micklen I don't know if this is to late but I'm using an athlon 5000 at 2.6ghz and i'm not overly happy with performance. Currently I'm only doing media on 4 mds and it's not as great as I'd like. You'll have one whole core and .3 ghz more than me but i was thinking of something in the quad core department for my next core build. Well... as long as I'm not forced to build out a new core before my wife and I start shopping for our next house (1-2 years) i will be shooting for a dual quad core setup in the 3.0ghz department. I plan on doing the x10 through out, cameras, alarm, and a md in every room so I want something beefy. My core now is okay for a general end user, someone with a small amount of mds not looking to get to fancy. I don't know if this is normal but adding a md is like a major system change that usually requires me to restart the core and A quick reload isn't always quick. Boot time for the mds and core is also pretty long, about 5 mins for the core. You sound like a geek like me, you may want something beefier like me.
Also if I were you i wouldn't put my core and nas on the same server, lmce, windows, or whatever that is never a good idea. The core is a server and you usually don't want your server doing a hundred different things when it doesn't have to. When I first setup my core I had a weak moment and the thought crossed my mind. That was before i did my first file transfer while watching a movie. The video was playing from the hd in the core then i started copying a different movie to the core to watch next. The one i was watching started skipping the second i started the transfer and this was at lan speeds on a full gig network. I've used freenas and it's not my number one choice but it's better than dumping files directly on the core. You have a full rack, get a 4 or 5 U case and start your nas with that. Eventually you'll run out of space but with a dedicated 4U nas you can add more drives and raid controllers as needed. This would apply to your backups also, I would look for a solution that would backup lmce remotely. I like to think bigger. Why backup just lmce when you can backup everything on your network, do you really want your core backing up every computer on your network? I don't think so .
Don’t virtualize anything!! I’m all for virtualization, I have a dedicated vmware server on my network but I wouldn’t use it here. Your Nas is going to use a decent amount of cpu time, it will create a lot of IO and network traffic. I have not gotten around to checking yet but I’d be shocked if the core didn’t use a decent amount of ram and I’m sure it’s generating a fair share of IO and network traffic. Your 3 cores won’t be enough to power the core, nas and what ever else you have on there… well not to my standards anyway, if you’re cool with it run with it. I hate waiting on computers; I feel that we’re too far along for that. Now I don’t know you, if you have the resources to drop $5k-$10K on a server that can handle virtualizing a nas device do it, we all need to do our part in protecting the environment. I personally don’t care much about the electric bill (my network is more important) and I help the environment in other ways so I have dedicated servers. On that note I have 6 physical servers running 24/7 plus at any given time there is usually a light on some where in my house (my wife and I suck at conserving power) and the electric bill is only around $150-175 per month. I don’t think that’s a bad price at all especially since all power saving and efficiency settings on the servers are turned off.
That’s my 2 cents; I wish some one told me what I just told you before I bought my core. It was between the one I have and a quad core but I read the wiki which said a p4 or something and I figured the AMD 5000 would be enough. I really think the requirements in the wiki needs to be adjusted. I don't understand how you can run this thing on a p3!!
