Is 8Gb RAM good enough?

[FintaruS]

I have been, for a long time running a homemade NAS server with Debian, ZFS, plex, Owncloud, and more, long story short, now I want to jump over and run a FreeNAS. I have 8 data disks and an SSD on which, I install the os, so 9 disks.

I can see that there that recommended 8Gb RAM and 8 disks plus 1Gb per extra disk. are this 8 disk just the data/ZFS disks or should I install on a USB stick?

I have 8GB DDR3 RAM, but can't install anymore, the mainboard doesn't support any more RAM.

I have an old DDR2 system, that can rum mere memory, or is DDR2 a bad idea, over DDR3?


DDR2 system is on an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550

DDR3 System is on an Intel Pentium G630

 

[Yorick]

The "1GB per TB" suggestion is outdated.

With 8GiB of RAM, you'll have enough to run your system and the jails - plex, owncloud, and a small Debian VM. Just. Barely. You won't have RAM left in any meaningful capacity for read cache, and that'll slow you down. The read cache is important for metadata: The data that tells you where on disk your files are.

I'd run the older system with 16GiB of memory, or even 32GiB if possible, if this was my system.

The other item to think about is your NIC. If the Q9550 board comes with a Realtek chip, I recommend paying USD 20 and getting an add-in Intel card, i210 works well for example. You'll sidestep a whole host of issues with the FreeBSD Realtek driver.

 

[FintaruS]

what I would like to run on my future Freenas is, Plex, NextCloud, and .... but I can understand that it is a good idea to save a little together for an upgrade. ;)

Hardware I have right now:

case: Antec 1200
--------------------
Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3
--------------------
DDR2 up to 16Gb (Have 8Gb)
LAN: Realtek 8111C
PCI
1 x PCI Express x16
1 x PCI Express x4
1 x PCI Express x1
4 x PCI

6 x SATA 3Gb/s
CPU: Intel Core 2 quad q9550
Socket Type: LGA775
chipset: intel p43
onboard Graphics: None

====================================

Mainboard: Acer H61H2-AD
-------------
DDR3 up to 8Gb (Have 8Gb)
LAN: Intel 82579V Gigabit ()
PCI
1 x PCI Express x1
1 x PCI Express x16

2 x SATA 3Gb/s
CPU: Intel Pentium G630
Socket Type: LGA 1155
Chipset: Intel H61
onboard Graphics: Intel HD (HDMI)

########### storage Controller ##############

RAID bus controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6440
RAID bus controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3124
2xICY DOCK MB154SP-B 4 x 3.5" 'FatCage'
#########################


Thank you so much. Thanks for the info. I think I got what I needed

 

[Herr_Merlin]

The older one with more RAM plus an HBA for the drives