On-board Gigabit LAN
PCI Express RAID card (not installed yet)
RAID NAS hd box connected via eSATA port (not installed yet) with 4 drives (2 RAID0 volumes)

Question 1: Can this box be placed offsite, run 24/7 and run my backup jobs? Would it be powerful enough to only do that? (I have about 8TB to backup on a regular basis, say once a week)

Question 2: Without doing any on-the-fly conversion, could this box handle becoming a Plex server, with 2 or 3 simultaneous connections? (I'm guessing no, but I'd like to know your opinion)

It'll work, but you won't be satisfied by the performance. The system doesn't meet the minimum recommended RAM requirements which is 8GB. The on-board NIC is most likely a Realtek which has known performance issues running under FreeNAS. As for the RAID card, best place for that when using it with FreeNAS, is not to and throw it in the trash.

I strongly suggest you take a look at the hardware recommendations guide, located under the resources section of this forum.

 

[garm]

RAID NAS hd box connected via eSATA port (not installed yet) with 4 drives (2 RAID0 volumes)

No!

 

[garm]

Strictly speaking, for an offsite backup target you don’t need FreeNAS. Just run vanilla FreeBSD or Linux with a plain zfs pool and trim the system to what ever readources you have. Just make sure you give ZFS direct disk access (no RAID, no USB) and set up ZeroTier or some equivalent solution to not expose the traffic over internet unencrypted.