Need memory and HD suggestion for Shuttle DS437

JohnnyBeGood

Hi all,

My Shuttle DS437 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856101152
is almost here and being a barebone I need memory & HD for it.
I've read thru the forums but could not get the feel what should I go for:
1. 4GB or 8GB
2. Regular laptop SATA HD or SSD

For now I'm not planning to run any HD hungry processes but since I got the new system later I would like to try some of the packages.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

8ayM

Depending on what you are doing 4gb should be plenty, if you have it laying around throw it in, also in regards to SSD or HDD SSD's require some tuning and a lot of the reporting and loging disabled or pointed to other systems to now wear out the SSD, so for that alone i'm partial to the HDD. I'd look at adding some Intel interfaces to that box as they are more reliable and efficient then realtek.

But depending on what it is you are using this in the additional ram won't hurt if your running squid web caching or reverse proxy, or something else that can really utilize the ram for a quicker experience. I've run pfsense systems with squid, clam, and rdGraphs on 2GB ram flawlessly before and I have a large number of devices running in my home as well as customer machines constantly connecting out for updates and other services while doing repairs on them.

tester_02

Just get an SSD that is somewhat of a brand name. That way you will know it has a good controller and wear leveling.
Also don't aim for the cheap small ones as they have less lifespan.
Tuning not required if you get something with good garbage collection. Trim support when freebsd 10 comes will help out all ssd's, especially if they dont have good garbage collection.

8ayM

What would you say is an entry size SSD for running pfsense with it's default logging and what not?

JohnnyBeGood

I already went ahead and got 8GB of Kingston memory because it was only website that listed this as compatible.
Still looking for a good brand nice size SSD. Would you guys recommend anything from SlickDeals http://goo.gl/qSk20Q

8ayM

If your looking at running squid or any of the nice graphing packages I'd think you'd want something around 100gb or larger for even a small cache just to allow for wear leveling, but then again the other guy didn't seem so concerned by it.

But then again with 8gb of ram you could do a lot of your squid or av type stuff solely in ram saving you from excessive disk use.

JohnnyBeGood

Ok, that gives me enough info I just need to look for a good deal for a Samsung 120GB+ SSD.

8ayM

I was hoping tester_02 would respond as I'm purely speculating. But based on core pfsense installations I would assume a 120+GB ssd would be sufficient if you aren't using anything write intensive. So take that with a grain of salt but I believe that is over 20x install size to allow plenty of room.