Kind of weird storage question

[brngates]

So as my personal workstation is quickly increasing in storage size so are its backups and the HDD cages are beginning to fill, so here is where i begin.
im thinking about building a cheap server for around $300 to run FreeNAS.

The use? well a daily 1.5TB+ Windows Server Backup which backs up the whole corporate network we were using external drives untill well it ran out of space(455KB left ) So i have the option to add larger capacity HDD's to my workstation and just use windows server to setup a network file share and use it for backups or i could deploy a FreeNAS system to backup the whole network more efficiently, as i do plan for the storage used on my computer to quickly fill the 3TB of storage i already have in my workstation i need some suggestions also some ways to cut costs so that i can have the most storage available(i was thinking a Pentium CPU with 8GB of DDR3 memory as i already own a extra 8GB DDR3 module from a old computer...) 

Suggestions?

[babadoctor]

So as my personal workstation is quickly increasing in storage size so are its backups and the HDD cages are beginning to fill, so here is where i begin.

im thinking about building a cheap server for around $300 to run FreeNAS.

The use? well a daily 1.5TB+ Windows Server Backup which backs up the whole corporate network we were using external drives untill well it ran out of space(455KB left ) So i have the option to add larger capacity HDD's to my workstation and just use windows server to setup a network file share and use it for backups or i could deploy a FreeNAS system to backup the whole network more efficiently, as i do plan for the storage used on my computer to quickly fill the 3TB of storage i already have in my workstation i need some suggestions also some ways to cut costs so that i can have the most storage available(i was thinking a Pentium CPU with 8GB of DDR3 memory as i already own a extra 8GB DDR3 module from a old computer...) 

Suggestions?

FreeeNAS would be better

[braneopbru]

To put it in the simplest way possible, you will not be able to built anything reliable for that sort of budget to run FreeNAS.

 

If you are serious about building a network attached storage server that runs FreeNAS, plan to spend about $500-$600 on hardware BEFORE the cost of the drives that you wish to use. Because of the way ZFS works, ECC memory is an absolute requirement. This is not a debatable point. To be able to use the ECC RAM, you will need both a motherboard and a CPU that support ECC and depending on how many drives you want to use and which motherboard you buy, you may also need a SATA HBA.

 

Failure to use ECC with ZFS/FreeNAS will eventually result in the silent corruption of all your data. If you place any value at all in your data will will NOT build a FreeNAS server out of old parts you have laying around.

 

If the though of spending over $1000 between hardware and drives is unpalatable to you, you might want to consider buy a NAS enclosure fron QNAP, Synology or Western Digital and adding your own drives. That will come close to or just under your $300 budget, before factoring in the price of drives. 

[braneopbru]

He could buy an old LGA 771 server on ebay and pick of some really cheap ECC DDR2 for around $150. Then spend the rest on hard drives. Anyway that way you would have done to get good server hardware and ECC RAM all for a pretty good price. Any why would he NEED SATA HBA. I have run FREENAS running off the onboard SATA ports with no problem.

Sure, if OP wants to go the route of buying used hardware, that's an option. However since NAS servers will usually run 24/7, the power efficiency of newer hardware will pay for itself in the long term. 

 

I said that OP may need a SATA HBA, depending on how many drives he wants and which motherboard he buys. If he wants to use 10 drives and only has 6 on the board he buys, he would need and HBA to get the extra four ports required.