Enlightenment
Administrator
 108 posts | I will try to list some possible hardware choices for people wishing to build their own NAS fileserver with FreeBSD running on it. Most of you have a hard time finding out if hardware is supported or not.
Energy Efficient AMD dualcore system
AMD Athlon BE-2350 (45W TDP, low idle usage, socket AM2, dualcore 2.1GHz) = 75 euro
Abit AN52V -nForce520 - gigabit - PCIe - passive = 55 euro
1GB DDR2 memory = 15 euro
Casing and power supply = 40 euro
Basic NAS: 185 euro
Recommended harddrive
Western Digital Caviar GP "Green Power" 1TB drives = 210 euro
These only consume 4W in idle, instead of 8-9W of competitors.
So to sum it up:
NAS only = 185 euro
NAS + 1TB disk = 395 euro
NAS + 2x 1TB disks = 605 euro
NAS + 3x 1TB disks = 815 euro
NAS + 4x 1TB disks = 1025 euro
With 2x 1TB you can create a 2TB RAID0 striping array for high speed or a 1TB RAID1 mirroring array for data protection. With the 3x and 4x configurations you can also run RAID5. With 4 disks that means you can store 3TB while still keeping all data intact when one drive completely fails. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. |
SirBlade
Member
 4 posts | Why don't you use an ITX-mainboard? They come with a cpu and have extremely low powerconsumption, some version don't even need a cpu-fan. They arn't the cheapest boards but they cost less to run so in the long run that won't matter much. Some version even got a onboard CF-slot which use can use to put in a CF-card from which you can boot the system. Depending on which kind and how many drives you wish to use you might want to buy a seperate PCI IO-card.
Check out www.mini-itx.com for more details or ideas. Just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it can't be hard on your clients. |
Enlightenment
Administrator
108 posts | AMD Geode LX-600 was something i considered, since it uses only 0.9W max (even less when idling). But then you end up with a Socket 462 processor with limited firepower.
For software RAID5, journaling and especially encryption these chips are not powerful enough. But a BE-2350 doesn't use much energy when idling (about 6W i guess), but you do get dualcore performance.
If you only run RAID0, RAID1 or single disk configuration NAS with little bells and whistles, a low-voltage CPU might be a very economic option. But.. next question is if this exotic ITX hardware is supported by FreeBSD... Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. |
